Privacy policy

The short version

• Your notes are yours. We keep them so Tack Notes can show, sync, search and remind you about them, and for nothing else.
• We never sell your data, never use it for advertising, and never send your notes or your voice to an outside AI company. Smart search and dictation run on our own servers.
• We don’t read your notes. People only see a note if you share it with them.
• You can leave with everything, any time. Settings downloads all your notes, labels and images in one zip, and deleting your account deletes all of it.
• No tracking in the app. Google Analytics only runs on our public website pages, only if you say yes, and never once you’re signed in.
• One honest limit: your notes are encrypted on their way to and from us, but they are not end-to-end encrypted. Our servers need to read them to search, sync and run Pro features. Below we explain exactly who and what can access them.

Who we are

Tack Notes is run by tacknotes.com, at AA PH, Camilleri Buildings, Oratory Street, Naxxar NXR 2504, Malta. We decide how your information is used, which makes us its “controller” under data protection law (the GDPR in the EU and the UK GDPR).

Questions about privacy, or anything on this page, go to [email protected]. A person reads every email.

What we keep, and why

We only keep what Tack Notes needs to work. For each item, here is what it is and why we have it.

Your account

• Your name and email address, to sign you in, show who shared a note, and send emails you need (confirming your address, resetting your password, invitations you send).
• Your password, stored only as a one-way scrambled form (a hash). Nobody at Tack Notes can see it.
• How you sign in. If you use Google, Microsoft or Yahoo, they tell us your name, email address and an account number. We never see your password with them, your contacts or anything else in that account.
• Two-step sign-in, if you turn it on: its secret is stored encrypted.
• Your settings, like your time zone (so reminders go off at the right time), theme and label order, and your plan.

What you put in Tack Notes

• Your notes and lists: titles, text, list items, colours, backgrounds, labels, pins, reminders, images and files you add, and when each was created and changed.
• Earlier versions of each note, so you can undo mistakes: the last 20 on the free plan, the last 100 on Pro.
• Sharing: who you share a note with (their email address) and any read-only links you create. Invitation emails show the note’s title and who sent it, never its contents.
• Link previews. When a note contains a web address, our server visits that page to fetch its title and picture. The website sees a visit from our server, not from you. The preview picture then loads from that website when you view the note.
• Your recent searches: the last 10, so you can repeat one with a tap. You can turn this off in Settings, which deletes them.

Pro features

• Smart search, related notes, automatic labels and Tidy up by meaning work by turning each note into a list of numbers that describes what it’s about. Our own server does this with an open-source model, and the numbers are stored with your notes.
• Dictation: your voice goes to our server, is turned into text and is thrown away straight after. We never store recordings. We do count how many minutes you use each day, because Pro includes a daily allowance.

Importing from Google Keep

The Google Takeout file you upload is read on our server and deleted within an hour of the import finishing, or within a day if an upload is never finished. What stays is the notes it created.

Phones, browsers and notifications

• For reminders on your computer, your browser gives us a notification address.
• For the Android app, Google’s Firebase gives us a device address for notifications, and we keep the name of each device you’ve signed in on and when it was last used.
• Your browser session lasts up to 30 days and is stored encrypted. Settings shows where you’re signed in, and “Sign out everywhere else” ends every other session.

Keeping the service safe

Like every website, our servers see your IP address, your browser or device type and which pages you ask for. We use this to keep Tack Notes running and secure, for example to stop someone guessing passwords. Our web server records only errors. Those entries keep a shortened IP address and the page path, never search terms or note content, and may be kept for several months. Application logs never contain the words in your notes and are deleted within about two weeks, usually within days. Counters that limit wrong passwords hold a scrambled form of the email address and IP address for up to an hour.

Paying for Pro

Pro isn’t on sale yet. When it is, payments are handled by Stripe. We receive your name, email address, country, the card’s brand and last four digits, and your payment history. We never see or store your full card number.

Other things you send us

• The Pro waitlist: your email address and which page you joined from, so we can tell you when Pro opens.
• Emails to us, so we can reply.

Our legal reasons

Data protection law asks us to name a legal basis for each use. Running your account, your notes and anything you pay for is needed to provide the service you asked for (contract). Security, preventing abuse and improving Tack Notes are our legitimate interests, balanced against yours. Website analytics and the Pro waitlist rely on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. Keeping payment records relies on legal obligations.

What we never do

• Sell, rent or trade your data. To anyone. Ever.
• Show you ads, or use your notes to target ads anywhere else.
• Send your notes or your voice to an outside AI company, or use them to train AI models.
• Track you inside the app once you’re signed in.
• Make it hard to leave. Your download is one click and includes everything.

Who can see your notes

• You.
• People you share a note with, for that note only, until you stop sharing it.
• Anyone with a read-only link you create, for that note only. Search engines are told not to list these pages, and turning the link off removes the page.
• Our team, only when we must. Notes are stored on our servers, so the few people who run them could technically reach them. Our rule is that nobody opens a person’s notes: not to debug, not out of curiosity. The only exceptions are when you ask us to and give permission (for example, to help with a problem), or when the law requires it.
• Authorities, only with a valid legal order. We check every request, give only what the order requires, and tell you about it unless the law forbids us.

Companies that help us

A few companies run parts of Tack Notes for us. They may only use your data to do that job for us, under contracts that require them to protect it.

