Stop Um, privacy
Stop Um, called Stop Euh in French, detects your ums on the iPhone itself. No account, no sign up, no analytics, no third-party SDK. Only one feature sends anything off the phone: the AI coach, which is optional and runs only after you agree.
The microphone, and what happens to the sound
The app uses the microphone only while you have started listening, and iOS shows its orange indicator the whole time. The sound goes to a small model running on the iPhone, which decides several times a second whether you are hesitating and beeps when you are. While you listen and after, the app transcribes what you say with Apple's speech recognition, on the iPhone, to show your pace and your hedges live and count your pauses after the take. The sound never leaves the iPhone.
AI coach (optional)
If you tap "Analyze with AI", and only after you have agreed to the transfer the first time, the app sends the text of the take (transcribed on the iPhone by Apple), the measurements computed on the iPhone (ums, pauses, pace, voice range, volume), the topic and a numeric summary of your last three takes on that topic. Never the audio.
Live tips (Pro subscription): when they are on, and only after the same consent, the app sends while you talk, about every 30 seconds, the text of the last 30 seconds, the pace, the number of ums and the tips already shown, to get a one-line tip back. Never the audio. A setting turns them off.
This data goes through a relay hosted by Cloudflare, which does not keep the text. It is processed by Anthropic (United States), my processor, which writes the feedback, does not use it to train its models and does not keep it once the feedback is returned, except where required by law or to fight abuse. The transfer outside the European Union is covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, a copy of which you can request.
To limit abuse and spending, the relay keeps for 90 days, for each analysis and each tip, a salted hash of the device's technical identifier (Apple's App Attest key), a hash of the start of the IP address, the time, the number of tokens processed and the cost. These hashes cannot be traced back to who you are, and none of it is tied to an account since there is none.
Legal basis: your consent (GDPR Article 6(1)(a)), given on first use and withdrawable at any time by turning the coach or the live tips off in the app's settings. The coach is optional, the rest of the app works without it. It is meant for people aged 15 and over. The feedback is written by an AI: it can be wrong, it is a practice tool and not professional advice. No decision is made about you from it.
What the app keeps, and where
Each session is kept on your iPhone, the compressed audio, the moments the app beeped and, if you asked for it, the coach's feedback, so you can play your hesitations back. A setting turns this recording off, and each session can be deleted from the list. These files sit in the app's folder, visible in the Files app under On My iPhone.
Deleting the app deletes everything it put on the iPhone. On the relay side only the hashes described above remain, erased after 90 days.
What the app does not have
No camera. No location. No contacts. No advertising identifier. No account. No tracking across apps or websites.
The app's privacy answer on the App Store declares the content sent to the coach (other user content) and the relay's device identifier, both for app functionality, not linked to your identity and not used for tracking.
Your rights and contact
Data controller: Theo Martin, sole trader in France, [email protected]. You can exercise your rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection and withdrawal of consent there. You can also lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority, the CNIL.
Changes
If any of these sentences stops being true, this page changes before the app does.