Privacy policy
Draft of 19 October 2026. Not yet in force.
Thalk is an iPhone app that helps you think something through: an AI asks short questions out loud and you answer with one thumb, or in your own words. To do that it has to keep some information about you. This page says what, why, where, for how long, and how to get rid of it.
Who is responsible
Thalk is made and run by [Thalk, operator name and legal form to be confirmed], based in the United Kingdom. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact: hello@thalk.me.
What we store
| Data | What it is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | An ID from Sign in with Apple or Google, the email address they share with us (Apple may give a private relay address), and the date you joined. | To sign you in and to tell your data apart from everyone else's. |
| Profile | Your settings: talk style, chosen voice, wheel or swipe mode, speak or type for own answers, and which kinds of topics you pick most. | To ask questions in the way you chose. |
| Memory facts | Up to 50 short facts the AI has noted from your conversations, such as "is deciding whether to move flat". When the list is full the oldest and least used are merged or dropped. | So later conversations can build on earlier ones. |
| Own answers and "how you speak" | The last 200 answers you gave in your own words, spoken or typed, and a note of at most 400 characters describing how you tend to phrase things. | So the four answers offered each round sound like you. |
| Conversations | Each topic, question, the four options, what you picked, and the final summary and next step. Spoken audio of questions is kept only as long as needed to play it. | So you can read past conversations in History and export them. |
| Topics | Topics you create, which ones you pin, and counts of starts, finishes, skips and hides. Daily suggested topics, which expire the next day. | To put the right four topics on your wheel. |
| Usage and cost | Per round: which AI model answered, how many tokens and characters it used, how long it took, and what it cost us. Monthly totals per account. | To apply the free limit, to keep the service affordable, and to spot abuse. |
| Technical logs | Server logs with request times, error messages and a truncated IP address, kept for 30 days. | To keep the service running and secure. |
Your voice: when you speak an own answer, the words are turned into text on your phone by Apple's speech recognition. Thalk only receives the text. We do not keep audio recordings of you.
What we don't collect: no precise location (the app uses only your time zone and, if you allow it, your city), no contacts, no photos, no advertising identifiers, no tracking across other apps or websites.
Legal basis
- Contract: account, profile, conversations, own answers, memory and usage are needed to provide the service you signed up for.
- Legitimate interests: technical logs and abuse checks, to keep Thalk running and safe. You can object by emailing us.
- Consent: microphone access and the "answer in my words" feature. Both can be turned off in Settings at any time.
Conversations may touch on health, beliefs or other sensitive subjects because you choose to raise them. We process them only to run the conversation and keep your history, on the basis that you have made them manifestly public to us by sharing them, and you can delete them at any time.
Who else sees your data
We do not sell your data and we do not show adverts. To run each round we send the current conversation, your profile, your memory facts, your "how you speak" note and a few of your own answers to AI providers. They process it to generate the next question and the audio, and under their business terms do not use it to train their models.
| Provider | Used for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Generating questions, answer options, summaries and memory notes | United States |
| Google (Gemini) | The same, raced in parallel so the wait is short | United States |
| OpenAI | Backup when the other two are slow or fail | United States |
| ElevenLabs | Turning questions and options into spoken audio | United States |
| Apple, Google | Sign-in only; they do not see your conversations | Varies |
| Hetzner | Hosting our server and database | Germany (EU) |
| Cloudflare | DNS and network protection for thalk.me | Global |
Transfers outside the UK rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the UK's adequacy decisions, and on each provider's contractual commitments. Payments, when they arrive, are handled by Apple through the App Store; we never see your card details.
How long we keep it
- Account, profile, memory, own answers and conversations: until you delete them or your account.
- Daily topic suggestions: until the next day.
- Spoken audio files: a few hours, then deleted.
- Technical logs: 30 days.
- Usage and cost records: 24 months, then aggregated with no link to you.
- Accounts with no activity for 24 months are deleted after an email warning, when we have an address to send it to.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can:
- See everything we hold: Settings, What I remember, and History show it all.
- Export everything as text: Settings, then Export my data. A share sheet opens with a file of your profile, memory, own answers and every conversation.
- Delete single facts, own answers, the "how you speak" note or whole conversations from the app, or delete your account and everything in it: Settings, then Delete account. Deletion is immediate on our server and removed from backups within 30 days.
- Correct anything: edit it in the app or email us.
- Object or restrict processing, or withdraw consent, by email.
- Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) if you are unhappy with how we handle your data. We'd rather you told us first.
We answer within one month. Write to hello@thalk.me.
Children
Thalk is not for children under 16, and we do not knowingly keep data about them. If you think a child has an account, email us and we will delete it.
Security
Data travels over HTTPS and is stored on an encrypted volume in the EU. Sign-in tokens live in the iPhone Keychain. Only the people who run Thalk can reach the database, with keys, and only when something needs fixing. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the ICO as the law requires.
Changes
When this policy changes we will update the date at the top and, for anything significant, tell you in the app before it takes effect.