Core Talk — Privacy Policy

Core Talk is a keyboard for iPhone that turns your speech into text, in Russian and in English. The speech recognition runs on your iPhone, with speech models that come inside the app. It works in airplane mode.

The app has no network code at all. Your voice and your text never leave your phone through Core Talk, and we never receive them. There is no account, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking, and no third-party SDK of that kind — the only outside code is the open-source speech software listed in our terms, which runs on the phone and connects to nothing. Nothing is sold to anyone, ever.

What the app does keep, it keeps on your iPhone. Deleting Core Talk deletes it.

Core Talk is made and published by White Rock LTD, which is responsible for the data described here.

• Company: White Rock LTD
• Registered address: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• Privacy questions: appsupport@white-rock.ae
• Support: appsupport@white-rock.ae

Core Talk uses the microphone only after you allow it in the iOS permission prompt, and only the app uses it — the keyboard itself cannot record.

When the microphone is on. The app can turn the microphone on when you open it or start a dictation, and then keep it on in the background — also with the screen locked — so that the mic key on the keyboard starts a dictation instantly instead of opening the app every time. How long it stays on after your last dictation (or after you last opened the app) is your choice — Settings (the gear on the main screen) → «Держать микрофон» ("Keep microphone on"): 5 minutes, 15 minutes (the default), 1 hour, or «Не выключать» (until you turn it off). While it is on, iOS shows its microphone indicator. «Выключить микрофон» ("Turn off microphone") on the app's main screen turns it off, and it stays off until your next dictation.

A few seconds in memory. While the microphone is on, the app keeps the last few seconds of sound — never more than about three — in memory, overwriting them continuously. That is there for one reason: so that the first syllable is not cut off when you tap the mic key. A dictation started from the keyboard includes a short piece from just before and around your tap, usually a fraction of a second. Sound outside a dictation is not recognised and is never saved.

During a dictation. The sound is held in memory only until it has been turned into text, and is then thrown away. Core Talk never writes your voice to storage, and never sends it anywhere.

• The recognised text travels from the app to the Core Talk keyboard through a storage area the two share on your iPhone (an iOS "App Group"), and the keyboard types it into the field you are dictating into.
• Recognised text stays in that shared storage only until the app tidies it up — at your next dictation, when the microphone switches itself off or you turn it off, and whenever the app is started afresh. A tidy-up removes text the keyboard has already typed, and any other text more than 10 minutes old (for example a dictation that was not typed because you moved to another field).
• While the app is running it remembers your recent phrases (up to 200) in memory. They are gone when the app is closed, and they are never saved.
• If you switch on Settings → «Копировать результат в буфер обмена» ("Copy result to clipboard") — it is off by default — the result is also put on the clipboard for 10 minutes. It stays on this iPhone (no Universal Clipboard), but like anything on the clipboard it can be read by an app you paste into while it is there.
• Once the text is in a field, the app that field belongs to — your messenger, your mail — handles it under its own privacy policy.

• What you type goes straight into the field. The keyboard does not store it and does not send it.
• To behave like a normal keyboard, it reads the text around the cursor in the field you are in, in memory only: to start a sentence with a capital letter, to put spaces in the right place, to delete a word, to move the cursor with the space bar, and to guess whether you are writing in English so that a dictation picks the right language. That text is not stored and not sent; only the guess itself ("English", or no opinion) goes to the Core Talk app with the dictation request. For the same reasons the keyboard also reads what kind of field it is in — for example an email or web address.
• iOS itself switches to its own keyboard in password and phone-number fields; third-party keyboards never see them.

iOS shows the same warning for every third-party keyboard that asks for Full Access. Core Talk needs it for dictation — to pass commands, recognised text and the app's settings between the keyboard and the app through the shared storage on your iPhone, and to open the app when a dictation has to start there — and for the light vibration on key presses and when recording starts and stops. The keyboard has no network code. Typing works without Full Access.

While Core Talk is running, iOS lets it see which app the keyboard is being used in — that app's identifier, not anything inside it. Core Talk keeps only the latest one, in memory, and uses it only when the keyboard opens Core Talk to start a dictation: to take you back there, or at least to name it on the "swipe back" screen. It is not saved and not sent anywhere. Automatic return can be switched off: Settings → «Возвращать в приложение» ("Return to the app"). The "swipe back" screen then still names the app you came from.

In its own storage, in its keyboard's own storage, and in the storage the two share, Core Talk keeps:

• your settings;
• your custom dictionary («Свой словарь»), which may contain words and names you add;
• statistics: how many words you have dictated, today and in total, how many seconds of speech, and the date of your last dictation — touch and hold them on the main screen and choose «Сбросить статистику» to reset them;
• the keyboard layout you last chose;
• bookkeeping without any content — random identifiers and times of recent dictations, so that every piece of text lands in the right field exactly once;
• how far you got through the setup guide, and whether the keyboard is set up. To tell, the app checks whether Core Talk is in the iOS list of keyboards you have added and keeps only the yes/no answer, plus the time the keyboard last reached the app with Full Access;
• the time of your last English phrase (nothing else about it), so that a dictation started within 10 minutes of it begins in English.

