Security & data handling

For Dictera 0.9.4 · Last updated: 26 October 2026 · This page is written to be forwarded. If someone has to approve Dictera before you can install it, this is the document for them.

The short version: speech recognition and the built-in AI model run on your Mac, and audio is never uploaded to be transcribed. The app has no account system, no analytics SDK and no telemetry of any kind. On its own it contacts two places: our licensing service, at launch and about once a day, and dictera.app for updates. Everything else starts from something you do or switch on: downloading a model; the notch's online features - Apple Weather once you give it a place, cover art for songs streamed from Apple Music, synced lyrics, Recognize Song; or connecting a cloud AI provider or the Claude Code CLI, which then receives the text you process under your own account, including what some features send on their own once it is set up (section 1.2).

What changed in this version, for anyone who approved an earlier one:

The notch's online features add five destinations to section 1: Apple Weather, Apple Maps, Apple's music catalog, LRCLIB and Shazam.
Your license key, the activation ID for this Mac and the purchase email moved from the preferences file into the macOS Keychain (section 3).
Automatic answers during a call, and sending attendee names from your calendar to a remote AI engine, are now off until you switch them on. A meeting countdown nobody answers no longer records. Saved assistant sessions can be set to expire.
Clipboard history (off by default) and the notch's recent screenshots are new files on the Mac (section 2).
Input Monitoring is no longer requested. Location, Music, folders and notifications are asked for by the feature that needs them (section 5), and section 5.1 lists what the notch does to your Mac.

1. Everything that leaves the Mac

This is the complete list. If a version adds a destination, it is added here, in the Privacy Policy and in About ▸ Privacy Details in the same release. Some of Apple's services are reached through processes of macOS itself on Dictera's behalf - the speech model download among them - so a firewall may show them under those processes rather than under Dictera.

Destination	What is sent	When	Triggered by
Our licensing service Google Cloud Run, EU region; it checks licenses with Lemon Squeezy	A SHA-256 hash of a hardware identifier of this Mac. Once you have a license, also your license key and the activation ID for this Mac. On activation, the computer name of your Mac - which often contains a person's name.	At launch, then every 20 to 28 hours; and when you activate, refresh or deactivate a license.	The app, on a schedule; you, when you activate, refresh or deactivate
dictera.app	Nothing but the request; no system profile. Returns the update feed, and serves the update itself.	Update checks, on Sparkle's schedule, and when you choose Check for Updates…	The app, on a schedule. Switch off Automatically Check for Updates in Settings ▸ General
Hugging Face	Nothing but the request itself; you receive model files. They see standard technical data such as your IP address. Language-model files are checked against a pinned SHA-256 before they are installed.	Only while a model is downloading, or just before a reinstall.	You, by choosing a model
Apple speech model, via macOS	macOS downloads Apple's speech model for your language. Dictera sends Apple nothing itself.	Once per language.	You, by using Apple's model - the default
Apple Weather WeatherKit	The coordinates of the place you asked about: the approximate location of this Mac - Dictera asks macOS for reduced accuracy only - or those of a town you typed. Apple returns the forecast; its data sources are listed in Apple Weather's legal attribution.	When the notch opens and the last reading is more than 15 minutes old, and from the Weather page's refresh, at most once a minute. Nothing at all until you connect a location or type a town.	You, by choosing Use My Location or typing a town. Switch off Show the Weather in Settings ▸ Notch
Apple Maps geocoding, through MapKit	The same approximate coordinates, to name the town; or the town you typed, to find it and its time zone.	Once per town: a new location within 10 km keeps the name it already has.	As for Apple Weather
Apple's music catalog itunes.apple.com, and Apple's artwork servers	The title and artist of a song Apple Music is streaming, and your region; then the cover image. Songs in your library show their own cover and are never looked up.	For each new streamed song, while Show What's Playing and Find Cover Art Online are both on - they are by default - and Dictera has access to Music.	You, by allowing Dictera to control Music. Switch off Find Cover Art Online in Settings ▸ Notch ▸ Music
LRCLIB lrclib.net, off by default	The title, artist, album and length of the song shown, and a User-Agent naming Dictera and its version.	For each song the notch shows, once lyrics are on. Songs played while the notch is closed are never looked up.	You, by saying yes in the lyrics column or switching on Synced Lyrics in Settings ▸ Notch
Shazam Apple, through ShazamKit	A fingerprint of the sound the microphone hears - not the audio itself; after a match, the song's cover image. Add to Shazam saves the song to your own Shazam library.	Only when you press Recognize Song, or Add to Shazam.	You
Lemon Squeezy	Whatever you enter at checkout, in your browser. We never receive full card details.	Only when you buy, or open the customer portal.	You
Your chosen AI provider or network server opt-in, off by default	The text the feature works on, sent as a chat request with your API key if it needs one. For the AI Assistant that includes the transcript, screenshots you captured or pasted, and the attendee names in your Meeting Setup - section 1.2 lists it feature by feature.	Every request, once configured - including the ones the app makes on its own (section 1.2).	You, by configuring it
Anthropic, or Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry or another endpoint Claude Code CLI, opt-in, off by default	Your conversation and the transcript, the contents of files it reads in the folder you picked, and screenshots you ask about. Claude Code can also search the web and fetch web pages itself, and use the connector (MCP) tools you allowed.	Every request, once configured. Also, while a Claude Code model is selected in the AI Assistant, a short connector check at launch - at most once a day, or at every launch while it has found no connectors.	You, by configuring it. Where requests go follows your own Claude Code settings and sign-in, including any `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`

