Privacy
Quern collects no data. Your recordings, transcripts and summaries are made on your iPhone and stay there. There is no account, no analytics and no server of ours.
Effective 23 September 2026.
In short: nothing you record is ever sent to us or to anyone else. We couldn't read your recordings if we wanted to: they never reach us.
What stays on your iPhone
Audio you record or import, transcripts, speaker names, summaries, chapters, titles, folders and tags are stored in Quern's own storage on your iPhone. Transcription uses Apple's on-device speech recognition. Speaker labels use a model that runs on the device. Summaries use Apple Intelligence's on-device model; Quern doesn't use Apple's cloud (Private Cloud Compute) for them.
What we collect
Nothing. Quern has no analytics, no advertising, no tracking and no account. We don't know who uses Quern or how.
When Quern uses the internet
Quern works offline once it's set up. It connects to the internet only to:
- Download speech recognition for your language, from Apple, the first time it's needed. iOS handles this download.
- Download the speaker-labelling model, once, from Hugging Face, which hosts it. The request contains nothing about you or your recordings, but like any download it reaches Hugging Face's servers, which see your IP address. Hugging Face's privacy policy.
- Start the free trial, unlock Quern, or restore a purchase, through the App Store. Apple handles payments; we never see your payment details. Apple's privacy policy.
Backups and sharing
Your recordings are part of your iPhone's own data, so they are included in your iCloud or computer backups if you have backups turned on. Those backups are Apple's service and your choice; Quern doesn't read or send them.
If you export or share a recording (Markdown, PDF, text or subtitles), it goes where you send it. From there, that app or service's own privacy terms apply.
Quern adds your recordings' titles and summaries to Spotlight, so you can search them on your iPhone. That index stays on your device. You can turn it off in Settings › Siri › Quern.
Crash reports
If you've chosen in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports. They contain technical details about the crash, never your recordings. You can turn this off at any time.
Deleting your data
Delete a recording in Quern and it's gone from your iPhone. Deleting Quern deletes everything it stored. Because we hold nothing, there is nothing for us to delete, and no data to request from us.
Recording other people
Recording laws vary from place to place, and some require everyone's agreement. Let people know you're recording.
Children
Quern isn't directed at children and collects no data from anyone.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published here with a new date. If Quern ever needed to collect anything, this page would say so first, and so would the app.
Contact
Quern is made by Martin McDermid, an independent developer in the United Kingdom. Questions about privacy: [email protected].