Privacy Policy
NoteFin is built to work without an account. This policy explains what stays on your phone, what leaves it only when you ask, and the choices you have at any time.
The short version: your financial records are stored locally on your device. We do not run a server that collects your ledger, we do not sell data, and we do not require you to create an account. Data leaves your device only for the optional features you switch on yourself — iCloud Drive or Google Drive backup, an external AI provider you explicitly consent to and connect with your own API key, or App Store / Google Play billing.
Contents
- Information the app handles
- Where your data is stored
- Optional features that send data off-device
- Third-party AI services, data sharing, and explicit consent
- Permissions and why they are needed
- Advertising and purchases
- Security and backups
- Retention and deletion
- Children
- Changes to this policy
- Contact us
1. Information the app handles
You enter this information yourself. It is used only to provide the features you asked for:
- Financial records: transactions, transfers, categories, budgets and event budgets, accounts and balances, fixed assets and valuations, liabilities (debts), receivables, recurring transactions and ledger settings.
- Profile details: the display name you type and the cat avatar you choose.
- Contacts you optionally attach to a debt or receivable, and the messaging-app shortcut you choose for them (for example WhatsApp, Telegram or SMS). The shortcut only opens your own messaging app with a prefilled message; you stay in control of sending it.
- Receipt photos you choose to scan, plus the text recognised from them, when you use the receipt scanner.
- App settings: currency, language, theme, reminder preferences and your AI configuration (provider, model, endpoint).
You can use the app entirely without giving us any of this. We do not ask for your name, address, phone number or email address to use NoteFin.
2. Where your data is stored
Your records are written to a local database inside the app’s private storage on your device. AI API keys and other sensitive values are kept in the device’s secure hardware-backed storage (Apple Keychain on iOS / Android Keystore on Android).
We do not operate a database of our users’ ledgers. There is no NoteFin account and no NoteFin cloud sync server storing your transactions.
3. Optional features that send data off-device
None of these are enabled by default. Each one is triggered explicitly by you.
| Feature | What is shared | With whom |
|---|---|---|
| iCloud Drive backup (iOS) | An encrypted SQLite database file of your app data, written to your private iCloud container. | Apple iCloud (Ubiquity / CloudDocuments). Handled through your private Apple ID. NoteFin has no server access to your iCloud account. |
| Sign in with Apple (iOS) | Your obfuscated Apple user identifier and relay email/name (if shared), stored securely in iOS Keychain to authenticate your cloud backup profile. | Apple Authentication Services. Not shared with any third party. |
| Google Drive backup | An encrypted backup file of your app data (and your Pro licence state), stored in the app’s private Drive app-data folder. | Google Drive. NoteFin requests the restricted drive.appdata scope, so it can only see
the folder it created — not the rest of your Drive. |
| Google Sign-In | Your Google account email address, used to attach the backup, verify a Pro purchase and restore it on another device. | Google Sign-In, and the NoteFin licence verification service. |
| AI assistant (bring your own key) | User-submitted transaction prompts, budget queries, and the minimum contextual financial metadata (e.g. category, account, amount) required to fulfill the request. Transmitted only after explicit in-app consent. | The specific provider you selected and configured (Google Gemini, OpenAI, DeepSeek, xAI Grok, Groq, or custom endpoint). See Section 3.1 below. |
| Receipt scanning | The receipt photo you selected, processed for text recognition. | Processed 100% on your device with on-device Apple Vision / ML Kit text recognition. The photo is never uploaded. If you subsequently choose to format the recognized text via AI, only the extracted text is sent to your chosen AI provider after explicit consent. |
| Report & file export / sharing | The file you chose to create (PDF, Excel, CSV or a backup file). | Only the destination you pick yourself, through the native iOS Share Sheet, Android share sheet, or file picker. |
3.1 Third-Party AI Services, Data Sharing, and Explicit User Consent
NoteFin integrates optional artificial intelligence features allowing users to parse natural-language financial inputs, analyze spending patterns, and generate budgeting advice. NoteFin adheres to strict privacy and data-protection protocols before any data leaves your device:
A. Mandatory Upfront In-App Consent
Before any personal prompt, financial query, or receipt text is transmitted to an external AI service, NoteFin presents a mandatory in-app disclosure modal. Data is transmitted only after you grant explicit permission (“Agree & Continue”). If you decline:
- No personal data or text prompts will be sent to any external AI service.
- All manual financial tracking, offline calculation, multi-currency wallets, debt management, and graphical report features continue to operate with 100% functionality without limitation.
- You may revoke your consent at any time directly in the app under Profile > AI Assistant Setup.