Links you click in the app - a meeting's join link, a song's page in Apple Music or Shazam, Apple Weather's data sources, a link from your clipboard history, checkout - open in your browser. They are not requests Dictera makes.

Audio is never uploaded to be transcribed. Dictation, the AI Assistant and Meeting Notes transcribe in real time and never write audio to disk as a recording. Sound is involved in two other things, and both are your choice: Recognize Song sends Shazam a fingerprint of the sound - not the audio itself - when you press it; and a screen recording from the notch includes the microphone or the sound your Mac plays only if you switch that on (both are off by default), and it is saved as a file in your recordings folder. What can be sent to a remote model is text, plus screenshots you capture or paste for the AI Assistant, and only if you set one up.

The calendar integration adds no destination. Dictera reads the calendar database macOS already keeps on this Mac, through EventKit - for the Up Next widget and the meeting countdown on the notch, and to link a recording to its meeting. It makes no network request of its own, contacts no calendar provider, and never writes an event. It is off until you switch it on. Names read from an invite reach a remote AI engine only if you switch on Send attendee names to remote engines in Settings ▸ Calendar; it is off by default, and with it off, names from your calendar only reach models running on this Mac. Names you type into Meeting Setup yourself go with the request either way. Before a meeting, the countdown asks whether to record it; if nobody answers, nothing is recorded - only Record automatically, chosen on purpose, starts a recording by itself. Email addresses are never stored at all, in any case: the app's calendar model has no field for one.

1.1 What is not there

No analytics or telemetry in the app. No Google Analytics, Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, Sentry, PostHog, Mixpanel or Amplitude. Not disabled by default - not present in the binary. This website is a separate thing and does use Google Analytics, but only if you allow it when asked, and it can only ever see pages on dictera.app - never anything you do in the app. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what that collects.
No account system. No signup, no email, no password, no profile.
No crash or usage reporting. If Dictera crashes, we don't hear about it.
Three direct dependencies, all open source: the speech runtime (FluidAudio), the update framework (Sparkle) and the local model runtime (LocalLLMClient, which brings llama.cpp). They are credited in the About window, under Acknowledgements.
No access to Contacts, Photos, Bluetooth or Full Disk Access, and no Input Monitoring permission. Dictera never asks for them.
No private now-playing framework. What's playing comes only from Apple's Music app, which announces each song to any app that listens, and from Music itself once you allow Dictera to control it.

1.2 What an AI engine you connect receives

This applies only to a feature you point at a cloud provider, a server on another computer, or the Claude Code CLI. The built-in model, or a server on this Mac such as Ollama or LM Studio, sends nothing off the Mac.

