Privacy Policy

Effective 2026-09-20. This is the complete policy for the Backtalk iOS app.

Effective date: 2026-09-20 (replaces the policy dated 2026-09-17; this revision describes Hum it, the Guess it video, the Speed round house rule and the App Store rating card, all new in version 1.3)

Backtalk is a pass-and-play party game for iPhone and iPad published by PANSL LLC (the App Store seller). The short version: the app does not collect, store, share or send any personal data. It has no internet connection and uses no AI service — the in-game "robot judge" is Apple's on-device speech recognition plus a sound comparison inside the app. Everything the app does happens on your device, and nothing leaves your phone or iPad unless you choose to share it through the iOS share sheet.

What we collect

Nothing.

• No accounts. There is no sign-up, sign-in, profile or user ID. The player names and emoji you type on the setup screen are remembered only in the app's local settings on your device, so you do not have to retype them next time; they are never sent anywhere.
• No analytics or tracking. The app contains no analytics, crash reporting, advertising or attribution code.
• No third-party SDKs. Backtalk is built only with Apple's own frameworks (SwiftUI, AVFoundation, Speech, Accelerate, and StoreKit — used for one thing, the App Store's rating card described below).
• No network requests. The app never connects to the internet. It has no servers, and it works exactly the same in Airplane Mode. The only way anything you record can reach another person is if you send it yourself with the share sheet (see Sharing below).
• No AI service. The "robot judge" is not a cloud or third-party AI. It is two things that both run on your device: Apple's Speech framework with on-device recognition required (see Speech recognition below) and a sound comparison written into the app itself (it compares the shape of two recordings). The voice that reads the word in Duel is the standard voice built into iOS / iPadOS (Apple's AVSpeechSynthesizer), reading only words bundled with the game. No recording, transcript, name, score or any other data is ever sent to Apple, to PANSL LLC, or to any AI company, model or API, and the app contains no code that could do so.
• No rating prompt of our own. After the third game finished on this install, Backtalk may ask iOS — once — to show the App Store's own rating card (drawn by iOS through Apple's StoreKit framework). That card is never drawn by the app; whether it appears at all is Apple's decision, anything you tap on it goes to Apple under Apple's privacy policy, and the app is not told what you chose or even whether the card was shown. The app never shows a "rate us" screen of its own, never asks during a game, and asks once per install: it remembers only how many games have been finished and that it has already asked (two values in its local settings, which deleting the app resets like every other setting).

Microphone

Backtalk needs the microphone because the game is about recording a word and playing it backwards.

• Audio is recorded only while a player is recording a take (at most 5 seconds at a time, or 2.5 seconds with the Speed round house rule). The app does not listen in the background or at any other moment.
• Game recordings are written to a temporary folder on your device so they can be reversed and played back during the round.
• Game recordings are deleted when you leave the game. If the app is force-quit or crashes mid-game, any leftover clips are deleted automatically on a later launch (the app sweeps out game folders that are more than about an hour old every time it starts), or right away with the "Delete game clips now" link in Settings. iOS may also clear the temporary folder on its own.
• A game recording is kept beyond the game only when someone taps Keep ⭐, Share ↗️ or Guess it ↗️ on it (see Clips). Nothing is uploaded, and the app never writes to your photo library or to Files on its own.
• At the end of a game the app may play a short highlight reel (up to three clips from that game). It replays recordings that are already in the game's temporary folder on that device; it is never saved or sent anywhere by itself, and it is deleted with the rest of the game's recordings.

You can revoke microphone access at any time in Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone. Without it the game cannot record and therefore cannot be played.

Clips (what you choose to keep)

Backtalk lets the room keep a clip it liked. A clip is kept only when someone taps Keep ⭐ on it, or taps Share ↗️ or Guess it ↗️ (either keeps the clip first, after the consent step described under Sharing). Nothing is kept automatically.

• Kept clips are stored in the app's own folder on your device (its Application Support directory). They are not saved to your photo library, not saved to Files, and never sent to a server.
• The Clips folder is excluded from iCloud backup and from Finder / iTunes backups, so a kept clip never leaves the device as part of a backup either.
• Each kept clip holds the short recordings that make up the clip (the word as spoken, the copy that went into the mic, and the copy flipped back), plus the player's name, emoji and colour, the game mode, the word or tune title when one was spun or typed, the reactions the room tapped, and — for a copy the robot judge scored — the score and the words the on-device speech recognizer heard (see Speech recognition).
• Backtalk keeps up to 100 clips. When a new clip would exceed that, the oldest clip that is not pinned 📌 is deleted to make room.
• You delete clips at any time: swipe a clip in Clips ⭐, use its menu, tap Delete all clips in Settings, or delete the app (which removes every file it created).
• Settings has a switch, Keep & share clips. When it is off, no Keep, Share or Guess it control is shown anywhere in the app; clips you already kept can still be played, pinned and deleted.

Sharing

Sharing is entirely in your hands and happens only through the standard iOS share sheet, only when you tap Share ↗️ or Guess it ↗️.