B. What Data is Collected, Pre-Compiled, and Transmitted (By Feature Module)
When you choose to enable AI and grant explicit consent, NoteFin transmits specific financial text payloads directly to your designated API endpoint. Below is an exhaustive breakdown of the data sent by each feature module, including real-world examples:
Designed for quick answers and daily spending queries directly from the home screen.
- Active Conversation History: The back-and-forth prompt turns within your active chat session.
- Current Cash Summary: Aggregated liquid balances and current-month turnover (e.g., “Total Balance: $4,250.00 · Month Income: $5,000.00 · Month Expenses: $2,150.00”).
- Account & Category Labels: Active wallet names (e.g., “Checking Account”, “Cash Wallet”, “Savings”) and active categories (e.g., “Groceries”, “Transport”, “Dining”) without account numbers, to enable context-aware categorization.
- Local Date & Time: Timestamp and timezone (e.g., “Wednesday, 28 October 2026, 08:00 AM”).
Important Note on Pre-Compiled Data: When you open the AI Financial Advisor in the Reports tab or submit a financial inquiry, NoteFin automatically compiles your ledger metrics from your local database and embeds them into the system prompt. This allows the AI to give precise mathematical evaluations based on your actual finances:
- Report Period: Active timeframe (e.g., “01 Oct 2026 – 31 Oct 2026 · Currency: USD”).
- Aggregate Metrics: Total income (e.g., $6,500.00), total expenses (e.g., $3,800.00), net savings ($2,700.00), total cashflow turnover ($10,300.00), and calculated savings rate (e.g., 41.5%).
- Estimated Net Worth Breakdown: Liquid cash balances ($12,400.00) + Total asset market valuations ($45,000.00) + Active receivables owed to you ($1,500.00) − Outstanding debts ($8,000.00) = Total Estimated Net Worth ($50,900.00).
- Category Spending Breakdown: Categorized expense sums with percentage shares (e.g., “Groceries: $1,200 (31.6%) · Housing: $1,500 (39.5%) · Transportation: $450 (11.8%)”).
- Budget Targets & Performance: Name of budgets, monetary limits, current consumption, percentage used, remaining days, and recommended daily burn rate (e.g., “Monthly Dining: Limit $600 | Used $650 (108.3% - Overbudget) | 3 days left | Rec Daily: $0”).
- Recent Transaction Samples: Oldest-to-newest ISO date rows with transaction type, formatted amount, category, and user note (e.g., “[2026-10-24 13:45] EXPENSE $45.00 | Category: Dining | Note: Team lunch at bistro”).
- System Advisor Persona: System prompts that instruct the model to behave as an objective certified financial advisor, applying localized accounting and cashflow management standards.
Zero Raw Image Upload Guarantee: Camera snapshots, photo library files, PDF invoices, or Excel sheets are NEVER uploaded or transmitted to any AI service in binary, image, or document form. All optical character recognition is performed 100% locally on your device’s processor/NPU using Google ML Kit / Apple Vision. Only the recognized plain text is forwarded to AI to construct structured transaction drafts:
- Extracted Plain Text: Merchant name, transaction timestamp, line item names, itemized amounts, tax, discounts, and total sum (e.g., “CITY MARKET · 27/10/2026 · Organic Milk $4.50, Bread $3.20 · Tax $0.62 · TOTAL $8.32 · Paid via DEBIT”).
- Target Account & Category Candidates: Your account names and category lists to help AI match the receipt with your existing ledger.
- Typed or Dictated Sentence: (e.g., “Bought gas for 45 dollars at Shell using credit card yesterday”). Voice input is transcribed entirely on-device via local speech engines; raw audio recordings are never uploaded.
- Matching Reference Catalog: Account names, expense categories, base currency, and reference calendar dates.
- Debts & Loans: Debtor or creditor contact name (as entered by you), principal amount, remaining balance, interest rate, due date, and installment history.
- Fixed Assets: Asset title (e.g., “2022 Honda Civic”, “Gold Bullion 10g”), purchase date, historical cost, and current estimated market valuation.
What is NEVER Collected or Sent: To ensure bank-grade privacy, NoteFin rigorously excludes: actual bank account numbers, debit/credit card numbers (16-digit PANs), CVV/CVC security codes, card expiration dates, bank login passwords, ATM/wallet PINs, raw audio voice files, camera photos or raw receipt images, device contact address books, precise GPS coordinates, or persistent hardware identifiers (IMEI/MAC).
