Speko Privacy Policy

Effective date: 6 October 2026 · Last updated: 6 October 2026

Speko is a personal finance tracker for iPhone. You log spending and income by speaking, by scanning a receipt, by typing, or by importing a statement file. This policy explains what Speko keeps on your phone, what it sends off your phone and to whom, what our servers keep, and the choices you have.

Summary

• Your ledger lives on your phone. Your entries, wallets, budgets, goals, people and splits are stored in an encrypted database on your iPhone. Speko's servers do not keep a readable copy of what you spend. We have no accounts, no ads, no bank linking, and we do not sell your data.
• Some features use cloud services. Voice is transcribed in the cloud (ElevenLabs, with Groq as a fallback). The words you speak or type into capture, questions you ask the assistant, receipt photos and imported statements are processed by OpenAI. These requests pass through Speko's server (a Cloudflare Worker), which does not store their content. The providers may retain what they receive under their own terms, and we do not claim otherwise. In the app we call these providers "our AI partners"; this policy names each one, what it receives and how long it may keep it (section 7), and we update it before a new partner receives your data. Section 3 describes each flow.
• Our servers keep a few small records: usage counters tied to a random app identifier, short-lived abuse-prevention counters tied to your IP address, a one-hour cache of whether you are on Premium, a one-day mark that a shared file was already counted, and, when you share a split, an encrypted invite we cannot read (at most 7 days). Section 4 lists them all.

1. Who we are

Speko is published by Priyank Verma, trading as Vikasa Studio, K-0405, Tranquil at Brigade Cornerstone Utopia, Varthur, Bengaluru 560087, Karnataka, India ("Speko", "we", "us"). We decide how the personal data described here is processed (we are the "controller", and the "Data Fiduciary" under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023). Contact: privacy@vikasa.studio.

This policy covers the Speko iOS app, its share extension, and Speko's server (the Worker described in section 3). It does not cover Apple's App Store, payment flow or iOS services, which Apple's own privacy policy governs, or apps you choose to open from Speko (for example a payment app).

2. What stays on your phone

The following is stored on your iPhone and is not sent to Speko's servers or providers except as section 3 describes:

• Your ledger: entries (amount, currency, category, merchant, date, notes, source text), wallets, budgets, goals, recurring income, the people you add, splits and settlements, and your corrections. It is kept in a database encrypted with SQLCipher (AES-256). The database key is generated on your phone and stored in the iOS Keychain with the "this device only" setting, so it is not transferred to another device. (Your iPhone's own backups may include the encrypted database file; because the key is device-only, that file cannot be opened on a different device. Use Speko's encrypted backup file, below, to move your data.)
• Coach memory and conversation history with the assistant.
• Payment details you save for settling up (for example your UPI ID or a PayPal.Me link).
• Settings (for example base currency, Cloud voice, Biometric Lock, reminder times) and a local AI activity log that records which kind of cloud request was made and when, without its content.

Statement passwords for locked PDFs are used on your phone to open the file and are never sent. Spending figures such as totals, trends, forecasts and budget progress are calculated on your phone.

3. What leaves your phone, when, and to whom

All network requests use TLS encryption in transit. AI and voice requests to Speko's server carry a random app identifier (section 5), your plan (Free or Premium) and, for captures, your time-zone offset, which the server uses to apply usage limits (the free smart-capture allowance is counted per app identifier and does not reset; monthly limits reset each month). The server does not pass that identifier to OpenAI, ElevenLabs or Groq.

3.1 Voice capture (Cloud voice)

Speko does not use Apple's speech recognition; transcription happens in the cloud. Before voice is used, the iPhone's microphone permission prompt tells you that Speko's AI partners process your speech to log expenses and answer your questions, and you choose whether to allow it. After that, audio is sent only when you press and hold the talk button, every time (details below). The partners for voice are ElevenLabs and, as a fallback, Groq (transcription); the words then go to OpenAI (section 3.2). Speko shows no extra consent screen, and if we change a partner we update this policy rather than asking again in the app (section 16). To stop, turn Cloud voice off in Settings → Privacy Center, or turn off microphone access in iOS Settings → Speko; you can then type instead.

