Privacy Policy

Effective September 26, 2026

WordCatch learns how one person with limited speech says their words. It does that on the device. There are no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and the developer never receives your recordings or data.

What WordCatch stores on your device

Recordings of the person it’s learning from (the “communicator”), which you record, import, or which WordCatch saves while listening.
Words and labels: the words you add, how the person says them, pictures you choose or take, and which recording is which word.
A profile: the name, pronouns, age range and emoji you enter for the communicator.
Short notes about how a word was learned, such as “Someone said ‘Cookie?’ and they stopped repeating.” These can include the text of what another person said at that moment.
Settings, and voiceprints of family members or caretakers you enroll (a numeric summary of how a voice sounds, not a recording).

This data stays in WordCatch’s storage on your device. It is included in your device’s own backups (iCloud or your computer) according to your device settings, and in any WordCatch backups you choose to make to a folder you pick, such as in iCloud Drive.

Other people’s voices

When listening is on, WordCatch hears everyone nearby. Speech from anyone other than the communicator is turned into text on the device so WordCatch can notice when someone says the communicator’s word back. That audio is not saved. Only the short notes described above may keep a few of their words.

Please tell the people around you when listening is on. In some places, recording a conversation requires everyone’s consent.

Permissions

Microphone: to record the communicator and to listen.
Speech recognition: to turn other people’s speech into text on the device.
Camera and photos (optional): to picture words, and to learn from videos you choose. WordCatch sees only the photos and videos you pick.
Notifications (optional): a daily reminder to review what it heard.

WordCatch does not use your location. Places such as “Home” or “School” are chosen by you in the app.

What leaves the device

Recordings never leave the device except in backups you set up yourself. WordCatch connects to the internet only for these optional features:

Model downloads. If you download the Whisper speech model or a natural AI voice, WordCatch downloads it from Hugging Face. No personal data is sent; as with any download, the host sees your device’s IP address.
Natural sentences with Claude, only if you add your own Anthropic API key. When WordCatch speaks for the communicator, it sends Anthropic the recognized word, the place and time of day you’re in, the last few words recognized, and the profile’s age range and pronouns. In the “helper” sentence style it also sends the profile name. No audio is sent. Anthropic handles this under its own privacy policy and the terms of your API account. The key is kept in the device’s Keychain and is never included in backups.

Children

WordCatch is often used by families of children and teens. It collects no information for the developer from anyone, of any age. Everything described here is stored by and for the family on their own device.

Deleting data

You can delete any recording, word or picture in the app. Deleting WordCatch removes everything it stored on the device. Backups you made to your own folders stay there until you delete them.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. Questions: hello@wordcatch.app