Privacy policy
Last updated: 6 November 2026
A5 Notebook ("the app") is made by KLO Technical Services Limited, trading as KLO Development Services, company number 16105032, registered office 23 Brook Road, Bomere Heath, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY4 3PU ("KLO", "we"). This policy explains what happens to the information you put into the app.
The short version
- We don't receive your notes. The app has no KLO server and no KLO account. Your notes, photos, recordings and settings stay on your devices and in your own iCloud.
- The AI summary sends text to Anthropic (the company that makes Claude), but only if you add your own Anthropic API key, only when you ask for a summary, and under your agreement with Anthropic. Without a key, summaries are made on your device.
- Speech is turned into text on your device. Dictation and meeting transcripts never go to a speech server.
- Voices are only recognised with the person's agreement. A voiceprint is made only after that person has read what it is for and agreed on screen. It is kept encrypted in your iCloud, and you can delete it at any time.
- No advertising, no analytics, no tracking. The app doesn't collect usage data or crash reports, and doesn't track you across other apps or websites.
What the app stores, and where
| What | Where it's kept |
|---|---|
| Your notes: text, titles, formatting, checklists, tables, drawings, photos, scans, attached files, meeting recordings and transcripts, folders, tags, pins, job/plot references, reminder dates | On your devices, and in the app's private iCloud database under your Apple Account, so they reach your other devices. If you aren't signed in to iCloud they stay on the device |
| Text the app reads from the photos in your notes (so search can find it) | Read on your device by Apple's text recognition, and kept with the note |
| A note's location, if you press Tag Location | With the note: latitude, longitude and a place name. Only when you ask; there is no tracking |
| On the iPhone and iPad, a note made from a site template: the site, plot and weather filled in | In the note's text and its job / plot, like anything you type. The position used to find them isn't kept with the note |
| Site pins (a site's name, reference and the position of its pin) and, from KLO BREL, the plot outlines of its sites | In your own iCloud Drive, in the shared folder of KLO's apps (see "Other KLO apps") |
| Meeting attendees: the names (and colours) of the people you add to the recorder | On the device and in your iCloud key-value storage, so the list is the same on your devices |
| Voiceprints of attendees who agreed (see "Meetings and voices") | With your notes in your private iCloud database, end-to-end encrypted with the person's name |
| The details a site report is headed with: your firm's name, the author's name and your logo (Settings › Report) | On the device and in your iCloud key-value storage, so they are the same on your devices. The logo is kept as a small copy of the picture you choose |
| Spelling corrections the app learns from your typing, and your grammar and writing rules | On the device and in your iCloud key-value storage |
| Your Anthropic API key, if you add one | In this device's keychain (Apple's encrypted store). It doesn't sync to your other devices |
| The app passcode, if you turn it on | Never stored itself: only a salted, slow one-way hash, in this device's keychain, not synced |
| Settings (sort order, auto-correct and so on) | On the device |
| A meeting being recorded | In a working folder on the device until you save or discard the meeting; then the folder is deleted |
| One-off safety copies of the notes database | On the device only, taken when an update changes how notes are stored, and deleted after 30 days. These copies never contain voiceprints |
| On the Mac, a log of AI summary costs (date, model, token counts; no text) | On the Mac only |
iCloud. Apple stores your iCloud data under your Apple Account and Apple's own privacy terms, and encrypts it. Voiceprints and the names stored with them are always end-to-end encrypted with keys in your iCloud Keychain, so Apple can't read them. Everything else is end-to-end encrypted only if you have turned on Apple's Advanced Data Protection. KLO can't see any of it.
The Locked folder and the app passcode hide notes from anyone holding your unlocked device. They don't encrypt the notes themselves.
Other KLO apps. KLO's apps share one storage area on your device (an "app group"), so that, for example, a note can be handed from one app to another. No other KLO app reads your voiceprints. A5 Notebook publishes two things for the other KLO apps, both kept in your iCloud Drive: a count of your notes, pinned notes, folders and recently deleted notes (also on the device), never a title or any text; and, for a note another KLO app has sent in, a receipt with that note's file name, reference and id, the result and the time, again with no title or text.
Site pins, shared with KLO BREL. A5 Notebook and KLO BREL share one list of sites, kept as small files in your own iCloud Drive. BREL writes each site's name, reference, pin and plot outlines; when you press Pin This Site Where I Am in A5 Notebook, it writes that site's name, reference, the position you were standing at and the time. Each app reads the other's pins, so a site pinned in one shows in the other. Nothing in your notes goes into these files.
Notes from other KLO apps. Another KLO app of yours, such as the Diego assistant, can send notes to A5 Notebook. Each one waits as a file in your iCloud Drive, with its title and text, until A5 Notebook on your Mac brings it in and deletes the file; one that can't be read is kept in a "failed" folder beside it. It then becomes a note like any other. Nothing else in your notes goes back to that app.
What leaves your device, and why
Data leaves the device only in these cases.
1. Your iCloud (Apple). Your notes, voiceprints, attendee list and learned spelling corrections sync through your own iCloud, as above.
2. The AI summary → Anthropic (United States), only with your own API key:
| When you… | What is sent |
|---|---|
| Open "Summarise with AI" on a note | The note's text, as soon as the summary sheet opens. Not its photos, files, recordings or location |
| Press "Summarise" in a meeting's review | The transcript, each line labelled with who said it (an attendee's name, or "Speaker A", "Speaker B"…) |
| Add your API key | Only the key, when it is used |
Without a key, or if Anthropic can't be reached, the summary is made on your device (by Apple Intelligence where your device has it, otherwise by a simple summary the app makes itself), and nothing is sent.
Anthropic handles this under the terms of your Anthropic account. Read them before you summarise other people's information: in particular how long Anthropic keeps what is sent, whether it is used to train models, and its data processing addendum.
