Your conversations stay yours.
rl8 exists to help you see how you show up — not to collect what you say. This page explains, in plain words, what the app records, what it keeps, what a subscription tells us, and what it never does.
Effective September 17, 2026What rl8 records
rl8 records a conversation only when you start it — a tap to record, or a voice memo you import. Nothing listens in the background, ever. A short read-aloud teaches the app your voice so it can tell your side of a conversation from the other person's.
Recording works best in the open — always record with the other person's knowledge and consent. That's how the app is designed, and in many places it's also the law.
What it keeps, and for how long
You choose whether rl8 keeps the audio. Keep it, and it's held for thirty days so you can play moments back, then permanently deleted. Don't, and audio is never stored — only the transcript, the scores, and the quoted moments remain, and those stay until you delete the conversation or the account. Either way, audio, transcripts, and insights are encrypted in transit and at rest.
Delete a conversation and everything goes with it: the recording, the transcript, the scores, and every insight drawn from it. Delete your account at any time and everything is permanently erased, including your voiceprint. There is no archive you can't see. On your phone, you can lock the app with Face ID so it opens only for you.
Who can access my data?
Only you can access your data. Your audio and transcripts are encrypted with a dedicated key, and no rl8 developer holds credentials that can reach them. The only thing that touches your conversations is the automated pipeline that transcribes and scores them, and every request is checked against your own login.
Subscriptions
Plus and Pro are bought through Apple, and Apple tells us only what we need to switch your plan on: which product you bought, whether the subscription is active, when it started and when it renews or ends, and an anonymous transaction identifier. We never see your card, your billing address, or your Apple ID password. Those stay with Apple.
We keep that purchase history on your account for as long as the account exists, so the app shows the right plan and support can see what happened if a renewal goes wrong.
Your plan and usage
Each account carries a little bookkeeping: which plan it is on, how many conversations it has recorded and how many questions it has asked, and your timezone, so a weekly allowance resets on your Sunday night rather than someone else's. These are counts, not content. They exist so the app can tell you what is left and so the numbers on the pricing page mean what they say.
One free pool per iPhone
The free pool is offered once per phone. To keep it that way without collecting anything about you, the app asks Apple for a DeviceCheck token and sends it to us; we ask Apple to flip a single bit that says this phone has used its pool, and check that bit on the next new account. The token identifies the device to Apple, not to us, and holds nothing about the person: no name, no email, no location, no other apps. Apple keeps the bit; we keep only a note on your account that the pool was granted.
How your words are analyzed
Conversations are transcribed and scored for eleven qualities of good conversation. Ask the built-in AI what really happened in a conversation, or for perspective on a situation you're navigating, and it answers only from your own transcripts and scores, never from anyone else's data. Your data never informs anyone else's answers, and it is never used to train AI models, ours or anyone else's. To do that work, your audio and transcripts are sent to third-party speech and language processors, under contracts that forbid them from keeping or training on your data. We don't name them here because the providers can change; the rule that binds them doesn't.
What rl8 never does
— No selling or sharing of your conversations, transcripts, or scores. To anyone, for anything.
— No advertising built on what you say.
— No training of AI models on your conversations — ours or anyone else's.
— No listening outside a recording you started.
— No social features. Nothing is ranked or compared with anyone else.
Questions
This page is our privacy approach, written to be read. If anything here is unclear, write to dave@fogcitycodeworks.com and a person will answer.