• When audio is sent. You press and hold the talk button (for up to 10 seconds). The app starts sending only once it detects voice in a hold longer than a tap; a tap or a silent hold is discarded on the phone and sends nothing. The microphone may be switched on before you press so the start of your sentence is not cut off, and about 0.3 seconds from just before the press is included with the take. Audio is not sent before you press.
• Where it goes. When you release the button, the recorded clip is sent through Speko's server for transcription by ElevenLabs Scribe v2 and, if that fails, Groq (Whisper large-v3). The transcript stays in the language you spoke. ElevenLabs also returns how confident it was about each word; the app uses that on your phone to decide which names to double-check.
• Recognition hints. To spell names correctly, each voice request also carries a word list of up to 100 entries: names of people you have saved in Speko (and other spellings of those names), your most frequent merchant names, and currency and number words for your capture currency and languages.
• What is kept. Speko's server does not store the audio or the transcript. The app keeps a temporary copy of the clip on your phone while the capture is processed, so it can retry, and then deletes it. Your saved entries contain the text and fields, not audio. ElevenLabs and Groq process the audio under their own terms and may retain it (section 7). Speko does not use ElevenLabs' zero-retention option, which ElevenLabs offers only on its Enterprise plan.
• The resulting text then follows section 3.2.

3.2 Capture text and the assistant (OpenAI)

• Logging an entry. When you log by voice or type words into capture, the text (for example "coffee 4.50 and 12 on parking") is sent through Speko's server to OpenAI to check and structure the entry. The request also includes the phone's own reading of the entry (amount, currency, type, category, merchant, and the name of a person involved, if any), your category names, your currency and today's date. To work out who and what you mean, it can also include: the words as first heard (before the phone corrected a name), the language detected, names of people you have saved in Speko with their other spellings and relationship labels, your frequent merchant names, a few of your recent corrections (what you said and what you saved), and, only if you turned on contact matching (section 9), up to 3 names from your contacts that sound like a name you said.
• Asking the assistant (the AI tab and Ask). Your question is sent to OpenAI with figures your phone calculates: this and last month's spending and income, category totals, a few months of trend, recurring totals, budget progress and, when available, a month-end forecast. The assistant also receives your wallet names with their monthly totals, your budgets (category and limit), your monthly spending target, savings goal and preferred tone if you set them, and the recent turns of the conversation so it can follow up. It does not receive your list of entries; the earlier turns it receives can include a short description (merchant, amount and date) of an entry the app matched on your phone, for example when it proposed a change to that entry. Card-like number sequences and email addresses in your questions are masked on the phone before sending. Until you first send a typed question (or tap a suggested one), a line under the Ask field says your question and spending totals go to our AI partner, with a Privacy link to this policy; sending is your choice to use it. Questions you ask by voice follow section 3.1. To stop, do not use Ask.
• Limits. Cloud requests are limited per month (and, on the Free plan, a set number of voice and receipt captures in total). When you are offline or over a limit, capture uses only the phone's own parser.
• Speko's server does not store the text. OpenAI processes it with the GPT-6 Luna model under its API terms: it states that it does not use API data to train its models and may keep requests and replies for up to 30 days to provide the service and detect abuse. Speko turns off OpenAI's optional storage of completed responses. OpenAI is based in the United States.

3.3 Receipt and screenshot photos

An image is sent through Speko's server to OpenAI, whose GPT-6 Luna model reads the merchant, total, date and line items. The request includes your currency, today's date and your category names.

• Camera and photo library. When you scan a receipt with the in-app camera or choose a photo from your library, the app first makes a copy of the image, usually a smaller JPEG, and sends that copy. The camera permission prompt, and a line in the Scan or import sheet with a Privacy link, say that our AI partner reads the image. Photos are chosen with the iOS photo picker, which gives Speko only the photo you pick.
• Images shared from another app. When you share an image to Speko from another app, the app sends a copy made from the image's pixels: a JPEG, or a PNG for a screenshot-sized PNG, with large photos reduced in size. The request also includes the image's file name, which OpenAI receives as context. Speko's share screen says that shared documents are read by Speko's AI partners.
• No photo metadata. Every image copy is made without the metadata stored with the original, such as the place and time a photo was taken, the device model and captions. The picture itself is sent, so anything visible in it, such as a store's address on a receipt, is read.