Feature	What goes to the engine	When
Cleanup, Correct Selection and Edit Selection	Your dictated text; the text you select to correct or edit, and your spoken instruction	Each use
Translation	The text you translate, dictated or selected	Each use
Assist	The call's transcript, what you ask, what the template you picked says (who you are, the other participants, extra context), and the latest screenshot you captured or pasted	Each answer. With Answer questions automatically on - it is off by default - also every time the other person asks a question, without you pressing anything
Meeting Notes	The meeting's transcript, what you ask, your Meeting Setup (role, context and attendee names - names from your calendar only if you allow it), and the latest screenshot in the session	When notes are written, and with each question
Chat and Ask Dictera	What you write, and screenshots or pictures you add	Each message
Session title and summary	The opening of a finished session's transcript, and up to 12 of your series labels	When a saved session ends, on its own; very short sessions are skipped

2. What is stored, and where

Your content is in plain files in ~/Library/Application Support/Dictera/, and your settings are in the standard macOS preferences file. Dictera syncs nothing. Deleting those two removes your content and settings, but not everything Dictera has put on the Mac: the speech models you downloaded live in the speech runtime's own folder, ~/Library/Application Support/FluidAudio/; screenshots and recordings you saved are your own files, in the folder you save them to; and the macOS Keychain holds the API keys for any provider you configured, your license key with its activation ID and purchase email, and the date your trial started (app.dictera.trial), which stays on purpose so that reinstalling doesn't restart the trial. The table lists each of them.

File	Contents	Controls
`history.json`	Your transcriptions - and the original wording when cleanup or translation changed it - with date, length and model	30 days by default (24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or Forever), up to 500 entries; pinned ones are never pruned. Export, Clear All, or switch off Save Transcription History
`stats.json`	Daily word, session and time counts - never text	Up to 365 days of counts. It can't be switched off; Reset… in Settings ▸ Dictation ▸ Statistics clears it
`vocabulary.json`	Your custom replacements	Edited in Settings
`assistant-sessions.json`, plus one file per session in progress	Assistant transcripts, answers and notes, your labels, and the generated title and summary - plus, if you connect Calendar, a snapshot of the meeting a session was linked to: its title, time, join link and the names on the invite	As long as Keep Sessions For says - Forever by default, or 30 days, 90 days or 1 year from the last time a session was used, and never while it is open or recording. Searchable, exportable, deletable; switch off Save Assistant Sessions and new sessions aren't saved
`assistant-diagrams/`	The diagrams in saved answers, each as a picture and as a vector for the full-size view, so a session opened again shows them at once	Only while a saved session still has the diagram, and never more than 30 days unused; deleted with the session. Nothing is written while Save Assistant Sessions is off
`assistant-screenshots/`	One image per screen capture you took, and per image you pasted into a question	Capped at 250 MB, oldest removed first; deleted with the session, including when it expires
`Clipboard/`	What you copy - text, links, pictures, files and colors - with the name of the app it came from, and the words in copied pictures, read on this Mac. Never anything a password manager marks as secret, and nothing copied in the apps you exclude; the password managers are on that list from the start	Only with Keep a Clipboard History on - it is off by default. 30 days by default (Keep Clips For), at most 500 clips besides pinned ones and 1 GB in all; a copy over 64 MB isn't kept. Pinned clips stay until you remove them. Clear History… in Settings ▸ Notch. The folder is readable by your user account only
`Screenshots/`	Your last 20 screenshots, for the notch's Screenshots page	Keep Recent Screenshots, on by default; Clear Recent Screenshots on that page. The folder is readable by your user account only
`PolishModels/`	The language models you downloaded	Deleted in Settings ▸ Engine Models
`.firstrun`	The date your trial started	-
`~/Library/Application Support/FluidAudio/`	The speech models you downloaded, in the speech runtime's own folder, which other apps built on it share. Apple's speech model is managed by macOS	Deleted in Settings ▸ Dictation ▸ Speech Model
Your screenshot folder where macOS saves its own screenshots - the Desktop unless you changed it; recordings fall back to Movies	Screenshots and screen recordings you save from the notch	Your own files. If iCloud syncs your Desktop, they sync with it
`~/Library/Preferences/app.dictera.plist`	Your settings, including any assistant templates and Meeting Setup defaults you typed, and the engines you added - without their API keys. With Calendar on this also holds which calendars you watch and your per-series recording choices - keyed by the calendar's own series identifier, not by the meeting's title; the only text kept for a series is a label you typed yourself, so it can carry a color. The weather's place - a town you typed, or the one this Mac was last in - with its coordinates and time zone, and the last reading. The notch's layout and Apps page, calculator history, picked colors, emoji use, recent timers, and microphone levels saved while they are muted. The folders Downloads and Wallpaper look in, the pictures you added to Wallpaper, the apps whose notifications stay in the corner, where the camera mirror sits and its shape, and any display Dictera turned off, until it is back on. Never a notification: those stay in memory. Where the notch sits, and where you left it when it's free; the reminder lists the notch leaves out, and the one new reminders go to - never what a reminder says, which stays in the Reminders app. Your license's plan, expiry and activation count - not the key	Labels are renamed or deleted in Settings ▸ History; license details go when you deactivate; the file itself goes when you remove the app's data
Keychain: `app.dictera.license`	Your license key, the activation ID for this Mac and the purchase email	Removed when you deactivate in Settings ▸ License
Keychain: `app.dictera.remote-llm`	API keys for providers you configured	Removed when you delete that engine in Settings ▸ Engine Models
Keychain: `app.dictera.trial`	The date your trial started	Stays after the app is deleted, on purpose; remove it in Keychain Access
Temporary folder	Screenshots on their way to the clipboard or a file, screen recordings while they are being made, pictures you drag off the notch, screenshots handed to the Claude Code CLI for one answer, and a diagram you open in Preview	Deleted once they are done with, or by macOS