If you use iCloud Backup or back up your iPhone to a computer, iOS includes this — and any dictation still waiting in the shared storage — in the backup. That backup is kept by Apple or on your computer, under their terms, not ours.

The keyboard and the app wake each other up with internal iOS signals (not notifications you see on screen) that carry no text and no sound. While you dictate, the loudness of your voice — one number, not the sound — goes the same way, with a copy in the shared storage, so that the keyboard can draw the waveform.

Like most apps, Core Talk writes technical messages to the iOS system log on your phone: timings, counts, session identifiers and which language each phrase was recognised in; the app you came from is recorded only in hidden ("private") form. They never contain what you dictated or typed. They stay on the phone unless you create a diagnostic report yourself and decide to send it — to Apple, for example.

If you run Settings → «Тест производительности» ("Performance test") and tap «Поделиться» ("Share"), the text contains your iPhone model, the iOS and app versions and the results. It goes only where you send it. «Скопировать результат» ("Copy result") on the same screen puts the same text on this iPhone's clipboard.

Nothing from the app itself. We have no way to know what you dictate, where you type, or whether you opened Core Talk today.

Apple can give us information it collects under its own privacy policy:

• App Store statistics — downloads, and, from people who agreed to share analytics with app developers, usage and crash figures;
• crash reports, if you switched on "Share With App Developers" in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements — technical data such as the iPhone model, the iOS version and the state of the app when it crashed;
• if you test Core Talk through TestFlight, what TestFlight shares with developers: your name and email if you were invited by email, device and usage information, and any feedback you choose to send.

We use that only to run the beta and to find and fix faults, and we do not combine it with anything.

• No network. Core Talk makes no connection to us or to anyone else. Not in the background, not for a version check, not for an error report. The links to this policy and to the terms in «О программе» open in your web browser, which loads them from our website like any other page.
• No analytics, no crash-reporting library. The app contains neither.
• No advertising. No ad identifier, no advertising SDK, and therefore no "allow tracking" prompt.
• No tracking. Not across apps, not across websites, not at all.
• No third-party AI. The speech models run on your phone and talk to no one, including the people who made them.
• We do not sell or share your data. The app never gives it to us, and no third party — no analytics or advertising company, no AI service, no parent or related company — receives anything from Core Talk.

Everything described above happens on your iPhone, under your control, to give you the features you use. If a data-protection law treats it as processing by us, it rests on providing the app you asked for and, for the microphone, on your consent — which you can withdraw at any time in iOS Settings. The crash and analytics information Apple may pass on reaches us only if you agreed to share it, and we use it in our legitimate interest in fixing faults.

• Your voice: in memory only, until it is turned into text. The few seconds kept while the microphone is on are overwritten continuously.
• Recognised text: in the shared storage until the app tidies it up (see "What happens to the text"); in memory until the app closes; on the clipboard, if you asked for that, for 10 minutes.
• Settings, dictionary, statistics and bookkeeping: until you change or reset them, or delete the app.
• What Apple passes on to us (see "What we receive"): it stays in Apple's developer tools for as long as Apple keeps it there; we keep no copies outside them beyond what fixing a particular fault requires. If you tested Core Talk through TestFlight and want your name and email removed, write to appsupport@white-rock.ae and we will remove you from our testers.

• Turn the microphone off with «Выключить микрофон» on the app's main screen, and choose how long it may stay on in Settings → «Держать микрофон».
• Take back microphone access: iOS Settings → Core Talk → Microphone.
• Turn off Full Access, or remove the keyboard: iOS Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards.
• Switch off the clipboard copy and the automatic return in the app's Settings; reset statistics by touching and holding them on the main screen and choosing «Сбросить статистику».
• Delete the app, and everything it stores goes with it.

Where the law gives you rights over your personal data — to access it, correct it, delete it, take it elsewhere, restrict or object to its use — we honour them. The app sends us nothing, so usually there is nothing for us to hand over or erase — at most what Apple passed on to us, described in "What we receive". Write to appsupport@white-rock.ae with any request or question and we will answer within 30 days. You can also complain to the data-protection authority where you live or work.

What Core Talk keeps stays on your iPhone, inside the app's sandbox and the storage it shares only with its own keyboard, protected by iOS. A passcode on your phone, and on your backups, protects it best.

Core Talk is not directed at children. The app collects nothing from anyone, children included, and we do not knowingly receive information about children.

If we change how Core Talk handles data, we will update this page and change the effective date at the top. Material changes will also be mentioned in the app's release notes. The changelog below records every version of this document.

appsupport@white-rock.ae

White Rock LTD, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

This policy is governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, and disputes about it are subject to the courts of Abu Dhabi. Nothing here takes away a right you have under the mandatory consumer or data-protection law of the country you live in.

• 2026-10-09 — first version.