Who	What they do	What they handle
DigitalOcean (USA)	Our servers, in New York	Everything stored in Tack Notes, including backups
Cloudflare (worldwide)	Delivers the site quickly and blocks attacks	Every request passes through it, so it sees IP addresses and pages requested. It only keeps copies of our public pages, never your notes.
Google	Sends our emails (Google Workspace)	Your email address and the email itself, such as an invitation showing a note’s title
Google (Firebase)	Delivers notifications to the Android app	A device address and the notification’s text: a reminder shows the note’s title and first words
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo	Sign in with your account there, if you choose to	The sign-in itself
Your browser’s push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft)	Delivers notifications to your computer	Encrypted messages they can’t read
Google Analytics	Counts visits to our public pages, only if you say yes	See analytics
Stripe (when Pro goes on sale)	Takes payments	Your payment details

Where your data lives

Our servers are in New York, in the United States. If you live in the UK or the EU, that means your data leaves it. The companies that receive it in the US, such as DigitalOcean, Cloudflare and Google, are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, which the European Commission and the UK government recognise as giving protection equivalent to European law. Their data processing agreements with us also include the EU’s Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum) in case that framework ever stops applying.

How we protect it

• Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS, TLS 1.2 or newer), between your device and us and between our servers and the companies above.
• Passwords are stored only as hashes, two-step sign-in is available, and repeated wrong passwords are blocked per account, not just per connection.
• Browser sessions are encrypted and end after 30 days. Changing your password signs out every other browser and phone.
• Images in notes load through private links that stop working within two days, so an image address that gets passed around doesn’t keep working.
• Database errors are recorded without the contents of notes, so your words don’t end up in our logs.
• Backups are made every night so a failure doesn’t lose your notes. They’re kept for up to 21 days and only our server administrators can reach them.

What we don’t do yet. Our servers’ disks and our backups are not yet encrypted at rest, and backups are not yet kept anywhere other than our hosting provider. Both are on our list, and we’ll update this page when they’re done. We also don’t offer end-to-end encryption, where only your devices could read your notes. It would stop search, smart search, automatic labels, link previews and shared notes from working as they do now, because our servers couldn’t read your notes to do those things. If we add it as an option, we’ll explain it here.

If something ever goes wrong and your data is exposed, we’ll tell you and the regulator as the law requires, and explain what happened.

How long we keep things

• Your account and notes: for as long as you have an account.
• The trash: notes you delete stay 7 days so you can change your mind, then they are deleted for good.
• Deleting your account removes your account, every note you own, their images and files, your labels, reminders, settings and notifications from our servers straight away. Copies in our backups are gone within 21 days. Notes other people own and shared with you stay theirs.
• Recent searches: the last 10 only. Imports: deleted within an hour of finishing.
• Application logs: within about two weeks, usually days. Web server error entries (shortened IP address and page path only): may be kept for several months.
• Payment records, once Pro is on sale: 10 years, as Maltese law requires for accounting records.
• The Pro waitlist: until Pro opens and we’ve told you, or until you ask us to remove you.

Your control and your rights

Most of this you can do yourself in Settings, straight away:

• Take everything: “Download all notes” gives you a zip with every note, label and link (as JSON, which other apps can read) and every image and file under its own name.
• Change your details: your name, email, password and how you sign in.
• Delete your account, with everything in it.
• Sign out everywhere else, and see where you’re signed in.
• Turn off search history and change cookie choices (“Cookie settings” at the bottom of every public page).

You also have the right to ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, delete it, limit or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a form you can take elsewhere. Email [email protected] and we’ll reply within a month. It’s free.

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to a regulator: in Malta, the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (idpc.org.mt); in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk); or the regulator where you live in the EU.

Analytics, cookies and your device

Google Analytics: public pages only, only with your yes

To understand which of our public pages people find useful (the home page, pricing and guides), we use Google Analytics, but only if you say yes when we ask. If you say no, or don’t answer, nothing is sent. It never runs inside the app once you’re signed in, so it never sees your notes.

When it does run, Google only gets a cleaned name for the page (never the real address or anything you searched for), and we’ve turned off Google’s advertising features. When someone who said yes creates an account or joins the Pro waitlist, our server tells Google Analytics that it happened, with an anonymous analytics number and never your email address. Change your mind any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of any public page.

Cookies

Name	Why	How long
tack-notes-session	Keeps you signed in (needed)	Up to 30 days
XSRF-TOKEN	Stops other websites acting as you (needed)	Up to 30 days
_ga, _ga_*	Google Analytics on public pages, only if you said yes	Up to 2 years, or until you say no

Storage on your device

So Tack Notes opens and lets you write with no signal, your browser and the Android app keep a copy of your notes on the device, plus any changes waiting to be sent. Signing out removes them. Your browser also remembers your light or dark mode and your answer about analytics. None of this is a cookie or leaves your device.

Children

Tack Notes is for people aged 16 and over. We don’t knowingly keep data about younger children. If you think a child has signed up, tell us and we’ll delete the account.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect, and the date at the top will change. Earlier versions are available on request.

Anything else: [email protected], or write to tacknotes.com, AA PH, Camilleri Buildings, Oratory Street, Naxxar NXR 2504, Malta.