No calendar events are copied wholesale. Dictera stores the snapshot above for a meeting you actually recorded, so the notes still say what they belong to after the event is edited or deleted. Meetings you never recorded are read on demand and not written anywhere.

These files are not encrypted at rest beyond whatever FileVault provides. If that matters for your threat model, switch off Save Transcription History, Save Assistant Sessions and Keep Recent Screenshots, and leave Keep a Clipboard History off - with them off, Dictera keeps no dictations, sessions, clipboard contents or screenshots of its own.

The system log. What Dictera writes to the macOS system log never includes what you say or type in readable form: the words it types for you, the text it cleans up, corrects, edits or translates, and the text around your cursor are marked private, so macOS redacts them, and the rest is what Dictera is doing - states, counts, durations, the models and apps involved, and error messages.

3. Credentials

API keys for any provider you configure are stored in the macOS Keychain, never in preferences or a plain file.
Your license key, the activation ID for this Mac and the purchase email are in the Keychain too (app.dictera.license), and Settings ▸ License ▸ Deactivate… removes them. The plan, expiry and activation count are not secrets and stay in the preferences file.
Both kinds are marked kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlock, so they are unavailable until the Mac has been unlocked once after boot.
An earlier version kept the license key, activation ID and purchase email in the preferences file. The first time this version starts, it moves them into the Keychain without contacting our server, and removes each from the preferences file only once the Keychain has handed it back unchanged. If the Keychain refuses one, it stays in the preferences file and the move is tried again at the next launch.
The date your trial started is also kept in the Keychain (app.dictera.trial), so that deleting and reinstalling the app doesn't restart the trial. It holds that date and nothing else.
The Claude Code CLI uses your existing Claude Code sign-in, or the cloud credentials your Claude Code settings point to. Dictera never sees or stores those credentials.
There is no Dictera password to steal, because there is no Dictera account.

4. A guarantee worth reading twice

To place dictated text correctly, Dictera sometimes needs to look at the characters immediately around your cursor - which means looking at a fragment of whatever document you have open. That fragment is never sent to a remote model. When the decision needs a model at all, the app will only ask the built-in on-device model or a server on loopback; if your engine is a cloud provider, Dictera falls back to a local heuristic instead of sending your document anywhere.

This is a design constraint in the code, not a setting you have to find.

