Privacy Policy
Last updated: 24 September 2026
Szept is a dictation and screen capture app for macOS. You hold a key and speak, and the text is inserted where your cursor is; you select part of the screen and capture, annotate or record it. This page covers the app (sold directly as Szept, and on the Mac App Store as Voice Dictate) and the website szept.szyma.co. It is short because the app does little with your data, and the developer runs no servers for it.
1. Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data is Szyma Consulting Mariusz Szyma, Dąbrowska 57, 46-070 Wawelno, Poland, tax identification number (NIP) 9910415381. Contact: [email protected].
2. The short version
- The app has no account, no sign-in, no analytics, no crash reporting and no telemetry. The developer receives nothing from it: not your audio, not your transcripts, not your screenshots or recordings, not your usage.
- Your speech goes to Soniox, and text you choose to clean up goes to the AI provider you pick, both under your own accounts and API keys.
- The website counts visits with Google Analytics only if you accept it in the cookie banner.
- When you buy directly, Polar processes the payment and we receive your name, email address and GitHub username to deliver what you bought.
3. The app: what leaves your Mac, and where it goes
Your speech, to Soniox. While you hold the dictation key, audio from your microphone is streamed over an encrypted connection (TLS) to Soniox, Inc., the speech recognition service, which returns the text. Audio is captured only while the key is held and is not written to disk by Szept. Szept connects to Soniox's United States region. Soniox states that it does not store real-time audio or transcripts, never uses them to train its models, encrypts data in transit with TLS 1.2 or later, and holds SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (see its security and privacy page and data residency page). Your dictionary terms and language hints are sent with it, to improve recognition. Szept also asks Soniox for this month's usage figure, so it can show you what you have spent.
Text you choose to clean up or translate, to the provider you connect. AI cleanup and Translate are optional and do nothing until you store an API key for them. When they are on, Szept sends over TLS to that provider:
- for AI cleanup, the finished transcript of each dictation, the language, and the kind of place it is going to (for example “email”, “chat” or “code”), plus your stored email sign-off when the destination is email;
- for Translate, the text recognised in the part of the screen you selected.
The provider is DeepSeek by default, or any other OpenAI-compatible service whose address you enter yourself. Audio and images are never sent to it. Turn AI cleanup off, or delete its key, and nothing is sent. DeepSeek's privacy policy states that it stores data in the People's Republic of China and may use it to improve its models unless you opt out; if that does not suit the text you dictate, choose another provider or leave cleanup off.
How Szept decides the kind of place. To shape the text, Szept reads on your Mac the name of the app you are dictating into and, in a web browser, the address and title of the focused window (so Gmail in a browser is treated as email). This is read through the Accessibility permission, stays on your Mac, and is never sent anywhere: only the resulting kind of place (“email”, “chat”, “code”, “document” or “plain”) goes to the AI provider.
Soniox and your AI provider receive your data under your own account, using the API keys you enter, and each is an independent controller of what it receives, under its own terms:
- Soniox: Privacy Policy · Terms of Service
- DeepSeek: Privacy Policy
Nothing else leaves your Mac. Screenshots, Scrollshots and screen recordings are processed entirely on your Mac (text recognition and QR code reading use macOS's own on-device frameworks) and go only where you put them: a folder, the clipboard, or the app you paste them into. When you hand a capture to an AI agent, Szept pastes the file's path and your words into that app on your Mac; what that app does with them is governed by its own terms.
4. The app: what stays on your Mac
| Data | Where it is kept |
|---|---|
| Your Soniox and AI provider API keys | The macOS Keychain |
| Dictation history (transcripts, timestamps, durations) | Szept's folder in Application Support (in the app's sandbox container for the App Store version) |
| Screenshots and recordings you save | The folder you choose (Desktop or Downloads) |
| Captures copied to the clipboard, and thumbnails | Szept's folder in Application Support |
| Preferences, shortcuts, dictionary entries, email sign-off | Szept's preferences on your Mac |
None of it is uploaded anywhere. Clearing history in the app deletes it; files you saved to a folder are yours and stay there. Time Machine and iCloud backups of your Mac may contain any of it, as they may contain anything else on the machine.
5. The app: permissions, and why
Microphone. To hear you while you hold the dictation key, and to add your voice to a screen recording when you turn Microphone on. Szept does not listen at any other time.
Accessibility. To notice that you are holding the dictation key and the capture shortcuts, to insert the finished text at your cursor, and to read the app name and, in a browser, the focused window's address and title described in section 3. Szept does not read the contents of your documents and does not record what you type.
Screen Recording. Only for the capture tools: to take the screenshot, Scrollshot or recording you start. Szept does not look at your screen at any other time.
Camera. Only when you turn on the camera bubble for a screen recording. The picture goes into that recording on your Mac and nowhere else.
6. Buying Szept directly
Checkout on szept.szyma.co is run by Polar Software, Inc. (polar.sh), which acts as the merchant of record: it takes the payment, handles sales tax and VAT, and issues the receipt. Card details go to Polar and its payment processor, never to us. From Polar we receive your name, email address, country, the order, and the GitHub username you enter, which we use to deliver the app, give you access to the private source repository, send updates you are entitled to, and handle refunds. Basis: performance of a contract, Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. We keep this for as long as you have access to updates, then for the period in which claims or tax obligations can still arise.
If you bought the Mac App Store version, Apple processed the payment and we receive no personal data about you from it.
7. The website and cookies
szept.szyma.co is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver and secure the site (our legitimate interest in a working, secure site, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
With your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and Art. 399 of the Polish Electronic Communications Law), the site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which parts of the page are used, such as starting the film or opening the checkout. Until you accept, Google receives only cookieless, aggregated signals under Google Consent Mode, and nothing is stored on your device except your answer.
| Name | Purpose | Lifetime | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
szept-consent | Remembers your answer to the cookie banner (local storage) | Until you clear it | Necessary |
_ga, _ga_HGB9L9E2WJ | Google Analytics: tells returning visits apart | Up to 2 years | Analytics, only with consent |
You can change or withdraw your choice at any time with the Cookie settings link in the footer of the page.
8. Who else sees the data
- Polar Software, Inc. and its payment processor: checkout, payments, taxes, receipts;
- GitHub, Inc.: access to the private source repository, under your own GitHub account;
- Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC: website analytics, only with consent;
- Cloudflare, Inc.: hosting and delivery of the website;
- Apple Inc.: distribution and payment for the App Store version.
Soniox and your AI provider are not on this list because they act for you, under your own accounts (section 3). We do not sell your data and do not share it for anyone else's own purposes.
9. Transfers outside the European Economic Area
Some of these providers are based in the United States. Where data is transferred there, it is done on the basis of the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision covering the provider.
10. How long we keep it
- Purchase records: while you have access to updates, then for the period in which claims or tax obligations can still arise;
- Website analytics: up to 14 months;
- Emails you send us: as long as needed to answer, then deleted unless they concern a purchase.
11. Your rights
You can ask for access to your data, for it to be corrected or deleted, for processing to be restricted, for a copy in a portable format, and you can object to processing based on legitimate interest. Where processing rests on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, which does not affect what was lawful before. Data kept only on your Mac is yours to delete at any time; for what Soniox or your AI provider processed, contact them directly, because it sits in your own accounts.
Write to [email protected]. If you believe we handle your data unlawfully, you can complain to the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (ul. Stawki 2, 00-193 Warsaw, Poland) or to the supervisory authority where you live.
12. Children
Szept is a productivity tool and is not directed at children under 16.
13. Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the current version is always the one published at this address.