Legal
Privacy policy
Last updated 7 September 2026. Applies to the Simple Note Taker browser extension, the iPhone and Android apps, and https://notes.cstsolution.com.
The short version
- Without an account, your notes never leave your device.
- With an account, we store what you choose to sync — so you can read it on another device. That is the only reason it is stored.
- We do not sell data, we do not advertise, and there is no third-party analytics or tracking SDK in any of the apps.
- You can delete your account and everything in it yourself, immediately.
Who we are
Simple Note Taker is made and operated by CST Solution. The servers are ours, in France, hosted at OVH. Contact: WhatsApp +84 904 879 900.
What we collect
| Data | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To identify your account and let you sign in on a second device | Only if you create an account |
| Password | Sign-in. Stored only as a scrypt hash — we never hold the password itself | Only if you create an account |
| Your notes: text, voice recordings, images, screenshots, files, tags | To sync them to your other devices and give them back to you | Only notes you sync, on a plan that includes sync |
| Device name and platform | So the account page can show you which devices are connected, and you can remove one | On sync |
| Subscription status and store receipt | To know which plan you are on | If you subscribe |
| Server logs: IP address, request path, timestamp | Keeping the service up and abuse off it | Every request. Rotated and discarded within 30 days |
What we do not collect
- No advertising identifiers, no ad SDK, no cross-site tracking.
- No third-party analytics in the extension or the apps.
- No contacts, no location, no browsing history. The extension can read a page only at the moment you capture from it, and only that page.
- No payment card details ever reach us. PayPal, Apple and Google handle payment, and tell us only whether a subscription is active.
End-to-end encryption
You can turn on end-to-end encryption in the app. When it is on, notes are encrypted on your device with a key derived from a passphrase you choose. The passphrase is never sent to us, and what reaches the server is ciphertext we cannot open.
The trade-off is real and we would rather state it than bury it: features that need to read a note — transcription, text-in-image search, and asking questions of your notes — cannot work on encrypted notes. If you lose the passphrase, those notes are unrecoverable. Nobody can reset it.
Who else sees anything
We use as few third parties as we can, and none of them get your notes except where stated:
| Who | What they get | Why |
|---|---|---|
| OVH (France) | Hosting — everything stored, at rest on their disks | The server has to run somewhere |
| OpenAI | The audio of a voice note, or an image, or the text of recent notes — only for the feature you invoked, only on Pro/Cloud, and never for encrypted notes | Transcription, OCR, and answering questions about your notes |
| PayPal | Your payment details, which go to them and not to us | Web subscriptions |
| Apple / Google | Your payment details, and a receipt we check | In-app subscriptions |
We do not sell or share personal information, and we have never received a government request for user data.
How long we keep it
- Notes: until you delete them. A deleted note leaves a marker with no content, so the deletion reaches your other devices; the content itself is removed at once.
- Account: until you delete it. Deletion removes the account, all notes and all attachments immediately.
- Server logs: up to 30 days.
- Billing records: kept as long as tax law requires.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can do all of this without asking us:
- Export — Markdown or PDF, from inside the app, any time.
- Delete — one button on the account page.
- Correct — edit any note; change your email or password from the account page.
If you are in the EU or UK, the legal basis is performance of a contract (running the service you signed up for) and legitimate interest (keeping it secure). You may complain to your national data protection authority. If you are in California, we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA.
Children
Simple Note Taker is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect, the app will say so before the change applies. The date at the top always reflects the current version.