Privacy Policy

Effective August 26, 2026 · PenMark is made by Friis Consult ApS, Denmark

The short version: PenMark has no user accounts, no servers of ours, no analytics and no ads. Your documents, annotations and recordings stay on your device and in your own iCloud. The only time any of your content leaves your device is when you explicitly choose to use cloud AI — and the app asks before the first time it happens.

What stays on your device (and in your iCloud)

• Your Markdown documents, Pencil annotations, meeting recordings, transcripts and generated AI documents are stored in .penmark packages on your device and, if iCloud Drive is enabled, in your iCloud Drive so your own devices stay in sync.
• We cannot access your iCloud content. Syncing happens entirely through Apple's iCloud on your Apple ID, governed by Apple's privacy policy.
• Small counters (how many documents you have annotated on the free tier, and your remaining AI-time balance) are stored in iCloud key-value storage. They contain no document content.

Microphone

PenMark records audio only while you have actively started a meeting recording, and asks for microphone permission first. Recordings are stored inside the document's package — they are not uploaded anywhere by recording alone.

Transcription

• On-device engine: uses Apple's speech recognition. For some languages Apple may process the audio on Apple's servers as part of that service; this is controlled by Apple and your device settings.
• Cloud engine (OpenAI): sends the recording's audio to OpenAI for transcription, and AI insights (summaries, action points, minutes) send the transcript text to OpenAI. This never happens until you have explicitly allowed cloud processing — the app asks the first time, and you can revoke it at any time in Settings ▸ Meeting Transcription. Per OpenAI's API policies, API data is not used to train their models. If you use your own OpenAI API key, that use is also governed by your own agreement with OpenAI.

Purchases

All purchases (PenMark Pro, subscriptions and AI-time top-ups) are processed by Apple through the App Store. We never see your payment details. Your purchase state is verified on-device via Apple's StoreKit.

What we don't do

• No analytics, tracking or advertising SDKs.
• No user accounts and no servers of ours storing your content.
• No selling or sharing of data — we have nothing to sell.

Deleting your data

Delete a document's .penmark package in the Files app (iCloud Drive ▸ PenMark) and it is gone, including its recordings and transcripts. Deleting the app removes all local data. There is nothing to delete on our side.

Changes

If PenMark's data handling ever changes — for example when optional server-backed features are introduced — this policy will be updated first, and the app will ask for any new consent it needs.

Contact

Friis Consult ApS, Denmark · friisconsult.aps@gmail.com