Privacy Policy
Effective August 5, 2026
PlainlyScan helps you understand confusing official mail. Your letters are among the most personal documents you have, so PlainlyScan was designed to know as little about you as possible. This policy explains — plainly — what happens to your information.
What happens when you scan a letter
- The photo stays on your phone. Your device reads the text from the image (using Apple's on-device text recognition). The image itself is never uploaded, and PlainlyScan does not save it — it is discarded once the text has been read.
- Personal details are removed on your device. Before anything is sent anywhere, PlainlyScan strips out personal information it detects — names, Social Security numbers, account and member numbers, street addresses, and email addresses — replacing them with placeholders like [NAME] and [ACCOUNT].
- Only the redacted text is sent for explanation. That redacted text is transmitted over an encrypted connection to our server (hosted on Google Firebase), which forwards it to Anthropic's Claude AI service to generate the plain-language explanation. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, this content is not used to train their AI models.
- Only the explanation is kept. What's stored on your device is the result — who the letter is from, what it means, and what to do. The original photo and the raw letter text are not stored by PlainlyScan, on your device or anywhere else.
What we don't do
- We don't sell your information — to anyone, ever.
- We don't share your letters or explanations with advertisers, insurers, data brokers, or any other third party.
- We don't show ads or use advertising trackers.
- We don't require an account, and we don't collect your name, email, or contact details to use the app.
What's stored, and where
The plain-language explanations of your letters (and any folders you organize them into) are stored on your device. If you delete a letter — or use "Clear all letters" in Settings — it is permanently removed.
Subscriptions and payments
PlainlyScan Pro is billed through your Apple ID by Apple. We never see or store your payment details. Purchases are governed by Apple's own privacy policy and terms.
Service providers
PlainlyScan uses a small number of service providers to work:
- Apple — on-device text recognition and payment processing.
- Google Firebase — hosts the server that relays redacted letter text for explanation, and verifies that requests come from the genuine PlainlyScan app. Standard technical logs (such as request counts and error records) are kept for reliability; they do not include your letter content.
- Anthropic — provides the Claude AI service that generates explanations from the redacted text, under commercial terms that prohibit using it to train their models.
Security
Redacted text is sent over encrypted (HTTPS) connections. Our server accepts requests only from verified, genuine copies of the PlainlyScan app (using Apple's App Attest and Firebase App Check).
Children
PlainlyScan is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
Your choices
- Delete any letter, or all letters, at any time in the app.
- Cancel your subscription at any time in your App Store settings.
- Email us with any privacy question or request — we're happy to help.
Changes to this policy
If we make meaningful changes, we'll update this page and the effective date above. We will never quietly weaken the promises on this page.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email netbooee@gmail.com.