What leaves your computer, what stays, and what we can not promise.
Not written to disk on any server of ours. It becomes text and is discarded.
No employee accesses your data, except under legal obligation or with your consent.
Everything travels over HTTPS. Your AI key is encrypted with 256-bit AES-GCM, only in your browser.
No ads, no selling of data. And you delete the account yourself, instantly, from the dashboard.
With your own key (level 2), the ZapVox server step disappears: the audio goes from your browser straight to the provider.
It is the question we get the most. Short answer: the audio goes to an AI service to be transcribed and comes back as text — and nobody at ZapVox sits down to listen to it.
The audio is not written to disk on any server of ours: it passes through, gets transcribed, and what stays is the text — in your browser.
Our Policy says, in these words: “No employee or contractor accesses your personal data, except under legal obligation or with your consent.”
And there is a mode where the audio does not go through us at all: with your own AI key. That is level 2, right below.
You choose how far to close it. The three work together — you can use all three at once.
| Level | How it works | Does the audio go through us? |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Default ZapVox cloud | The audio goes from your browser to our servers and from there to whichever AI provider is available. It comes back as text. | Yes, in passing. It is not written to disk. |
| 2. Your own key (BYOK) free, 5 min | You create a free key at Groq and paste it into ZapVox. The audio goes from your browser straight to the provider of your key. | No. It does not pass through our servers. |
| 3. Privacy mode on screen | Blurs transcripts on screen and can require a PIN to reveal them. For sharing your screen in a meeting or working in public. | It does not change the audio path — it protects the screen. |
Want to move to level 2? The step-by-step with pictures is at how to create your free key.
Most of what ZapVox keeps never leaves your browser.
| What | Where it lives | For how long |
|---|---|---|
| Original audio | Not written to disk | — |
| Transcribed text | In your browser | Up to 90 days or 7 MB — whichever comes first |
| Your AI key (BYOK) | In your browser, encrypted | Until you remove it |
| Settings and counters | In your browser | Until you uninstall or clear its data |
| Account and subscription | On our servers | While the account exists |
Three different things usually go by the same name. Here is what each one does.
In transit (HTTPS). Every ZapVox communication goes over HTTPS. It is the browser padlock: it protects the path between your computer and the server — whoever sits in the middle (the café wi-fi, say) cannot read the content.
Your AI key. Stored encrypted with AES-GCM 256-bit, derived through PBKDF2 with 600,000 iterations and a random salt that is yours alone. It lives in your browser and is never sent to our servers.
What that protects — and what it does not. Encrypting the key protects against casual reading of browser storage. It is not a substitute for antivirus: if the computer gets infected, malicious software can reach it. On a shared computer, remove the key when you are done.
For those who want the technical detail without being technical: what we use at each layer, and what it means for you.
| Layer | What we use | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Path to the server | HTTPS on every communication | Whoever is in the middle (the café wi-fi) cannot read the content. |
| Audio | Processed and discarded; not written to disk | There is no file of yours to leak, because it does not stay. |
| Your AI key (BYOK) | 256-bit AES-GCM, PBKDF2 with 600,000 iterations and a salt of your own | It stays encrypted in your browser and is not sent to our servers. |
| Your session | JWT token with expiry and automatic renewal; row-level access rules in the database (RLS) | Each account sees only what is its own — the rule lives in the database, not just on screen. |
| The extension itself | Restrictive Content Security Policy; validation of every internal message; request rate limits on the server | Outside code does not run inside the extension, and abuse is stopped before it becomes a bill. |
| Your account | Self-service deletion from the dashboard, immediate | You depend on nobody to erase your data — and the subscription ends with it. |
Every item in this table is in section 4 (Security) or section 6 (Your Rights) of the Privacy Policy.
It is written in the Privacy Policy, and we repeat it here without legalese.
No ads. Your data is never used for personalised advertising, retargeting or ad targeting.
No data sale. Your data is never sold, licensed or shared with third parties for commercial purposes.
No human access. No employee or contractor accesses your personal data, except under legal obligation or with your consent.
This section exists because a promise we do not control is a promise that breaks in your hands one day.
AI providers have their own policies. Transcription runs on third-party services (Groq, Google, Cloudflare, OpenAI). Each has its own policy, which they change when they want. The full list, with a link to each policy, is in our Privacy Policy.
Processing happens outside Brazil, mainly in the United States. It is declared in the Policy.
None of this protects a compromised computer. If someone has access to your browser profile — another person on the same login, or malicious software — no setting of ours fixes that.
And we promise no deadline and no permanence. What is here holds today, with the date in the footer. If it ever changes, it changes in writing — here and in the Policy.
The note you write about a person is stored on this computer, and only on it. That has a good side and a bad side — both are here, with nothing glossed over.
What you gain by keeping it here. The note does not go through our servers, does not show up on any panel of ours, and nobody at ZapVox can read it. If you uninstall tomorrow, it goes away with the extension. It is the highest level of privacy a piece of data can have: the kind that never leaves the place it was written.
What you lose. Data that exists on one computer exists once. Reformatted the machine, changed laptops, cleared the browser's data, the Chrome at home and the one at work are two different ones — in any of those cases the note does not travel with you and there is nowhere to bring it back from. There is no copy of ours to restore, because there never was a copy of ours.
Keeping them in the cloud is on our roadmap, and does not exist yet. Until it does, we will not write here that it does. When it exists it will be your choice — turned on by you, with whatever is already stored staying where it is until you say otherwise.
And it will have one rule from day one: the note belongs to whoever wrote it. In a company, two people serve the same client and write down different things about them — one records the discount agreed, the other records that he prefers to be called in the afternoon. Merging both into a single record would be worse than having nothing. Cloud notes will be per person, not per account.
Meanwhile, what you can do today. If the note matters, copy the text to wherever you already keep what you cannot lose. The block has a Copy button that puts the whole text on the clipboard — and, on WhatsApp Business, an Import from WhatsApp that reads the note from the contact panel (read-only: we never write inside their field).
No form, no talking to anyone, no waiting — and billing ends with it.
What is in your browser — transcriptions, settings, counters, notes and your key: uninstalling the extension takes it all away.
Your account — in your dashboard, under My account → Delete my account and my data. You type a confirmation word and deletion is immediate and final: account, name, e-mail, usage history, glossary, reminders, schedules and connected computers.
If you pay — the subscription is ended at the same moment, with no new charge. And if ending it fails on Stripe's side, the account is not deleted: you see the notice and try again, instead of being left with a vanished account and a live charge.
What remains — only the payment records tax law requires us to keep, already unlinked from you. If you would rather ask in writing, [email protected]. Retention periods are in the Privacy Policy.