Relato keeps a family’s stories in the voice that told them. This policy explains exactly what the app stores, where it goes, and what I can and cannot see. It is short because the app does very little with your data.

The short version

I have no server. I have no account system. I never see your recordings, your transcripts, your name, or your family’s names. Everything Relato keeps lives on your phone, and — if you choose to share a year with the person telling the stories — in your own iCloud account, under Apple’s terms, not mine.

Who is responsible

David de la Fuente, trading as Delafu Development. Convento de San Diego 35, Jardines de Santa Mónica, Tlalnepantla de Baz, Estado de México, C.P. 54050, Mexico. Contact: david@delafu.dev

What Relato stores

On your device:

• Audio recordings of the stories that are told.
• Transcripts, produced on the device and editable by you.
• Story metadata — the question asked, the date, and the order of takes.
• Your settings — the storyteller’s name, the name you sign the gift with, the chosen language, and the weekly reminder day.

That is all of it. There is no hidden profile, no identifier assigned to you, and no usage log.

The microphone

Relato asks for microphone access the first time a story is recorded. Recording only ever starts when someone deliberately taps the record button, and stops when they tap it again — the app never listens in the background and has no way to.

Transcripts are made on your phone

Transcription happens on the device, using Apple’s on-device speech recognition. Audio is never uploaded anywhere to be turned into text.

Transcripts are a convenience for searching and reading. The recording is the thing being kept; the text is a rough helper, and you can correct it.

Family sharing, and whose iCloud it uses

Relato works entirely on one phone. If you want the person telling the stories to answer on their own phone, you can share the year with them.

When you do:

• Stories are stored in your private iCloud database, in a shared area that only the people you invite can reach. This uses Apple’s own sharing mechanism (CKShare).
• The storage counts against your iCloud account, not theirs. A year of stories is roughly 200–250 MB.
• I never see any of it. It goes between your device, Apple’s servers, and the people you invited. It does not pass through any system of mine, because I do not operate one.
• Apple’s handling of that data is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy, not by this one.

How the invitation works, and what I do not see

To invite someone, Relato hands the invitation to Apple’s own sharing screen — the same one you see when sharing a photo album or a note. You choose there whether to invite specific people or to send a link, and you send it however you like.

Relato never asks you for a phone number or an email address, and never reads your contacts. The app has no access to your address book at all. Anyone you invite is resolved by Apple, on your device, in Apple’s interface.

Recording other people

The person telling the story is usually not the person who set up the app. If you record someone, you are responsible for having asked them, in a way they understood, and for stopping when they want to stop. Relato is designed to make that easy — one screen, one action, nothing hidden, and recording only ever starts on a deliberate tap — but the responsibility is yours, not the app’s.

If someone asks you to delete a story they told, delete it. If they ask me, I have no way to reach it.

Reminders

Relato can show one reminder a week, on the day you choose. These are local notifications scheduled on your own phone. Nothing is sent to or from a server to deliver them, and there is no remote push, no marketing, and no re-engagement message. If a week passes without an answer, nothing happens — the question simply waits.

When a story is re-told, the earlier one is kept

If the storyteller records a question again, the earlier recording is not deleted. It is kept, marked as superseded, and included in your export. This is deliberate: a voice recording is not something the app should ever throw away on someone’s behalf.

You can delete a story yourself, and doing so deletes the recording permanently.

Exporting — the one time your stories leave by your own hand

Relato can export the whole year: the audio files, the transcripts, a web page that opens in any browser, and a printable book. This is free, always, in open formats, for everyone — including people who never paid.

Once you export and send that archive somewhere, it has left your phone by your choice and is no longer covered by this policy. Where it goes next is up to you.

What Relato does not do

• No analytics or crash-reporting SDK of any kind. Not one.
• No tracking, no advertising identifiers, no fingerprinting.
• No selling, renting or sharing of your recordings or transcripts with anyone.
• No account with me, and no database of mine that your stories pass through.
• No third-party code. Relato is built only on Apple’s own frameworks.

Payment

Relato offers a one-time purchase. Payment is handled entirely by Apple. I never see your card details, your name, or your address — only anonymous confirmation from Apple that a purchase exists.

Your rights

In Mexico, under the Ley Federal de Protección de Datos Personales en Posesión de los Particulares, you may access, rectify, cancel or oppose the processing of your personal data (ARCO rights) and withdraw consent at any time.

In the European Union and the United Kingdom, under the GDPR, you may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing and portability, and object to processing. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority.

In Japan, under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), you may request disclosure, correction, suspension of use or deletion.

You exercise almost all of these directly, because I hold nothing: your stories are on your device and in your own iCloud. Edit or delete any story in the app, stop a share, or export the whole archive at any time. For anything you cannot do yourself, write to david@delafu.dev and I will respond within 30 days.

International transfers

I transfer nothing, because I receive nothing. Family sharing uses Apple’s iCloud and CloudKit, and Apple may process that data outside your country under its own privacy policy and transfer safeguards. Purchases are processed by Apple on the same basis.

How long anything is kept

Your stories stay until you delete them. There is no retention period I control and no copy I could delete on your behalf — which is also why export is free and permanent.

Where Relato is offered

Relato is published in German, English, Spanish, French and Japanese, which means it is offered to people in the European Union and in Japan. This policy is written to meet the GDPR and the APPI as well as Mexican law, and is available in each of those languages.

Children

Relato is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect anything from them.

Changes to this policy

If the app changes what it stores or where it goes, this page changes first. The date at the bottom is when it last did.