Privacy Policy

Draft - written to accurately describe what the app does today. Not reviewed by a lawyer. Treat as informal until legal review, especially once real payments/accounts are involved (see "Coming later" below).

Sonai is a free, hands-free voice translator. Here's exactly what happens to your data, in plain language.

The short version

• Sonai runs no server of its own and has no database. There is nothing on our end for your conversations or audio to be stored in.
• On-device (local) mode processes translation entirely in your browser. Nothing about what you said or its translation is sent anywhere for that part.
• Your conversation history and settings live only in your own browser's local storage, on your own device. We never see it, and it's never uploaded anywhere.
• If you choose Groq mode (optional, requires your own API key), your audio and text go directly from your browser to Groq - never through us.

In more detail

Translation

On-device mode (default, free): translation runs entirely inside your browser using downloaded AI models - nothing you say or its translation is transmitted anywhere for this to work. The first time you use it, your browser downloads the translation model files (a few hundred MB) from public model hosting (Hugging Face). That's a one-time download of our files to your device - no data about you or what you say is included in or sent alongside that download. The files are then cached by your browser so this only happens once.

Speech recognition in on-device mode uses your browser's own built-in voice recognition feature (the standard Web Speech API). For most browsers (e.g. Chrome), this sends your audio to the browser maker's own servers (e.g. Google) to convert it to text - that's a feature of your browser itself, not something Sonai adds, controls, or has access to. Sonai never receives or stores that audio.

Groq mode (optional, bring-your-own-key): if you add your own Groq API key in Settings, your speech audio and the resulting text are sent directly from your browser to Groq's API for transcription and translation, using your key. This goes straight from your device to Groq - we never see or store it. See Groq's own privacy policy for how they handle it.

What's stored, and where

• Conversation history (what was said and its translation): stored only in your browser's local database (IndexedDB), on your device. Never uploaded. Deleting a message, or clearing your browser's site data, removes it for good.
• Settings (language pair, translation mode, voice choices, mic sensitivity): stored only in your browser's local storage, on your device.
• Your Groq API key, if you add one: stored only in your browser's local storage, on your device. Never sent to us - only used directly between your browser and Groq.

We don't use analytics, tracking, or advertising of any kind.

Third parties involved

• Hugging Face: hosts the public translation model files on-device mode downloads. A one-time file download, not a data submission.
• Groq: only if you opt into Groq mode with your own key - see above.
• Google Fonts: the app loads its typeface from Google's font service, which is a standard, widely-used practice but does mean your browser makes a request to Google when the app loads (the same way it would for almost any website using web fonts).
• Your browser's speech recognition provider (e.g. Google, for Chrome) - see above.

None of these receive your conversation content, except Groq, and only if you've explicitly opted into Groq mode with your own key.

Coming later: optional donations

Sonai is free forever - there's no paywall or subscription, and this won't change. We're planning an optional way to support the app financially (small one-time donations via Stripe), with a small badge as a thank-you. This isn't built yet. When it is, a badge that follows you across devices will need some form of account - we'll update this policy with the specifics (what's stored, for how long, and how to delete it) before that feature goes live, not after.

Questions

This is a small, two-person project. If you have questions about any of this, contact details will be added here.