Privacy
Privacy, and who we are.
Closer Look is built so that we never hold what you write. This page says what the app stores, what leaves your phone, who touches it, and what you can do about it.
What the app stores, and where
- Everything you write, and everything the app writes back, is stored only on your device, encrypted, with the key held on that device.
- The store is kept out of iCloud backup and Android auto-backup, so it is never copied to a cloud.
- We hold no copy. There is no account, so there is nothing for us to hold.
- Uninstalling deletes it. Export first if you want to keep it.
What leaves the phone
Nothing is sent until you choose, on your first submit, on a screen of its own. That choice is the gate, and the screen tells you what happens either way.
If you choose to write it with AI, each look sends the paragraph you wrote, and the language your phone is set to, so the check that stops the app runs in the language you write in. If you later edit the sentence the app struck through, that one sentence is sent when the look closes, so a later look can recognise it coming back. Like any internet request, it arrives with your IP address, which is used to return the reply and is not stored by us. Nothing else goes: no name, no email, no contacts, no location, no advertising identifier, no device fingerprint.
For rate limiting the app generates a random token on your device. It is not derived from anything about you or your hardware, it is hashed before it reaches any log, and deleting the app ends it.
If you choose to keep it on this phone, nothing leaves the device and the app works without a network.
Who processes it
- The model. One model, pinned to a single version, served by Infomaniak in Switzerland, a country the EU and the UK treat as giving adequate protection to personal data. It reads your paragraph once and writes the reply. That it keeps no copy afterwards, and does not train on it, are contractual terms with that provider; neither is something we can demonstrate from our own code. There is no silent fallback to another provider.
- Our own service. A small service that holds the model key so the app never has to. It adds no identifiers, keeps nothing at rest, and forgets the reply once it returns it.
- Google Cloud runs our service, under Google’s data processing terms, which include the standard contractual clauses. It sees the request pass through, as any host does, and nothing is stored there.
- Cloudflare serves this website and holds the beta list. See below.
- Nobody else. No advertising networks, data brokers, analytics vendors, session recording or testing services.
Legal basis
Under the UK GDPR and the GDPR, both things we process rest on your consent: the paragraph you choose to send with AI, which you give at the gate and withdraw by switching to keeping everything on the phone; and the email address you give us on this website, which you withdraw by unsubscribing. The network data any internet request carries, such as your IP address, is processed only as far as needed to deliver what you asked for.
What is never logged
What you write and what the model replies are never written to a log, by the app or by us: not temporarily, not at debug level, not in a crash report. The one logging function on our service records a status code, a duration and a hashed token, and has no field that could hold what you wrote. Those logs are kept for 30 days, then deleted. This also means we cannot pass anything you write to anyone, because we do not have it.
Analytics
None. No events, no counts, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, and no third-party analytics or advertising code in the app. The app asks for two permissions: internet, and the microphone if you use dictation. The app does not send the audio or the transcript anywhere. Dictation itself is provided by your phone’s operating system, which may process speech on Apple’s or Google’s servers depending on your device and settings.
Patterns
What the app notices across weeks is worked out on the device, from text already stored there. Nothing is sent to find a repeat, and it works the same if you keep everything on the phone.
The check before anything is sent
Before anything else, the phone reads what you wrote, offline. If it reads heavier than everyday self-criticism, the questions stop and you are shown people to call instead, callable with no connection. The lines are grouped for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the UK and Ireland, and the US and Canada; anywhere else sees those same groups, plus a line for finding a helpline near you. That writing is not sent anywhere.
The check is a word list, not a clinician, and has not been reviewed by one. It errs towards stopping, so it will sometimes stop an evening that did not need it and miss one that did. It is not a safety net. You are never locked out and your words are never taken away.
Your rights
Under the UK GDPR and the GDPR you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability. In the app you already hold all of them: Export everything is portability and Delete everything is erasure, both immediate, neither needing us. A request to us about your writing cannot be answered, because we do not have it and cannot identify you. The beta list is different: write to the address below and we will confirm, correct or delete what we hold.
The beta list
The one thing we hold is the email address you give us on this website. It is kept on Cloudflare, which also serves the site, with nothing else stored alongside it. Cloudflare is a US company; the list is held under its data processing addendum, which includes the standard contractual clauses for transfers outside the UK and the EU. It is used for one email once you are accepted into the private beta and one more if the beta changes shape, and for nothing else. It is never passed to anyone, and it is deleted when the beta ends or when you unsubscribe, whichever comes first.
This website
No cookies, no analytics, no tracking, no advertising, and no request to any server but our own; the typefaces are served from this site. Cloudflare serves it and, like any host, sees your IP address while it does. The only thing you can hand over is an email address, deliberately, in the form.
Adults
Closer Look is for adults, eighteen and over. That is a stated boundary and a store rating, not verification: we do not ask your date of birth.
Who we are
ScoutVista LLC, a UK company registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, is the publisher and the data controller.
71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom.
Contact. hello@closerlook.app, read by a person. Use it for privacy questions, complaints, and to tell us the app got something wrong.
Security. security@closerlook.app. The threat model and the disclosure route are published with the code.
If we do not resolve a complaint, you can take it to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, at ico.org.uk, or to the data protection authority in your own country.
If this changes
A change to what leaves your phone is shown in the app before it applies. Anything smaller is dated at the top of this page.