5. Permissions, and why each is needed

Permission	Needed for	When it's asked for
Microphone	Dictation, your side of a call, Recognize Song, and your voice in a screen recording if you switch that on	Required - in the welcome flow
Accessibility	Dictera's global shortcuts and putting text into other apps; reading a selection you asked it to fix. On the notch: the volume and brightness keys, Lock Keyboard and Clean Screen, Stay Active, typing into the calculator and emoji search, pasting a clip, noticing a full-screen app, and - once you turn it on - reading other apps' notifications to show them on the notch	Required - in the welcome flow
Paste from Other Apps macOS 27	Putting your clipboard back after Dictera pastes what you said, reading a selection an app won't share otherwise, and clipboard history	Recommended - in the welcome flow. Without it, your words stay on the clipboard
System Audio	Hearing the other people on a call, through a Core Audio process tap	Optional - your first listening session in the AI Assistant or Meeting Notes
Screen Recording	Screenshots and screen recordings from the notch, and showing the AI Assistant your screen	Optional - your first screenshot, recording or capture. Meetings do not need it, and an image pasted from the clipboard does not either
Calendar	The Up Next widget, the meeting countdown, linking a recording to its meeting, and who was invited	Optional - never requested on its own, only when you switch Calendar on or press its Grant button. macOS calls the grant full access, but Dictera only reads: it has no code that writes an event
Notifications	A banner when a timer ends while you're away	Optional - the first time you start a timer. Until then, Dictera's notices go quietly to Notification Center, without a prompt
Location approximate	The weather where you are	Optional - only when you choose Use My Location on the weather card or in Settings ▸ Notch, never in the welcome flow. Typing a town needs no permission
Automation: Music	Showing what's playing in Apple's Music app, and controlling it from the notch	Optional - only from a button you press, never on its own
Reminders	The Reminders page in the notch, its widget, the card when a reminder is due, and Add a Reminder: reading your lists and reminders, and adding, completing, moving or deleting one when you ask	Optional - only when you click Connect to Reminders, never in the welcome flow. macOS calls the grant full access. Until it is given, Add a Reminder (`⌃⌥⌘R`) does nothing, and takes the keys from no other app
Camera	Camera Mirror: the camera's picture, in a window on your screen. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent	Optional - the first time you open Camera Mirror, never in the welcome flow
Files & Folders: Desktop, Documents	Saving screenshots and recordings there; letting the Claude Code CLI read a project folder you picked there; a folder there that you add to the Downloads or Wallpaper page	Optional - the first time Dictera saves there, or looks in a folder you added
Files & Folders: Downloads	The Downloads page, which reads the names, sizes and kinds of the files there, and the sites they were downloaded from	Optional - when you turn Downloads on, on its page or in Settings ▸ Notch; it is off by default
Local Network	An AI server on another computer on your network, such as Ollama or LM Studio	Optional - the first connection to it

The welcome flow asks for what dictation needs - the microphone and Accessibility - and on macOS 27 it recommends Paste from Other Apps. It lists System Audio, Screen Recording, Calendar and Notifications as optional, to grant there or later. Dictera no longer asks for Input Monitoring: every keyboard tap it installs is an active one, and active taps run under Accessibility. Everything else is asked for by the feature that needs it, the first time you use it. Settings ▸ General lists Microphone, Accessibility, Paste from Other Apps (on macOS 27), System Audio, Screen Recording, Calendar and Notifications, each with its current status and a link straight to the right System Settings pane; Location, Music Access, the camera, Reminders and the Downloads folder are in Settings ▸ Notch, next to the features that use them. The app's Info.plist also carries a speech-recognition description, but Dictera never asks for that permission: its speech recognition doesn't need it.