3. Location (Apple). When you press Tag Location, the app asks Apple to turn the position into a place name, and the map in the note is drawn from Apple Maps. "Open in Maps" hands the position to Apple Maps.
4. Weather (Apple). On the iPhone and iPad, when you make a note from a template that has a weather line (Site Visit, Daily Site Diary, or your own with {weather}), the app takes one position fix and asks Apple's weather service (WeatherKit) for the conditions there. Only that position goes to Apple, under Apple's privacy terms, and no position is sent for weather at any other time. Matching the position to your pinned sites and plots happens on your device and sends nothing. The app never follows your location in the background and never asks for "Always" location.
5. Speech (Apple). The first time you dictate or transcribe in a language, your device may download Apple's speech model for it. That is a download only: speech is turned into text on your device and is never sent to a server.
6. Things you share. When you share, export, print, copy or drag a note, it goes where you send it. The app takes the location out of a photo when it goes into a note. A photo put in by an earlier version, or a picture attached as a file, may still carry where it was taken. Other camera details, such as the date and the camera, stay in the photo. The app doesn't add any.
7. Apple's Writing Tools, if you use them in a note, are Apple's and work under Apple's terms.
Nothing is ever sent to KLO.
Meetings and voices
Recording a meeting. Recording can't start until you tick that everyone in the meeting knows it is being recorded. The recording and its transcript are made on your device. When you save the meeting it becomes a note; the recording is attached to the note unless you switch "Attach audio recording" off, and then it syncs through your iCloud like the rest of the note.
Learning a person's voice. You can ask A5 Notebook to learn an attendee's voice, so that their name is put on what they say. Before anything is recorded, the app tells that person what will happen and they must agree on screen. They then read a short passage (about 15 seconds). The app turns the reading into a voiceprint on your device and deletes the recording. The voiceprint is used only to put names on meetings recorded in A5 Notebook. Saying no changes nothing, except that their name isn't put on automatically.
A voiceprint is biometric information about that person. Under UK data protection law it is "special category" data, and when you use the app for work you (or your firm) are responsible for it (see "Information about other people").
Putting names on a meeting. Once you have learnt anyone's voice, each meeting has a switch, "Put names on from learnt voices". When it is on, the tick before recording also says that A5 Notebook will match voices to learnt attendees. After you stop recording, the app compares the voices in the recording with the learnt voices on your device, and names each part as a known attendee, "likely" an attendee (marked "?"), or "Speaker A", "Speaker B" for a voice it doesn't know. To do that it works out a voiceprint for every voice in the meeting, including people who haven't agreed to be recognised, but those are held in memory only while the meeting is being named, and never saved. Nothing is shown as final: you review the names and can change any of them before saving. Switch it off and no voiceprint is made from that meeting at all; you name the speakers by hand.
Deleting a voice. Forget Their Voice (in the attendee's menu), removing the attendee, or Settings › Forget All Voices deletes the voiceprint on this device and, through iCloud, on your other devices. Once a year the app lists the voices it has learnt, with the date each person agreed and Forget beside each.
Information about other people
Your notes and meetings will hold information about other people: names, what they said in meetings, attendees' voiceprints, photos. You (or your firm) are responsible for that information: you decide what goes into the app, whose voice it learns, which meetings it records and what you summarise with AI. Tell people before you record them, and only learn the voice of someone who has agreed. If your firm has a data protection policy, use the app in line with it. KLO has written a data protection impact assessment for voice recognition that your firm can adopt as its own; ask us for it.
Deleting your information
- A note you delete goes to Recently Deleted and is deleted for good 30 days later (the next time the app is opened on one of your devices), or straight away if you delete it from Recently Deleted. The deletion reaches your other devices and iCloud. Its reminder is cancelled on the device you delete it on, and on any other device the next time the app is opened there. If you restore the note and the reminder's time is still to come, it is set again.
- Voiceprints: see "Deleting a voice" above.
- To delete everything in iCloud, delete the app's iCloud data in your device's Settings (your name › iCloud). Deleting the app from a device doesn't delete its iCloud data.
- Copies in your own device backups (iCloud Backup, Finder or Time Machine) last as long as those backups do. The app's own safety copies of the notes database are deleted after 30 days and never contain voiceprints.
- Your Anthropic API key: delete it in Settings › AI Summaries. For what Anthropic holds, use Anthropic's own process.
Device permissions
The app asks only when you first use the feature, and works without any of them.
| Permission | Used for |
|---|---|
| Microphone | Dictating notes, recording meetings you choose to record, learning an attendee's voice |
| Speech recognition | Turning speech into text, on the device |
| Location (while using the app) | Tag Location, when you press it; on the iPhone and iPad, one fix when you make a note from a template that fills in the site, plot or weather, or when you pin a site |
| Camera | Taking photos and scanning documents and drawings into a note |
| Face ID / Touch ID | Unlocking the app and the Locked folder; the app only learns whether it matched |
| Notifications | Reminders you set on notes |
When you choose photos, Apple's photo picker gives the app only the ones you pick; it can't see the rest of your library. The app doesn't use your contacts or calendar.
Your rights
KLO doesn't hold your notes, so we can't see, change or delete them. You can do all of that yourself in the app and in your iCloud settings.
If you email us for support at [email protected], we use your email only to answer you. We keep it for as long as we need to deal with it, then delete it; if it leads to work for you, it becomes part of our business records for that work. You can ask us to see or delete it.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, contact us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Children
The app is a professional tool and isn't meant for children.
Changes
If this policy changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.
Contact
KLO Technical Services Limited, trading as KLO Development Services
23 Brook Road, Bomere Heath, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY4 3PU
Company number 16105032
[email protected]