Speko's server does not keep the image; OpenAI may keep it for up to 30 days under its terms. If an image cannot be read, you can retry or type the entry. To stop, do not scan, pick or share images to Speko, or turn off camera access in iOS Settings → Speko.

3.4 Statement import (Premium)

When you import a bank or card statement, whether you choose the file in Speko or share it to Speko from another app, the app sends the file's contents and its file name through Speko's server to OpenAI to turn them into entries:

• a CSV, TSV, text, JSON or OFX file is sent as its full text, and an XLSX or XLS spreadsheet is uploaded whole and opened by Speko's server — so every row is sent, not only the transactions;
• for a PDF, all of its text is sent, or images of its pages when the text cannot be read.

This includes anything printed on the statement, such as the account holder's name, address and account number. Speko's server reads the file to pass it on and does not keep it; OpenAI may keep the contents for up to 30 days under its terms. A password for a locked PDF is used only on your phone and is never sent. You review the rows before anything is saved. Speko never connects to your bank. Before you choose a file, the import screen says your statement is read by our AI partner, with a Privacy link. To stop, do not import statements.

3.5 Split invites (end-to-end encrypted)

Splitting a bill with someone is stored only on your phone. If you choose to share a split:

1. Your phone creates the invite (your display name, the note, the total, the amount the other person owes, the currency and the date) and encrypts it with a new random key (XChaCha20-Poly1305).
2. The encrypted invite is uploaded to Speko's server. The key is not uploaded: it is placed only in the part of the link after #, which apps and browsers do not send to servers.
3. The server keeps the encrypted invite for at most 7 days and deletes it when the recipient's Speko app fetches it. We cannot read it. The server also counts invite requests per IP address and day to prevent abuse (section 4).
4. You send the message with the iOS share sheet through the app you choose. It contains a speko:// link that opens Speko, a link to Speko's relay page on our Cloudflare Worker (a static page with no scripts that tells the reader to open the link in Speko), a link to Speko on the App Store, and a plain-text summary (your name, the note, the total and the amount owed) that the recipient can read without Speko. Anyone who has the complete link can open the invite.

If Speko's server cannot be reached, the encrypted invite is placed inside the link itself and nothing is uploaded. Speko never moves money. When you settle up, Speko can open the payment app you choose (for example a UPI app or PayPal) with the amount and note filled in, or share a payment request message you can review beforehand; Speko does not receive anything back from those apps.

3.6 Purchases (RevenueCat and Apple)

Payments are made through Apple; we do not receive your card or Apple Account details. We use RevenueCat to validate purchases and to know whether you have Premium. The app identifies itself to RevenueCat with the random app identifier (section 5), not your name or email. RevenueCat receives your App Store purchase and subscription records, plus technical information its SDK sends, such as your IP address, device model, operating system and app version, locale and App Store country. Speko's server asks RevenueCat whether that identifier has Premium before unlocking paid cloud features. RevenueCat's privacy policy states that it stores data on Amazon Web Services in the USA. Speko does not enable RevenueCat's Apple Search Ads attribution.

3.7 Exchange rates

To convert currencies, the app downloads the public daily exchange-rate table from open.er-api.com. The request contains no app data or identifier; the service receives your IP address, as with any web request. Rates are cached on your phone.

3.8 Connectivity check

While the app is open, it checks every 15 seconds whether the internet is reachable by sending a request with no content to Google's generate_204 address. Google receives your IP address, as with any web request; no app data or identifier is sent.

3.9 Things you share yourself

• CSV export and encrypted backups are files you create and send where you choose (for example iCloud Drive, Files or email). A backup is encrypted on your phone with a passphrase you choose (PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 key derivation); without the passphrase it cannot be read. A CSV export is not encrypted. Speko has no automatic cloud backup.
• Reminders are scheduled locally on your phone by iOS. Speko does not use a push-notification server. Reminder text can appear on your lock screen, depending on your iOS settings.

4. What Speko's servers keep

Speko's server is a Cloudflare Worker. It keeps per-device counters in a per-device store (a Cloudflare Durable Object) and per-IP and global counters in a key-value store. It keeps no request content (text, audio or images) and no names, emails or phone numbers. Its log lines record only operational events (for example which transcription provider answered, how long it took, or an error type), not content or identifiers. Everything it stores is listed here:

Short per-minute request limits (30 a minute per app identifier, 120 a minute per IP address) are enforced by Cloudflare's rate-limiting service and are not stored by Speko.