5.1 What the notch does to your Mac

Feature	What it does
Keyboard event taps	Dictera's shortcuts, the volume and brightness keys, Lock Keyboard, and the calculator and emoji search each use an event tap in your login session. Each takes only the keys it handles and passes every other key on - except Lock Keyboard, which takes them all, as it does under Clean Screen. The calculator's and emoji search's taps exist only while that page has the keyboard. A password field's secure input keeps keys away from every tap. All of them run under Accessibility.
Synthesized input	To put text into another app, Dictera presses ⌘V or types the text as key events; to read a selection an app won't share through Accessibility, it presses ⌘C. Clicking a clip in clipboard history pastes it with ⌘V, unless you set clicks to copy only.
Volume and brightness keys	With Show Volume and Brightness on the Notch on - the default - Dictera answers those keys and shows the level on the notch instead of the macOS pop-up. Volume is set through Core Audio. Brightness is set on the display the pointer is on: the built-in display and Apple displays through DisplayServices, a private macOS framework that is looked up at run time; another maker's monitor over its cable, with DDC/CI, where the monitor accepts it; and any other display by dimming its picture with a black layer that lets clicks through and never appears in a screenshot or a share.
Displays	The Displays page sets each display's brightness the same way. It turns a display off or on only when you ask, through a private SkyLight call, and its windows move to the other displays meanwhile; turning off the display you're using asks first, and it comes back on by itself after 15 seconds unless you choose Keep Off. A display Dictera turned off is turned back on when Dictera quits, or at its next launch if it didn't quit cleanly, and the built-in display of a Mac that might not bring it back stays on. Night Shift and True Tone are switched through CoreBrightness, a private framework; Sleep Displays asks macOS to sleep the displays, as `pmset displaysleepnow` does.
Keep Awake	Holds the same display-sleep assertion as `caffeinate -d`, for 15 minutes to 4 hours or until you stop it. Closing the lid, choosing Sleep and locking the screen still work. It is never resumed after Dictera quits.
Stay Active Keep Awake option, off by default	While Keep Awake runs and the Mac has sat untouched for 45 seconds, Dictera moves the pointer to where it already is, so apps that watch for an idle Mac, such as Slack and Teams, keep showing you as active. The same idle clock locks the screen, so while it acts, the Mac does not lock itself when left alone; locking it by hand still works. It pauses while the screen is locked or asleep, a screen saver is up, or another user's session is in front. Needs Accessibility. If your organization requires an automatic screen lock, leave it off.
Lock Screen	The padlock in the notch locks this Mac at once, as Lock Screen in the Apple menu does, through a private call of the macOS login framework; where that call is missing, it presses ⌃⌘Q instead. With Show Widgets on the Lock Screen on - the default - Home's widgets are drawn over the lock screen in a window of Dictera's own, placed there through private SkyLight calls. Only Now Playing, Weather, Up Next, Stopwatch, Timer, Keep Awake, Focus, System Monitor and Battery appear; a click on one never takes the password field's keyboard, and what needs the desktop waits until you unlock.
Clean Screen in Lock Keyboard's menu	Lock Keyboard, with every display covered in black, menu bar and Dock included, until you hold Esc for 2 seconds or click Done. Like Lock Keyboard, it is not a security control.
Lock Keyboard	A keyboard tap that swallows every key, for 30 seconds to 5 minutes or until unlocked - for wiping a keyboard down. It is not a security control: holding Esc for 2 seconds, clicking its key on the notch or choosing Unlock Keyboard in the menu bar ends it, a password field's secure input passes through it, and quitting Dictera releases it. It is never resumed after a restart.
Notifications on the notch off by default	With Show Notifications on the Notch on, Dictera follows Notification Center through Accessibility, reads each banner, and moves the macOS banner off screen while the notch shows it; a banner it doesn't take - an alert that waits for an answer, one from an app you keep in the corner, anything while you dictate or the notch is open - stays with macOS. Clicking the notch's card presses the original banner. The Notifications page keeps them in memory only, and quitting Dictera empties it; when Dictera quits, macOS gets its banners back.
Downloads off by default	Watches only the folders you chose for files arriving, and follows the progress other apps publish for a download on its way - Safari and Chrome do - through the public NSProgress file API. It reads each file's name, size and kind, the address a browser left on it, and a Quick Look thumbnail. Pause and Stop Download go to the app that is downloading, where it allows them.
Wallpaper	Sets the desktop picture through the public macOS call for it, display by display. It reads which picture each display has from the macOS wallpaper store, and never writes to it. With Show on all Spaces on - the default - a picture you pick goes to each of your desktops as you switch to it. Shuffle changes the picture only while Dictera is running.
Camera Mirror	Shows the camera's picture through AVFoundation, in a window on your screen. The camera is on only while that window is on screen, and never while this Mac is locked, asleep or showing a screen saver. Nothing is recorded or saved, and the window follows the eye, like the notch.
Mute every microphone	Mutes every input device in Core Audio, for every app at once, Dictera's own dictation included. A microphone without a mute control is turned down to zero, and its level is kept in the preferences file and restored when you unmute. Needs no permission.
Screen sharing	The notch, the AI Assistant panel and its captures, and the camera mirror, are kept out of screen sharing and recordings by default; the eye on the notch changes that. Chat, the Meetings page and the window that asks whether to record a meeting are never in a share, and while the notch asks about a meeting, shows another app's notification or the Notifications page, or the AI Assistant is listening, the notch stays out too. So do the Reminders page and a reminder's card, always. This is privacy for your own screen: your notes and chats stay out of your screen share. They are kept out of screen sharing and recordings by apps that respect the window privacy setting in macOS.
What it reads	System Monitor reads the processor, memory, disks, network, fans, power and each app's energy use, every two seconds and only while that page is on screen; the fans and power come from the System Management Controller, and grouping an app's helpers under it uses a function only a private macOS header declares. The battery readings - for this Mac and for accessories macOS tracks, such as AirPods - come from IOKit, again with one privately declared call. The notch also reads the on-screen window list, to place itself and to pick a window to record; which app is in front, and whether it is full screen; the apps in your Dock, to suggest some for the Apps page; and the screenshot settings of macOS itself, so that Dictera's start out the same. Focus is switched through the Shortcuts app, with the "Dictera Focus" shortcut you add once, and only when you use the Focus button. The Displays page reads each display's brightness, Night Shift and True Tone once a second while it is on screen, and the Wallpaper page reads the desktop picture every two seconds while it is. Reminders reads your lists and reminders through EventKit, the interface macOS gives apps for them, once you connect it, and changes one only when you ask. None of these readings is sent anywhere.
Diagrams in answers	A diagram in an AI answer is drawn on this Mac by Mermaid, which comes inside Dictera, in a hidden web view whose content policy refuses every network request - so drawing one reaches nothing outside the Mac, whatever the answer asks for. The view is closed after a minute unused.

