Draft. This page needs legal review before it is treated as the published policy. It describes NewsBot Radio 1.0 as the app is built. It is not a promise about a future version.

Privacy

NewsBot Radio is made by Systems Engineering Center. The support address is [email protected]. This draft was written on 4 November 2026.

The app has no account, no sign-in, and no profile of you on our servers. We do not run an analytics SDK or a crash reporter. The app does not ask for location, contacts, photos, or the microphone.

Advertising

The app plays short audio promotions, including messages about our own apps, Ideon and TreeRings. A switch in the key sheet, “Promos for our other apps”, turns those messages off. It is on until you turn it off.

We plan to add audio advertising from third-party ad partners in the future. When we do, this policy will be updated before that advertising goes live. The update will name the partners and explain what data they receive and the choices you have, including consent where the law requires it, for example in the EU under the GDPR.

Today the app does not include an advertising SDK, and it does not track you for ads. No ad partner is connected, so this draft does not name one or describe data a partner would receive.

What stays on the iPhone

These items are stored on the device. They are not uploaded to Systems Engineering Center.

• Settings. The chosen station, the language (English or Dutch), whether test mode is on, whether xAI voices are on, whether promos for our other apps are on, and the station feed address if you pasted one. Also the Apple voice identifiers you picked for Ara and Leo, when you pick them. These are ordinary app preferences.
• The xAI API key, in the Keychain. If you paste a key, it is saved as a Keychain password for this app, available after the first unlock. It is not written into the settings list. The app does not display it in logs. The in-app Save button stores a key only when the field is not empty. Clearing the field and saving does not delete the key. Deleting the app removes it.
• Stories already heard, for the local day. A file on the phone keeps today’s date, up to 300 headlines, up to 800 source addresses, and up to 24 newsroom names, so the same story is not read again that day. When the local calendar day changes, that file is ignored and replaced the next time the app saves it. It is not sent to us.
• A short news cache. The latest search brief (headlines, the recorded facts, source names and addresses, and the public posts that were summarized, including handles) is kept for about 18 minutes so the phone does not pay for the same search again.
• A small library of shows. Up to 12 segments per station and language, including the script and a copy of the audio, so test mode can replay them. Older segments in that list are dropped as new ones are saved.
• Music cache. A short original instrumental bed for each station, in the cache folder. Playing it does not contact a server.
• Temporary audio. Spoken segments are written in the temporary folder while they play, and removed as the queue moves on.
• Memory that ends when you leave. A refill log of the last 50 stories in the current session (a shortened title and timings) is shown in the key sheet and is not saved to disk. The app also remembers a few recent host openers for that session only, so the next script does not repeat them.

Debug builds can write a local system log of pipeline stages and refill timings. Those logs are not a network service. A release build does not write them. The log is written so that an API key string is redacted.

What is sent off the phone

xAI, when you make a live show on the phone

This happens only when a key is saved, test mode is off, and the station feed field is empty. The phone calls api.x.ai directly. The requests use an in-memory session that does not keep a cookie jar.

• The key is sent as a bearer token on those calls. It is sent to xAI, not to Systems Engineering Center. We never receive it.
• Search and script calls send the instructions for the show, including the date, the station, story facts, source names and web addresses, X handles, and what those posts argue. xAI is asked to run one web search and one X search. xAI performs those searches. A repair call may send the model’s own previous answer back so it can be turned into valid data.
• If you turn xAI voices on, the spoken words of a segment (up to about 4,500 characters), the voice name (Ara or Leo), and the language are sent to xAI’s speech API. That switch is off unless you turn it on. With it off, Apple voices on the iPhone speak the show and the words are not sent for speech.

xAI’s handling of those requests is covered by xAI’s privacy policy. Your xAI account, and any charge, is between you and xAI.

Public pages, to check a date

Before a story airs, the phone may request the public source page and read a publication date from the page. The request uses the user agent NewsBotRadio/1.0 and does not include your API key. The session does not keep cookies. For a post on X, the time is taken from the post id on the phone. That check does not fetch the post.

The site you request sees a normal connection from your network, including the IP address the network presents. We do not receive that address.

A station feed, only if you paste one

The feed field starts empty. Empty means the phone does not fetch a shared show. If you paste an https address and save, the phone requests the show script from that address. It does not send your xAI key with that request. While a feed is set, the phone does not call xAI to write the show, and it speaks with the on-device voice.

The address shown as the hint is https://api.newsbotradio.app. Nothing in the app contacts that host until you paste it. That shared desk is not turned on. If it is turned on later, the desk would call xAI with a key the operator stores, not with your key, and phones that opted in would download the script. This draft will need an update before that desk is offered.

This website

newsbotradio.app is a static site. It has no account, no forms, and no analytics script. Choosing light or dark mode stores that choice in this browser’s local storage under the name newsbotradio-theme. The site does not set a cookie of its own. The host, Cloudflare, can keep ordinary connection logs for the request. We do not add tracking on top of that. Writing to support opens your own email app. The message goes to the mailbox, not through this site.

Children

The app is a news radio product. It is not directed at children, and it does not ask for a date of birth. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children because the app does not collect an account at all.

How to delete it

Delete the app. That removes the Keychain item, the settings, the saved shows, the heard-stories file, and the caches from the device. Empty the station feed field and save if you only want to stop fetching a shared show. Email [email protected] if you want a segment left out of a future shared feed. We do not hold a listener database to erase.

Changes

If the app starts sending or storing something this page does not describe, the page should be updated first, and the date at the top should change. A lawyer should review this draft before it is used as the Privacy Policy URL in App Store Connect.