Privacy, and who we are.

Closer Look holds the worst things you think about yourself, so this is written to be read rather than accepted.

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 the operating system does not copy it 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, and when you decide

Nothing is sent until you choose, on your first submit, on a screen of its own. The gate is that choice, not a setting we shipped in a particular position. The screen tells you what happens either way and both buttons are the same size.

If you choose to write it with AI, each look sends the paragraph you wrote. If you then 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. Nothing else goes: no name, no email, no contacts, no location, no advertising identifier, no device fingerprint.

For rate limiting there is a random token generated on your device. It is not derived from anything about you or your hardware, it is hashed before it can reach any log line, and deleting the app ends it.

If you choose to keep it on this phone, nothing you write leaves the device at all, and the app works completely without a network.

Who processes it

• The model. One model, pinned to a single version, served by Infomaniak in Switzerland. It reads your paragraph once, writes the reply, and retains nothing. There is no silent fallback to another provider. The no-training commitment is a contractual term with that provider; it is not something we can demonstrate from our own code, so we describe it as a contract rather than as something we verified.
• Our own service. A small service holding 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.
• Nobody else. No advertising networks, no data brokers, no analytics vendors, no session recording, no testing service.

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 takes a status code, a duration and a hashed token, and has no parameter that could hold what you wrote.

That refusal has a cost we chose: it makes escalation impossible. We could not tell anyone about anything you wrote, because we do not have it.

Analytics

There are none. No events, no counts, no opt-in telemetry, no anonymous usage signal, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, and no third-party code in the app. Two permissions are requested: internet, and the microphone if you use dictation. Dictation runs on the phone and neither the audio nor the transcript is transmitted.

What the app notices across weeks

Patterns is worked out on the device, from text already stored there. Nothing is sent to find a repeat, and it works identically 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 get people to call instead, ordered for your region and callable with no connection. That writing is not sent anywhere.

It errs towards stopping, so it will sometimes stop an evening that did not need it, and it will sometimes miss one that did. It is a word list, not a clinician, and it has not been reviewed by one. It is not a safety net and cannot be one. You are never locked out and your words are never taken away.

Your rights

The GDPR gives you access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability. In the app you already hold all of it: Export everything is portability and Delete everything is erasure, both immediate, neither needing us. A request to us about your writing could not be answered, because we do not have it and cannot identify you.

The beta list is the one thing we do hold. Unsubscribe from any email to delete your address, or write to the address below.

The beta list

Your email address, held until the beta ends or you unsubscribe, whichever comes first, then deleted. Used for one email when there is a build to try and one more if the beta changes shape, and for nothing else. Never passed to anyone.

This website

No cookies, no analytics, no tracking pixels, no advertising, no third-party code. That is why it has not asked you about cookies. The only thing you can hand over is an email address, deliberately, in the form.

The two typefaces are served from this site rather than from a font service, so opening this page makes no request to anyone but us.

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, because this product has no business holding one.

Who we are

ScoutVista LLC, a UK company, 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, for a complaint, and to tell us the app got something wrong. That last one matters: with no analytics, it is the only channel that exists.

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 your national data protection authority.

If this changes

A change to what leaves your phone is shown in the app before it applies, not buried in a revised document. Anything smaller is dated at the top of this page.