When your trial or subscription ends, all of this stops with the rest of the app. The notch opens onto one locked page and runs none of its tools. A locked keyboard is unlocked and a black Clean Screen goes with it, muted microphones are given back, Keep Awake - and Stay Active with it - lets go, a screen recording in progress is stopped and saved, the camera mirror closes, and the volume and brightness keys go back to macOS. Nothing you saved is deleted.

6. Distribution and integrity

Signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.
Hardened runtime enabled, with a timestamped signature.
Updates are delivered over HTTPS and verified with an EdDSA signature before installation - a compromised download cannot install.
The app sandbox is deliberately off. Dictation and the notch's keyboard features need global keyboard event taps and synthesized input, which a sandboxed app can't have. That is also why Dictera is not on the Mac App Store. The entitlements grant four capabilities: audio input; calendar access, which Dictera only ever uses to read; location, for the weather; and sending Apple Events, to show and control Music. A build that includes Apple Weather also carries the WeatherKit entitlement. The hardened runtime has no exceptions: no JIT, no unsigned executable memory, no disabled library validation.
Apple silicon only. The app is built for arm64 alone and does not run on Intel Macs.

7. Verify it yourself

Don't take the above on trust - it takes about a minute to check.

Watch the connections. With Dictera running, run lsof -i -P | grep -i dictera in Terminal. Dictate, translate, take meeting notes: you will see nothing beyond an occasional license or update check. Connect the weather and open the notch, or stream a song in Apple Music with Dictera's Music access on, and you will also see Apple's servers - the rows in section 1. Some of Apple's services are reached through processes of macOS itself, so they may not show under Dictera.
Block it entirely. Turn off Wi-Fi once your models are downloaded. Dictation, cleanup, translation, text correction, on-device meeting notes and the notch's tools all keep working - except Apple Weather, cover art, lyrics and Recognize Song, which need the network. A license keeps working offline for 14 days.
Use a firewall. Little Snitch or LuLu will show you every outbound connection attempt and let you deny the ones you don't want. The list in section 1 is what you should see.
Check the signature and the entitlements. codesign -dv --verbose=4 /Applications/Dictera.app, spctl -a -vv /Applications/Dictera.app, and codesign -d --entitlements - /Applications/Dictera.app for the list in section 6.

Any product can claim it doesn't upload your data. Very few can be checked in a minute with tools you already have.

8. What we can and cannot see

We cannot read your transcriptions, meeting notes, history, screenshots, recordings, clipboard history or where you are. They are not on our servers, so there is nothing for us to hand over, lose, or be breached out of. What we hold is what's needed to sell and validate a license: the device hash, the name of your Mac if you activated, the license key and status, and the email address attached to the purchase - plus whatever you choose to send us in a support email, including the setup details the About window adds to it: the app and macOS versions, the model and chip of the Mac, the speech model, and which kind of engine each feature uses, never a server's address or a folder's name. That is described in full in the Privacy Policy.

9. Questions we're happy to answer

If your security team needs something this page doesn't cover - a specific control, a questionnaire, a data-processing agreement - write to info@dictera.app and we'll answer directly.

10. Reporting a vulnerability

If you find a security problem in Dictera, this website or the licensing service, email info@dictera.app with "Security" in the subject, and tell us what you found and how to reproduce it. We will keep you posted while we fix it, and we can credit you in the changelog if you'd like. Please give us reasonable time to ship a fix before you publish details, and don't access other people's data or disrupt the service while testing.