Cloudflare, which hosts the Worker, processes the network traffic (including your IP address) to deliver it, under its own terms. Cloudflare runs a global network, so a request may be handled in a data centre outside your country.

What "we don't store what you spend" means: Speko's servers keep no readable copy of your entries, receipts, statements or questions. The providers in section 7 receive the content of the cloud requests you make and may retain it under their own terms.

5. The app identifier

Speko creates a random identifier (a UUID) once and stores it in the iOS Keychain on your phone. Unlike the database key, it is not limited to "this device only", so iOS may keep it after you delete the app and may include it in your encrypted iPhone backups. It is not derived from your device, your Apple Account or Apple's advertising identifier. We use it only to apply usage limits and to match your purchases in RevenueCat. It is a pseudonymous identifier, not an anonymous one: our usage counters and RevenueCat's purchase records are tied to it. Resetting your data in Settings does not change it. Speko has no accounts or passwords and does not ask for your name, email or phone number. Speko does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA) and does not show an App Tracking Transparency prompt, because it does not track you.

6. What we do not do

• No tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and no data brokers.
• No advertising networks, ad identifiers or ad SDKs.
• No selling or "sharing" of personal data for cross-context behavioural advertising.
• No bank linking or access to your bank accounts.
• No analytics or crash-reporting SDKs.
• No money movement. Speko records money; it never pays, transfers or invests.
• No automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. The assistant suggests; you confirm every change before it is saved.

7. Service providers

We do not control these providers' own policies; please review them. We will update this list before adding a provider that receives personal data.

AI partners by kind of data

The app calls the AI providers "our AI partners". This is who receives each kind of data, how long they may keep it, and how to stop sending it:

Speko's server keeps none of this content (section 4). To delete what is on your phone, see section 11. Copies a partner keeps are deleted on its own schedule; because Speko sends partners no app identifier, we may be unable to identify a particular request there.

8. Why we process personal data

Where a law requires a legal basis (for example the EU/UK GDPR):

• To provide the features you ask for (contract): transcribing your voice, structuring entries, answering your questions, reading receipts and statements, relaying split invites, and providing Premium.
• With your consent: Cloud voice is used only after you allow the microphone in the iPhone prompt, which says Speko's AI partners process your speech (this policy names them), and only while you press and hold the talk button. Contact matching is used only after you allow Contacts. You can withdraw either by turning Cloud voice or Match with Contacts off, or by turning off the permission in iOS Settings → Speko.
• Legitimate interests: preventing abuse of and keeping Speko's server working (IP-based counters, usage limits, the connectivity check), and currency conversion.
• Legal obligations: where we must keep or disclose information by law.

9. Permissions Speko asks for

• Microphone: to record a voice entry or question while you hold the talk button. The prompt says Speko's AI partners process your speech (section 3.1).
• Camera: to photograph a receipt or statement. The prompt says Speko's AI partners read it (section 3.3).
• Photo Library: to choose a receipt photo or screenshot (section 3.3). Speko uses the iOS photo picker, which gives it only the photo you choose; the original stays in your library.
• Notifications (optional): for reminders scheduled on your phone (section 3.9).
• Face ID / Touch ID (optional): for Biometric Lock. iOS handles it; Speko never receives biometric data.
• Contacts (optional): to recognize the people you name when you log money. Speko asks only after you tap Match contacts on a capture. It reads contact names (including phonetic names and nicknames), never phone numbers, emails or addresses, and matches them on your phone. Speko does not upload or keep your contact list; only up to 3 names that sound like a name you said can be included in that capture's request to OpenAI (section 3.2). If you choose a contact for an entry, that name becomes a person in Speko. You can limit or turn off access in iOS Settings → Speko → Contacts.

10. Retention

• On your phone: until you use Reset Database or delete the app. Deleting an individual entry hides it; it remains in the encrypted database on your phone, and in backups you create afterwards, until you use Reset Database or delete the app.
• Speko's server: only the records in section 4, for the periods listed there.
• Providers: as section 7 describes.
• Backups and exports you create: wherever you saved them, until you delete them.