C. Identification of Third-Party AI Providers (Official Domains)
NoteFin utilizes a Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) architecture where requests are sent directly from your device to the official enterprise API endpoints of the provider you choose. Individual policy subpages may change over time; please search and review each provider’s independent privacy policy on their official root domain:
- Google LLC (Google Gemini): Official domain · policies.google.com
- OpenAI, L.L.C. (OpenAI / ChatGPT): Official domain · openai.com
- DeepSeek Technologies Co., Ltd. (DeepSeek): Official domain · deepseek.com
- Anthropic, PBC (Claude): Official domain · anthropic.com
- xAI Corp. (Grok): Official domain · x.ai
- Groq, Inc. (Groq): Official domain · groq.com
- Custom Endpoint (Self-Hosted / Ollama): If you configure a self-hosted or alternative OpenAI-compatible URL, requests are dispatched exclusively to your designated endpoint.
D. Data Protection, Bring-Your-Own-Key & Third-Party Disclaimer
NoteFin is designed with zero intermediate proxy servers. All AI communications are transmitted directly from your device to the chosen endpoint over encrypted HTTPS channels:
- Hardware-Backed Key Storage: Your API keys are stored exclusively on your device using Apple Keychain (iOS) or Android Keystore and are never transmitted to NoteFin.
- Equal Protection Confirmation: We ensure and confirm that all supported commercial third-party AI providers (Google LLC, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Anthropic, xAI, and Groq) provide the same or equal protection of user personal and financial data as stated in this Privacy Policy. User inputs transmitted via these commercial enterprise APIs are processed strictly to fulfill user requests and are not retained or utilized to train general public artificial intelligence models without consent.
- Commercial Enterprise Terms: When using official commercial developer API keys, third-party providers operate under enterprise data protection commitments. However, because requests are dispatched directly to third-party endpoints under your own API credentials, data processing, retention, and model usage are governed by each provider's independent terms of service and privacy policies.
- Third-Party Disclaimer: NoteFin does not operate an intermediate server, and we strongly advise users to review the privacy policy of their selected AI provider.
4. Permissions and why they are needed
NoteFin requests these device permissions on iOS and Android. Each permission is requested at the moment you use the related feature, and you can refuse any of them — the rest of the app keeps working.
| Permission | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Internet | Optional Drive backup, licence verification, AI requests to the provider you configure, and ads in the free version. |
| Camera | Taking a photo of a receipt to scan. Used only while you are in the scanner. |
| Microphone / Speech (Optional) | Used strictly on-device if you choose to dictate transaction notes. NoteFin does not record, retain, or transmit your audio to external servers. |
| Read media images | Choosing an existing receipt photo or avatar image you pick from your gallery. |
| Read / write external storage | Only on older Android versions, to save and open your exported or backup files. |
| Post notifications | The optional daily reminder to log your spending. |
| Schedule exact alarm | Sending that reminder at the time you chose. If you decline, NoteFin falls back to an inexact reminder. |
| Receive boot completed | Re-registering your reminder after your phone restarts, so it is not silently lost. |
NoteFin does not request access to your location, your full contact list, your call logs, your SMS inbox, or biometric data.
5. Advertising and purchases
Ads. The free version of NoteFin shows advertising supplied by Google AdMob. AdMob may access an advertising identifier and technical information about your device to serve and measure ads, in line with Google’s own policies. Pro plans remove ads entirely.
Purchases. Subscription and lifetime purchases are processed by Google Play Billing. NoteFin never sees your payment card details. It receives only the purchase confirmation needed to unlock Pro features, and may send your Google account email to the licence verification service to keep Pro active when you change devices.
6. Security and backups
- Money amounts are stored as whole minor units, and the database stays inside the app’s private storage on your device.
- Backup files created by NoteFin are encrypted, and AI API keys are held in the device’s secure storage rather than in plain preferences.
- Communication with the services listed above uses HTTPS.
- No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure. Keep your device lock screen enabled, and keep your backup files somewhere you trust.
- You are responsible for the backup files you export, because you choose where they are stored.
7. Retention and deletion
Your records stay on your device until you delete them. You are always in control:
- Delete individual transactions, accounts, assets, debts or budgets inside the app.
- Delete a whole ledger or reset your data from the app settings.
- Uninstalling the app removes the local database from your device.
- If you enabled Drive backup, delete the backup from the app (or from Google Drive) to remove that copy.
- To have any data connected to a licence or support request removed, email us at official.kapiten@gmail.com and we will act on it.
8. Children’s Privacy (Age Rating: 4+)
NoteFin is a family-friendly personal finance utility rated 4+ on the App Store. Because all records are stored locally on your device by default, NoteFin does not collect personal information from any user, including children under 13. If you believe a child has provided information through a support channel, contact us and we will promptly delete it.
9. Changes to this policy
If a future version of the app changes how data is handled, this page will be updated and the effective date and version above will change. Continued use of the app after an update means you accept the revised policy.
10. Contact us
Questions about this policy, or a request to access or delete data:
You can also read our Terms & Conditions.