Alketo.
Privacy Policy · Last updated 25 September 2026

Privacy Policy

Alketo translates text, speech and photographs. This page explains, in plain language, what happens to what you type, say and photograph.

The short version.
  • Alketo has no accounts. We never ask for your e-mail or phone number, and for a name only if you choose to show one in a group room.
  • Your translation history and your glossary stay on your phone.
  • Photographs never leave your phone — text is read from them on the device.
  • No advertising and no tracking across apps or websites. We run no analytics of our own.
  • What you translate does pass through our server to a translation provider. We do not store it and never write it to our logs.

What we process, and why

Text you want translated. It goes to our server, on to the translation provider, and back to you — then it is discarded. Our logs record only the length of the text, the languages and how long it took. Never the text itself.

Sound from the microphone. To turn speech into text, the app uses your phone's own speech recognition where it can — Apple's on iPhone, Google's on Android. That service may do the work on the phone or send the recording to Apple's or Google's servers, under their own terms. Where the phone's recognition cannot be used (it depends on the phone and the language), the app sends the recording to our server, which passes it to Google's speech-recognition service. We do not store the recording, and it is excluded from our logs.

Text read from photographs. The photograph itself never leaves your phone; the text is read on the device. Only the recognised text is sent onward, exactly like text you typed.

Technical data for Google ML Kit. Some features that run on the phone — reading text from photos, and on Android also scanning a room's QR code and translating without a connection — use Google's ML Kit. ML Kit sends Google technical data such as the phone model, the system and app versions, a device identifier for diagnostics, and speed and error data (for translation also the languages used) — not the photo or the text itself. Google says it does not pass this data to third parties.

A device number. The first time the app runs, it makes up a random number for itself. It is not taken from your phone, your SIM card or you, and it cannot identify you. We hold it on the server to count your free monthly usage and to stop strangers spending our credit. It is the only thing we keep about you. The counters live on the server's disk so they survive a restart: the monthly ones are deleted after about forty days, and if you buy extra minutes or translations we keep a record of how much of that pack you have used for as long as the pack lasts — otherwise we would hand you the same purchase again every month.

Group rooms. Messages pass through our server so they can be translated and handed to the other people in the room. They live in memory only for as long as that takes and are never written to disk. We count how many messages and in which languages — never what was said. If you type a name for yourself, the others in the room see it; the server keeps it only while you are connected.

What stays on your phone and nowhere else

Deleting the app deletes all of it. We have no copy to delete.

From version 1.1 the app also keeps its history and glossary out of your phone's own cloud backup, so they are not copied to iCloud or Google Drive and reinstalling the app does not bring them back. Your settings and chosen languages are still backed up, so a new phone starts the way you left it.

Who else sees your text

We do not build the translation ourselves. To make it, your text is passed to a provider:

Provider Used for What they say about keeping it
Anthropic (Claude) Most translations Deletes inputs and outputs automatically within 30 days. It may keep them longer only if its automated safety systems flag them (up to 2 years) or the law requires it. Its commercial terms do not allow it to train models on them.
Google (Cloud Speech-to-Text) Speech, when the phone's own recognition cannot be used Receives the recording in order to transcribe it.
We would rather say this plainly than claim that nothing ever leaves your phone. It does leave — that is how a translation gets made. What we promise is our own part: we do not keep it, and we do not log it.

Buying a subscription or a pack

If you buy Premium or a top-up pack, the payment is handled entirely by Apple or Google — we never see your card, your address or your name. To know which features you have paid for, the app uses RevenueCat, which receives the app's random device number and the record of what you bought. The app connects to it when it starts, so that prices and anything you have bought are ready — even if you never buy anything. It never gets text, speech or contact details.

What we never do

Permissions the app asks for

Permission Why
Microphone Voice and live interpreting
Camera Translating text from what you photograph
Photos (read) Choosing an existing picture instead of taking one

Each can be refused, and refusing it only turns off that one feature.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to see, correct, export and erase personal data held about you. In practice there is almost nothing to act on: we hold no name, no e-mail and no account, and the one thing we do hold — the random device number, with counters of how much you have used — cannot be traced back to you. Everything else is on your phone, where deleting the app erases it.

If you want to ask us anything about this, write to us at the address below. Please note that because we cannot connect you to a device number, we cannot look you up — and we consider that a feature, not a shortcoming.

Children

Alketo is not aimed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything about them. There is nothing to collect: there is no account and no profile.

Changes to this page

If what the app does changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. We will not quietly widen what we do and leave the old text standing.

Who we are

Alketo is made by HOREC GROUP s.r.o., Pri parku 1636/14, 900 26 Slovenský Grob, Slovakia (company ID 53096100), which is the data controller for the purposes of the GDPR.
Write to us at support@alketo.app — that address reaches a person, and we answer.