Who we are
Amber Notes is made by Emil Wagman, an individual developer in Sweden. He is the controller of the personal data described here. Questions about privacy go to emil@norditech.se.
This policy covers the Amber Notes apps for iPhone and Mac, the service that lets AI assistants connect to your notes, and the website at amber-notes.vercel.app, including shared note pages.
What we collect
Your account
- Sign in with Apple: Apple gives us an identifier for your account and an email address. If you choose Hide My Email, we only ever see Apple's relay address. We never see your Apple ID password.
- Email and password: your email address and a one-way hash of your password. We never store the password itself.
- Sign-in records: when you sign in, our hosting provider records the time and the IP address and device information of the request, to keep your account secure.
Your profile, if you set one
- The name and photo you choose in Settings. Photos are cropped, resized, and stripped of location and camera data on your device before they're uploaded.
Your notes
- Your notes, folders, checklists, tables, and the images and files you add.
- Earlier versions of each note, so a change can be undone: up to 100 per note. Each version records whether it came from the app, an AI connection, an import or a restore.
AI connections, if you make any
- For each connection: its name, whether it may edit or only read, when it was created and last used, and its access token, stored only as a one-way hash.
- For connections made by signing in from ChatGPT or Claude, also the name and return address the assistant registers, and short-lived access and refresh tokens, stored as one-way hashes.
Shared notes, if you share any
- The link, which note it shows, and whether sub-notes are included, until you stop sharing.
Reports about shared pages
- If someone reports a shared page: the page's link, the reason they give, any contact details they choose to add, and a salted one-way hash of their network address, so one person can't report a page many times. We don't store the address itself.
How the app is used
We count how features are used on our own server to improve the app. We never share or sell it. That means:
- how many notes an AI connection changed on each day;
- which steps of the first-run setup you've completed;
- a random identifier for each installation of the app and its platform (iPhone or Mac), to count how many devices an account uses. It isn't linked to your device's hardware or advertising identifiers.
What we don't collect
- No advertising identifiers, no location, no contacts, and no third-party analytics or crash-reporting tools.
- The Apple Notes import runs on your Mac, and only the notes you choose are uploaded. If you turn on "Also bring over pinned notes", the app reads only which notes are pinned, from a temporary copy of the Notes database on your Mac, and deletes the copy straight after.
Why we use it
We process personal data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on these legal bases:
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account, profile, notes, files, versions, AI connections, share links | To provide the service: store, sync and show your notes | Performance of a contract |
| Sign-in records, rate limits, hashed network addresses on reports | To keep the service secure and stop abuse | Legitimate interests |
| Reports about shared pages | To review and remove content that breaks our Terms | Legitimate interests, and legal obligations where they apply |
| Feature usage counts | To learn whether the app works for people and improve it | Legitimate interests |
We don't use your data for advertising, and we don't make automated decisions about you with legal or similarly significant effects.
AI connections
Nothing reaches an AI assistant unless you connect one. When you connect ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex or another assistant:
- You approve the connection inside Amber Notes and choose read only or read and edit.
- The assistant can then read the notes it asks for and, if you allowed editing, change them. Every change it makes keeps the previous version, so you can undo it.
- What you and the assistant exchange is handled by the company behind that assistant, under its own privacy policy. Notes it reads become part of your conversation with it.
- You can disconnect any assistant at any time in Settings → Connect an AI. It loses access immediately.
Shared notes
- A note you share becomes a web page at amber-notes.vercel.app. Anyone with the link can read it without signing in, and the link may be passed on.
- The page shows the note, your profile name and photo, and your email address unless it's an Apple relay address.
- Shared pages are hidden from search engines.
- Stop Sharing takes the page down within a minute. Images and files on a shared page are served through links that expire after an hour.
- Anyone can report a shared page. Reports are reviewed, and pages that break our Terms are removed.
Where your data is stored
| Service | What it does for us | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase, Inc. | Database, file storage, sign-in and server functions | Frankfurt, Germany (EU) |
| Vercel, Inc. | The website, shared note pages, Mac app downloads and update checks | Pages are built in Frankfurt, Germany (EU) and delivered through Vercel's global network |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple and the App Store, if you use them | Under Apple's own privacy policy |
Supabase and Vercel process data only on our instructions. Both are US companies. Where data could be accessed from outside the EU, for example by their support staff, the transfer is covered by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
All data travels encrypted (HTTPS). Each account can only read its own notes: the database enforces this on every request.
How long we keep it
- Notes you delete stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days, then they're deleted for good, together with their earlier versions.
- Your account is kept until you delete it. Settings → Delete Account removes your account, notes, files, profile photo, versions, AI connections, share links and usage counts straight away.
- Expired AI access tokens are removed a day after they expire.
- Reports are kept while they're reviewed, and as long as needed to deal with repeated abuse.
- Backups: our hosting provider keeps encrypted backups for disaster recovery for a limited period. Deleted data disappears from them as they're replaced.
- Website request logs at Vercel are kept for a short period for security and operations.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you can:
- access your data and get a copy of it;
- correct it (most of it you can edit directly in the app);
- delete it, in the app with Delete Account or by asking us;
- take it with you: your notes are plain text (Markdown), and on request we'll send you everything in a machine-readable format;
- object to processing based on legitimate interests, including the feature usage counts, or ask us to restrict it.
Write to emil@norditech.se. We answer within one month. If you think we've handled your data wrongly, you can complain to the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten, IMY) at imy.se, or to the data protection authority where you live.
Children
Amber Notes isn't directed at children under 13, or in the EU under the age your country sets for consenting to online services (up to 16). If you believe a child has given us personal data, write to us and we'll delete it.
Security
We encrypt data in transit, store passwords and access tokens only as one-way hashes, limit each account to its own data at the database level, and rate-limit sign-in and connection endpoints. The code is open source, so anyone can check how it works. No system is perfectly secure. If something goes wrong that affects you, we'll tell you as the law requires.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, the date at the top changes. If a change matters to you, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Emil Wagman, Sweden · emil@norditech.se