Privacy Policy

This policy explains what vournal collects, how it is used, and who else processes it.

vournal ("we", "us") is operated by Mohammad El Naboulsi, based in Tripoli, Lebanon. Contact: hello@vournal.app.

Please read section 3 carefully — it explains that your voice recordings and journal text are sent to third-party providers in order to transcribe and organise them.

1. The short version

• You speak; we record, transcribe, and organise what you said.
• To do that, your audio and transcripts are sent to specialist providers (listed in section 3). They process it on our behalf.
• We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or read your journals except in the narrow cases described in section 6.
• You can delete any recording, any entry, or your entire account at any time.

2. What we collect

Account information

• Email address
• A password, stored only as a cryptographic hash — we never store or see your actual password
• Your time zone (so times you speak, like "2pm tomorrow", land on the right hour)

Content you create

• Audio recordings you make in the app
• The text transcript of those recordings
• Information automatically derived from your entries, including: a short summary, an estimated mood rating and mood-related words, tasks and their dates and times, recurring topics, and names of people you mention

Technical information

• Basic operational logs needed to run and secure the service (for example, request timestamps and error records)

We do not collect contacts, location, advertising identifiers, or your device's microphone input outside of recordings you explicitly start.

3. Third parties who process your data

To turn speech into organised text, we send your data to the following providers. They act as processors on our behalf and are contractually limited to providing their service to us.

This means your voice recordings and journal text leave your device. They are transmitted over encrypted connections and processed to produce your transcript and its structure.

We select providers that do not use customer data submitted through their APIs to train their models. Provider terms can change; the list above reflects our current providers and we will update it when it changes.

4. Sensitive content

A voice journal is unusually personal, and two categories deserve specific mention:

Mood and emotional information. The app estimates a mood rating and emotion words from what you say, and shows trends over time. This is generated to give you a reflection of your own entries. It is not a clinical assessment, not a diagnosis, and not a medical record.

Other people. Your entries may mention friends, family, or colleagues, and the app may store their names as part of your entry. Please be thoughtful about what you record about others.

5. Why we process your data (legal bases)

Where required by law (for example under the GDPR), we rely on:

• Performance of a contract — to provide the service you signed up for
• Legitimate interests — to keep the service secure, prevent abuse, and fix faults
• Consent — where you have given it, and which you may withdraw at any time
• Legal obligation — where we are required to retain or disclose information

6. Who can see your journals

Your entries are private to your account. We do not read them for advertising, profiling, or sale. Our staff do not routinely access journal content. Limited access may occur only where strictly necessary to:

• investigate a technical fault you have reported to us
• respond to a credible security incident
• comply with a valid legal obligation

7. Retention and deletion

• Delete a recording — removes the audio file while keeping the written entry.
• Delete an entry — removes the entry, its recording, and the tasks derived from it.
• Delete your account — removes your account and associated content.

Deletions are actioned promptly. Copies may persist briefly in encrypted backups before being overwritten in the ordinary course of operations. Transient copies held by processors are deleted according to their retention practices.

8. Security

• Data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS)
• Passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes, never in readable form
• Recordings are held in private storage and served only through short-lived, authenticated links
• Access to accounts requires an authentication token that expires and can be revoked

No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. International transfers

We operate globally and our providers may process data in countries other than yours, including the United States and the European Union. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for such transfers.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, export, or restrict processing of your data, to object to processing, and to lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority.

If you are a California resident: we do not sell or share your personal information as those terms are defined under California law.

Many of these rights can be exercised directly in the app. For anything else, contact hello@vournal.app and we will respond within the period required by applicable law.

11. Children

vournal is not intended for children under 16. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. If changes are material, we will notify you in the app or by email before they take effect. The date at the top shows the current version.

13. Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: hello@vournal.app