Dictation privacy and how Stenograph handles your data
People dictate client matters, patient letters and unreleased plans, so the handling of voice and text has to be simple to explain and easy to check. Here is exactly what happens to your audio, your text and your account, what admins control, and what we do not claim.
Listening
Audio is processed and then deleted
When you dictate, the audio of that utterance is sent over an encrypted connection, turned into text and then deleted. It is not kept on our side after processing, not for dictation, not for meeting recordings once their transcript exists, and not for the demo. The microphone is on only while you speak, so there is no background recording to worry about.
- Microphone active only between your tap and your pause
- No always-on listening and no wake word
- Audio deleted once the text is produced
- Uploaded files removed after their transcript is ready
Text history is optional and deletable
Your dictated text lives in the app you wrote it in. Stenograph can also keep a searchable history of what you dictated and transcribed, which is handy when you want to reuse a paragraph, but it is your choice. You can turn history off entirely, delete single entries, or clear everything at once, and deleted text is gone from your account.
- History on or off, per account
- Delete one item or the whole history
- Transcripts and meeting notes deleted with the same controls
Your content never trains AI models
Your audio, your text, your custom terms and your meeting notes are never used to train AI models, ours or anyone else's. Recognition and formatting are performed by AI model providers that process content for us under contract, only to return the result, and without training on it. We name them as a category rather than as companies.
Encryption in transit and at rest
Every connection between your devices and Stenograph uses TLS encryption. Stored data, such as your account, dictionaries, writing styles and optional text history, is encrypted at rest with our hosting provider. Access to production systems is limited to the people who operate the service.
- TLS for every request from the desktop app, the extension and the keyboard
- Encryption at rest for account data and stored text
- Restricted operational access
Admin controls for teams and organizations
On Team, an admin console shows who has a seat, manages shared dictionaries and writing styles, and reports usage. Enterprise adds the controls larger organizations expect, so IT can run Stenograph like the rest of its software. See the plans on the stenograph pricing page.
- Seat management and shared dictionaries on Team and Enterprise
- SSO (SAML) for sign-in through your identity provider on Enterprise
- SCIM provisioning and deprovisioning on Enterprise
- Data retention controls that set how long history is kept on Enterprise
- Audit log of admin and account actions on Enterprise
- DPA sent by email for Enterprise customers
Account deletion
You can delete your account from the settings at any time, or ask for it by writing to [email protected] from the email address on the account. Deletion removes your text history, transcripts, dictionaries and settings. Billing records that the law requires us to keep are retained only for that purpose.
What we do not claim
We do not claim HIPAA compliance, SOC 2, ISO 27001 or any other certification, and we do not sign business associate agreements. What we offer instead is a clear description of how audio and text are handled, which you can compare with your own requirements. Clinicians, attorneys and other regulated professionals follow their organization's policy on patient identifiers, client confidential information and approved tools. The medical dictation software and legal dictation software pages explain how professionals in those fields typically work with dictation.
Report a security issue
If you believe you have found a vulnerability or a privacy problem in Stenograph, write to [email protected] with "Security" in the subject line. Describe what you found, the steps to reproduce it and the app or page involved. Please do not access other people's data or disrupt the service while testing, and give us a reasonable time to fix the issue before sharing details publicly.
Dictate with privacy you can explain
Try a short recording in the demo and see the audio handling for yourself, then read the stenograph faq for more answers or get started on a plan.