Privacy Policy

Overview

BlackBox Memories ("BlackBox," "we," "us") is a privacy-first app for capturing thoughts, memories, journals, and journeys, locked to the time and place they happened. BlackBox Memories is currently available on iOS as a beta release. This policy is written in plain language. If anything is unclear, contact us at info@myblackbox.app.

Information We Collect

Account data. When you create a BlackBox account, we collect your phone number and the data needed to sign you in. Account records can also include your name, email, birth date, and profile photo. We store device and notification tokens to support push delivery.

Your content. The thoughts, memories, journals, and journeys you create in BlackBox, including any text, photos, video, audio, and voice notes you add to them. We also store comments you submit. Comments and profile photos are readable by our servers.

Contacts and invitations. If you use contact matching, the app sends hashes of phone numbers to find people you know. A hash is a value derived from a phone number. Invitations send the selected phone numbers to our servers.

Loved Ones. You manage these profiles on your phone. Their records can include a name, birth or death date, profile type, profile photo, and your account as owner. These account records also exist on our servers.

Location and time data. BlackBox locks memories to the time and place they happened. When you turn on Travel Mode, the app records your location in the background to build a journey: a map and timeline of where you went. Current location documents encrypt exact coordinates and place text. Our servers also store timestamps, sharing relationships, and identifiers. Historical records can contain readable location fields. Map and place services receive location information as described below.

Optional text and audio processing. Cloud transcription sends selected audio through our servers to OpenAI. Cloud speaker separation also sends audio for processing. When you use artificial intelligence (AI) assistance, selected text passes through our servers to OpenAI. This content is readable during processing. On-device transcription runs locally when you select it and the feature is available. It does not send audio to the cloud for transcription.

Diagnostic and usage data. Basic device and crash diagnostic information helps us keep the app stable. Sentry receives an account identifier, crash reports, performance traces, and selected app events. Our servers keep account-linked processing records, including task type, model, duration, usage counts, and cost.

We do not run ads, and we do not buy or sell data about you from data brokers.

Encryption: What We Can and Cannot See

This is the part we want to be precise about.

End-to-end encryption protects encrypted memories. For encrypted memories, the app encrypts text, photos, video, audio, and voice notes on your device before upload. The encryption keys are generated and held on your device, and on the devices of anyone you explicitly share a memory with. We do not have them. Encrypted memory content is unreadable to us. This protection does not cover comments, profile photos, account records, or support messages. Optional cloud features send selected text or audio in readable form for processing.

Some metadata remains readable. Our servers can read account details, contact matching values, invitation phone numbers, device tokens, timestamps, sharing relationships, and record identifiers. Exact coordinates and place text in current encrypted location documents are sealed. Older records can still contain readable location data.

Map display and place lookup also send information to external providers. Encryption of a stored location does not prevent those requests.

Travel Mode and Location Data

When Travel Mode is on, BlackBox records your location in the background, even when the app is not open, to build a journey out of your day: stops, routes, and chapters you can later attach memories to. The app stores and syncs journey data. The encryption and provider sections explain which location information stays readable. You can turn Travel Mode off at any time in the app, and your journeys stay under your control: view, edit, or delete them from within the app.

How We Use Your Information

• To operate the app: create your account, sync your encrypted content, and build your map, timeline, and journeys.
• To send you push notifications you have enabled.
• To maintain and secure the service, including diagnosing crashes and preventing abuse.
• To communicate with you about your account or the service.

Sharing Your Memories

Memories are private by default. Other users can view a memory when you choose to share it. The readable server data and optional cloud processing described above remain separate.

When you share a memory, you choose who sees it and how:

• Viewers can see a shared memory, but it does not appear on their own timeline or map.
• Participants see the memory on their timeline and map, as someone who was part of it.

Sharing a memory re-encrypts it (or its keys) for the people you invite. There is no public mode, no feed, and no discovery of other users' content.

Copies You Export

Saving audio to Files or sharing a photo scan session creates readable files. BlackBox encryption does not protect those exported copies. The destination app or storage service controls the copies you send there.

Third-Party Service Providers

We use these providers to run BlackBox. The sections below describe the data each service receives.

• DigitalOcean: hosts our servers and database. These manage accounts, sync, processing requests, and the readable records described above.
• Google: encrypted media (photos, video, audio) is stored in Firebase Storage, backed by Google Cloud Storage, alongside readable profile photos and device records. Firebase Cloud Messaging handles device tokens and push delivery. Separately, when you search for or name a place, or when a location is turned into a readable address or a nearby-place suggestion, the app sends the coordinates and any place text you type to Google Maps place services, which return addresses and nearby places.
• Apple: distributes the iPhone app and delivers notifications through Apple Push Notification service.
• OpenAI: receives selected text or audio through our servers when you use cloud transcription, speaker separation, or AI assistance.
• Mapbox: provides the maps that display your memories and journeys. Rendering a map sends the map area you are viewing to Mapbox so it can return the map tiles. Where route matching is enabled, it also receives route coordinates. The app disables Mapbox telemetry.
• Sentry: receives crash diagnostics, performance traces, an account identifier, and selected app events to help us find and fix failures.

Providers cannot read encrypted memory content without its keys. They can process the readable records and selected cloud processing inputs described in this policy.

Data Retention and Deletion

The in-app Delete Account action deactivates your account and removes selected account details. That action does not by itself erase all stored memories, media, device records, or backups. Complete deletion and retention periods remain under review for this policy draft.

To delete your account or request deletion of your data, use Delete Account in account settings or contact us at info@myblackbox.app.

Children

BlackBox Memories is not directed to children and is not intended for use by anyone under 17. We do not knowingly collect account registrations from anyone under 17. An owner can add information about a child through Loved Ones. If you believe a child has provided us with information, contact us and we will remove it.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the app changes. We will update the effective date when we publish a change. For material changes, we will make a reasonable effort to notify you in the app.

Contact Us

Questions about this Privacy Policy: info@myblackbox.app

Policy draft updated: September 9, 2026
Entity: This Privacy Policy is issued by Blackbox Technologies LLC, a Florida limited liability company.