Privacy policy

Firstlight for iPhone and Android (com.chimestream.firstlight). Last updated: 8 November 2026.

Who we are

Firstlight is made by Chime Stream B.V., Sourystraat 19 B, 3039 SR Rotterdam, the Netherlands. We are the controller of the personal data described here. Contact: [email protected].

The short version

• You sign in with Apple or Google. We get your email address (or Apple's private relay address) and an account id from them. No passwords.
• What you capture lives on your phone and is synced, encrypted, to our server in Germany so it comes back on a new phone.
• To sort a capture, its audio or text is sent to an AI provider for processing only. Nothing is kept by us and nothing is used for training.
• No ads, no analytics, no tracking, no selling of data. Ever.
• Delete your account in the app at any time: Settings → Account → Delete account. Everything goes.

What we process and why

Account data. When you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive a user id from that provider and, if shared, your email address. We use it to create your account, sign you in on your devices and answer support requests. Legal basis: performance of our contract with you (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)).

Your captures. Voice recordings, transcripts, notes, photos, links, the notes and reminders Firstlight makes from them, and your settings. They are stored on your device. To keep them safe and bring them back on a new device, each item and file is encrypted on your phone (XChaCha20-Poly1305) before it is uploaded, and our server stores only the encrypted copy. Legal basis: contract.

Metadata. To sync, our server sees the size and time of each encrypted item, item ids and sync counters. To stop abuse, it keeps short-lived usage counters (for example how many minutes of voice were sorted today) and a keyed hash of your IP address for rate limiting; these counters are deleted after two days. Our server logs record the time, the route, the response code and how long a request took. They never contain the content of your captures, your account id, your email address or your IP address, and they are rotated automatically. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure, fair service (Art. 6(1)(f)).

How the encryption key works

Your notes are encrypted with a key that is created on your phone. So that signing in on a new phone brings everything back without recovery words, a copy of that key is stored on our server, itself encrypted with a server key that only our server holds, and it is given only to a signed-in session of your own account. This is encryption at rest with server-assisted key restore. It is not zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption: in principle our server could unlock your key. We do not do this, our staff have no tool that does it, and the server code never reads your captures. Fully end-to-end key backup through iCloud Keychain and Google is planned for a later version, and we will update this policy when it ships.

AI processing

When Firstlight sorts a capture, the recording or text of that one capture is sent through our relay to an AI provider, which returns a transcript or the sorted notes. The relay does not store the content. We use these providers, in this order with automatic fallback:

• Speech to text: Groq, Inc. (United States), then Mistral AI (France), then Google Gemini API (Google LLC, United States).
• Sorting text: Mistral AI (France), then Groq, Inc. (United States), then Google Gemini API (United States).

We use their paid business APIs, under terms where your content is processed only to answer the request and is not used to train their models. They act as our processors. Transfers to the United States rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. Silent recordings are detected on our side and never sent. The Privacy screen in the app lists every capture that was sent and to which provider.

Subscriptions

Firstlight Pro is sold through the App Store (Apple) or Google Play (Google), who handle the payment; we never see your card details. We use RevenueCat, Inc. (United States) as our processor to check whether your account has an active subscription. RevenueCat receives your random Firstlight account id and the purchase information from Apple or Google, not your captures or email address.

Notifications

Reminders and the daily moment are local notifications made on your phone; they do not pass through our servers. For notifications we send from our side (for example about your account), we use OneSignal, Inc. (United States) as our processor. It receives your device's push token and your random Firstlight account id, never your captures, and delivers through Apple Push Notification service or Firebase Cloud Messaging. You can turn notifications off in your phone's settings.

Where your data is

Our server runs in a data centre in Germany (Hetzner Online GmbH, our hosting processor). Data sent for AI processing is handled as described above.

What we do not do

No advertising, no analytics or tracking SDKs, no profiling, no sale or sharing of personal data with anyone other than the processors named here. Firstlight does not track you across apps or websites.

How long we keep it

• Account data and your encrypted notes: as long as your account exists.
• Usage counters and IP hashes: two days. Server request logs hold no personal data.
• Content sent for AI processing: not stored by us.
• When you delete your account, your account, encrypted items, files, key copy and sessions are deleted from our server immediately. Any copy in a server backup is overwritten within 30 days.
• Support emails: until your question is solved, and up to one year after.

Deleting your data

In the app: Settings → Account → Delete account. This deletes everything on our server, signs you out, revokes Firstlight's Sign in with Apple access where possible, and wipes your notes on that phone. You can also email [email protected] from the address you signed in with and we will delete your account within 30 days. To remove only what is on one phone, use Settings → Delete local data. A subscription is managed by Apple or Google; deleting your account does not cancel it, so cancel it in your store account settings.

Your rights

You have the right to access, correct, delete and export your data (the app's Settings → Export gives you a ZIP of your notes), to restrict or object to processing, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. Write to [email protected]; we answer within one month. You can also complain to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or the authority where you live.

Security

All traffic uses TLS. Captures are encrypted on your device before upload. Sign-in tokens are stored only as keyed hashes. Provider keys never leave the server.

Children

Firstlight is not meant for children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If we change this policy we update the date above, and for important changes we tell you in the app first.