11. Your rights and choices

In the app

• See what is sent: Settings → Privacy Center → AI activity lists recent cloud requests by type and time (content is not logged). You can clear the list.
• Stop sending audio: turn off Cloud voice in Settings → Privacy Center, or turn off microphone access in iOS Settings → Speko, and type instead.
• Stop sending images: turn off camera access in iOS Settings → Speko, and do not pick or share images to Speko.
• Avoid cloud text processing: do not use capture by voice or typed words while online, the assistant, receipt scanning or statement import. Typing an entry directly into its fields does not send those fields to the providers.
• Export (portability): Settings → Data Management → Export Transactions saves or shares the current wallet's entries as a CSV file; Settings → Export backup creates a passphrase-encrypted file of your data that you can restore on another phone.
• Delete: Settings → Data Management → Reset Database permanently deletes your ledger, people, splits, budgets and goals from the phone (your home currency is kept). Deleting an entry hides it; it remains in the encrypted database on your phone, and in backups you create afterwards, until you use Reset Database or delete the app. Deleting the app also removes its data from the phone, but iOS may keep the app identifier (section 5) in the Keychain, so a reinstall can reuse it.
• Subscriptions: manage or cancel them in your Apple Account settings; use Restore purchases on a new phone.

Requests to us

For data held by our server or processors, contact privacy@vikasa.studio. Please note: because Speko has no accounts, our records are tied only to the random app identifier or to an IP address, and we may be unable to find records that belong to you; they are deleted automatically within the periods in section 4. We do not hold a copy of your ledger, so requests about your ledger are carried out on your phone with the tools above. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or port your personal data; to restrict or object to processing; to withdraw consent; and to complain to your data protection authority.

• EEA / UK: the rights above under the GDPR / UK GDPR, including a complaint to your supervisory authority.
• California: the rights to know, delete and correct under the CCPA/CPRA. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.
• India (DPDP Act 2023): see section 12.

12. India: Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023

• Data Fiduciary: Priyank Verma, trading as Vikasa Studio, K-0405, Tranquil at Brigade Cornerstone Utopia, Varthur, Bengaluru 560087, Karnataka, India.
• Personal data and purposes: as described in sections 3–5 and 8.
• Consent and withdrawal: where processing relies on your consent (such as Cloud voice), you can withdraw it as easily as you gave it, by turning Cloud voice off. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out.
• Your rights as a Data Principal: to obtain a summary of the personal data we process and the processing activities, and the identities of those we have shared it with; to correct, complete, update or erase it; to grievance redressal; and to nominate another person to exercise your rights in the event of your death or incapacity.
• Grievances: contact privacy@vikasa.studio. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

13. Children

Speko is a personal finance app for adults and is not directed to anyone under 18. We do not knowingly process personal data of anyone under 18. (In India, a "child" is anyone under 18, and processing their data requires verifiable parental consent; Speko does not seek it.) If you believe someone under 18 has used Speko's cloud features, contact us.

14. International transfers

Speko's server runs on Cloudflare's global network. Our providers process data in other countries, including the United States (OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Groq, RevenueCat), which may not offer the same level of protection as your country. Where the law requires a safeguard for these transfers, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, which are built into the data processing terms of OpenAI, ElevenLabs and Cloudflare.

15. Security

• Encrypted on-phone database (SQLCipher, AES-256) with its key in the iOS Keychain (this device only).
• TLS for all network requests.
• Optional Biometric Lock (Face ID / Touch ID).
• Passphrase-encrypted backups; end-to-end encrypted split invites.
• Speko's server keeps no request content.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

16. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy, and its "Last updated" date, before changing how Speko handles data, including before a new AI partner receives your data. The app links to this page beside the Ask field, in the Scan or import and statement import screens, and in Settings → Privacy Center. For other material changes, such as a new kind of data leaving your phone, we will also show a notice in the app before the change takes effect. The current version is published at https://vikasa.studio/speko/privacy.

17. Contact

Questions, requests and grievances: privacy@vikasa.studio · Priyank Verma (grievance officer), Vikasa Studio, K-0405, Tranquil at Brigade Cornerstone Utopia, Varthur, Bengaluru 560087, Karnataka, India.