Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Stingwave is made by CKT Group LLC ("we", "us"). This policy covers the Stingwave apps for Android, iPhone, Mac and Windows, the Stingwave website, and the Meetings page at app.stingwaveapp.com.

2. What we collect, and why

Your account. Your email address and name, from Google, Apple or an emailed sign-in code. We use them to sign you in and to contact you about your account. We never see your password.

Your voice, when you dictate. When you start dictation, the audio is sent over an encrypted connection to our server and on to a speech-recognition service, which turns it into text. We don't store the recording. Stingwave only listens while you are dictating.

Text you ask us to clean up or rewrite. If you use CLEAN, or select text and ask Stingwave to rewrite it, that text is sent to an AI service to be tidied up and sent straight back. We don't keep it.

Your dictation history. Kept on your device. If you turn on history sync in Settings (it's off unless you choose it), your history is also saved to your account so your other devices can show it.

Your keywords, word corrections and languages. Saved to your account so they work on all your devices and help transcription spell your names and terms correctly.

Usage counts. How many words you've dictated this week, for the free plan's weekly limit. These counts expire on their own.

Payments. Purchases go through Apple, Google or our payment processor. We see your plan and its renewal date, never your card details.

Messages you send us. If you email support, we keep that conversation to help you.

3. Meetings and voice notes (where available)

Meetings is available to invited users. If you use it:

• Recordings are uploaded to our server only to be transcribed, and deleted as soon as that's done. If transcription fails, the recording is kept briefly so it can be retried. On a Mac, call audio is captured only while you are recording a meeting.
• Transcripts, notes, to-dos and photos you add are saved to your account so you can read them on any device. Only you can see them.
• Your voice sample is optional. If you record one, it is used only to recognise your voice in your own meetings, so your notes can say "You". You can delete it at any time in Settings, or at the bottom of the Meetings page.
• Recording other people. You are responsible for letting people know when you record a conversation, and for following the recording laws where you are.

4. AI assistants you connect

You can connect an AI assistant you already use, such as Claude or ChatGPT, to your meeting notes. Once you sign in and allow it, that assistant can read your meeting notes to answer your questions. If you also tick "Also make small changes" when connecting, it can tick off to-dos, add a to-do or a note, and set a meeting's company when you ask it to; it can never delete anything. What it does with them is covered by that assistant's own privacy policy. You can disconnect it at any time from Settings or the Meetings page, and it stops reading your notes immediately.

5. Android Accessibility Service (the Buzzer)

On Android, Stingwave uses Android's Accessibility Service to power the Buzzer, the dictation tab that works alongside your keyboard. It is optional: it only runs after you read our in-app notice, agree to it, and turn Stingwave on in Android's Accessibility settings. You can turn it off at any time in Settings → Accessibility → Stingwave.

With your permission, the Accessibility Service is used only to:

• notice when your keyboard opens and which text box you are in, so the Buzzer can appear;
• watch the volume-down button, so you can start dictating with it (never while music, a video or a call is playing, when the volume button works as normal);
• when you dictate with no keyboard open, find the text box on the current screen to type your words into;
• read the text in that box, only to place, clean and edit your dictation.

Stingwave never reads password fields, never records your keystrokes, and never collects, stores or sends the contents of your screen. Information obtained through the Accessibility Service is not sold, not shared, not used for advertising, and not used to train AI models.

The only things that leave your device are your voice recording, sent for transcription, and the text you choose to clean, sent to be tidied up. Nothing else from your screen is sent anywhere.

To help fix problems, the app keeps a short technical log on your device: timings, which app is open, and text lengths, never the text itself. It is never uploaded, is excluded from device backups, and is deleted when you clear the app's data or uninstall it.

6. Google sign-in

If you sign in with Google, we receive only your name, email address and profile picture, and use them only to create and identify your Stingwave account. Stingwave's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Google data is never sold, never used for advertising, and never used to train AI models. You can remove Stingwave's access at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

7. Services we use

To run Stingwave we rely on a small number of service providers, each handling only what its job needs:

• Speech recognition: turns your voice into text.
• AI text processing: cleans up dictation and writes meeting notes.
• Speaker recognition: tells speakers apart in meetings and recognises your voice sample.
• Cloud hosting and database: runs our server and stores your account data.
• Payments: Apple, Google and our payment processor.
• Email delivery: sends sign-in codes and account emails.

These providers process data only to provide their service to us. They are not allowed to use it for their own purposes, and the services that handle your voice and text do not use it to train their AI models. Some keep data briefly (generally up to 30 days) for security and abuse monitoring before deleting it.

Our website (not the apps) uses an analytics service and cookies to count visits and see which pages are read. We never analyse or track what you dictate, record or write.

8. How long we keep things

9. Deleting your data

You can delete individual dictations, meetings and photos in the apps; they are removed from your account at once. To delete your whole account and everything in it, use Settings → Delete account in the Android or iPhone app, or go to stingwaveapp.com/delete-account. If you pay through the App Store or Google Play, cancel your subscription there as well: deleting your account doesn't stop Apple or Google charging you. Subscriptions paid on our website are cancelled automatically.

10. Security

Everything is encrypted in transit and at rest, your account data is walled off from every other account, and our backups are encrypted so that only we can open them. More detail is on our Security page.

11. Where your data is processed

Our servers and most of our providers are in the United States. Some providers may process data in other countries, under contracts that protect it.

12. Your rights

You can ask us to show you, correct, export or delete the personal data we hold about you, and you can object to how we use it. Depending on where you live (for example the EU, UK or California) you may have further rights. We don't sell or "share" personal data as California law defines it. Email us and we'll answer within 30 days.

13. Children

Stingwave is not intended for children under 13 (or under 16 in the EU and UK), and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we'll delete it.

14. Changes

If we change this policy we'll update the date above, and for significant changes we'll tell you in the app or by email before they take effect.

15. Contact

Questions, requests or concerns: support@thecktgroup.com
CKT Group LLC