• The app has no destinations of its own: no server, no upload, no built-in messaging, no social network integration. The share sheet is the system's; you pick where the file goes (Messages, AirDrop, a group chat, Files, Photos…) exactly as you would with a Voice Memo or a photo. The app never sends anything itself and is not told where you sent it.
• What is shared is a single file you made in the room: a short video (the clip's audio with a card), a sound file, a picture of that card, or — from the highlight reel — one video of that game's reel (its clips, each with a title card, and nothing else). The card shows the player's emoji and name, the name of the person they were copying (when the clip is a copy), the robot judge's score when the robot judged that round, the dare and voice filter used, and the reactions the room tapped. Cards never include the speech recognizer's transcript, and never include a photo of anyone. Because a card can carry two players' names, the app asks you to check with the other person before exporting (see the next point).
• Guess it ↗️ makes one more kind of file: a video of up to 15 seconds that first plays the backwards recording under the words "Can you guess the word?" (or the sound, or the tune), with the player's emoji and name on the card from the first frame ("{name} said something backwards"), counts down 3, 2, 1, and only then shows the word and plays the recording forwards. It is built on your device and offered only through the same share sheet, after the same "Ask {name} first" step when the voice in it is someone else's. The word is inside the file after the countdown, so whoever receives the video learns it; a hum's video shows the tune title, never a transcript. Like every share, the app is not told where the file went.
• Before a clip that contains another person's voice is exported, the app asks you to check with them first ("Ask {name} first — it's their voice"). Cancel really cancels: nothing is kept and nothing is shared. Keeping or sharing from the highlight reel always asks, naming every person whose voice is in what you are about to export; the reel's own video names each of them.
• If you choose Save Image or Save Video in the share sheet, iOS asks for permission to add to your photo library. Backtalk requests add-only access and never reads your photos; the app itself never calls the photo library at all — only the share sheet does, on your instruction.
• The temporary files built for a share are deleted when the share sheet closes and again every time the app launches. While a round result is on screen, a preview clip is built ahead of time in the app's temporary folder so Share ↗️ opens instantly; it is deleted with the game (when you leave or quit the game, open Clips, or delete the game's clips), whether or not you ever share it.

Speech recognition (the robot judge)

The game has a "robot judge" that scores each attempt. It is not an AI service (see No AI service above): it runs on your device only. It is optional in Classic, Echo Chain, Decoder and Sudden Death: if you tap "Ask the robot", the app may ask for Speech Recognition permission. In Teams and Duel the robot scores every round, so the app may ask for Speech Recognition once, when you start one of those games; say no and it judges by ear. Breaking a tied vote never asks.

• Speech recognition runs entirely on your device using Apple's Speech framework with on-device recognition required: the app asks for on-device recognition on every request (requiresOnDeviceRecognition) and only uses a recognizer that supports it, so no audio leaves the device. The permission alert that iOS / iPadOS shows for Speech Recognition carries Apple's own standard sentence about speech data being sent to Apple; that sentence is printed by the system for every app that can use speech recognition and does not describe what Backtalk does — Backtalk never asks for server-based recognition.
• It is optional. If you deny the permission, or if your device does not support on-device recognition, the robot judge still works by comparing the sound of each attempt ("ears only"), and the game is unaffected.
• Hum it never uses speech recognition. When the starter hums a tune instead of saying a word (the Tunes deck), there are no words to hear: the robot scores a hum only with the sound comparison inside the app, nothing is transcribed, no Speech Recognition permission is requested for a hum — not even at the start of a Teams game on that deck — and a kept Hum it clip stores no "heard" words. The tune titles the app suggests are its own bundled list.
• The app only ever asks through the standard iOS / iPadOS permission prompt, and never labels a button "Allow" itself. "Ask the robot" on the reveal and "Start" of a Teams or Duel game open that system prompt directly (never for a Sound-effects word, which the robot scores by ear), under a short caption. The Speech recognition row in Settings > Permissions shows a short description of what the permission is for and a "Continue" button that opens the same prompt ("Open Settings" once you have said no); the Microphone row works the same way. Before the first game, "Play" and "Try it" open the system microphone prompt directly, with no screen of the app's own in front of it; if you say no, an explainer offers "Open Settings" and "Not now". The decision itself is made in the system prompt and can be changed in Settings at any time.
• Transcripts are kept in memory for the round being judged and are discarded afterwards — unless the room keeps the clip. A kept clip stores the words the recognizer heard for that copy; they are shown only on this device (on the reveal, on the highlight reel's "The word won" card and in the Clips ⭐ list as "heard: …"), are never put on a shared card or video, and are deleted together with the clip.

You can revoke this permission at any time in Settings > Privacy & Security > Speech Recognition.

Crew stats

Backtalk keeps a small scoreboard for the people who play on this phone: per player name (the name typed on the setup screen — nothing else identifies anyone), the number of games and wins, the current and best winning streak, a few fun counters (rounds won, times the robot agreed, codes cracked…) and the titles those numbers earn.

• Crew stats are stored in the app's settings on this device only. There are no accounts, no online leaderboard, no comparison with anyone outside the room, and nothing is transmitted.
• They are ordinary app preferences, so like your other settings they are included in your device backup (iCloud or computer), and only there.
• Streaks count consecutive wins and change only when a game is played; nothing decays with time and the app never reminds you to come back.
• Reset crew stats in Settings erases them; deleting the app erases them too.

Data that stays on your device

Between launches the app keeps: your preferences (haptics, sound effects, the record gesture, the last mode and round preset, whether a word is suggested each round, fast turns, the sharing switch, the Dark 🌙 look, the Blind vote and Private votes house rules, the Speed round house rule, the Words deck (including Tunes), the Teams switch and the pair of team faces you picked, and Table mode on iPad), the last list of player names, emoji and colours (never which team anyone was on — sides are drawn fresh each game), the crew stats described above, any clips you chose to keep, the number of games finished on this device and whether the App Store rating card has been requested. All of this is stored locally on your device,

is removed when you delete the app, and is never transmitted by the app. Kept clips are additionally left out of your backups.

Duel uses the standard speech voice built into your device to say one of the game's own words; nothing is sent anywhere. The voice is one of the system's ordinary voices — the app never uses a novelty voice, never uses a Personal Voice you may have created, and never asks for permission to. The spoken word is written to the game's temporary folder like any other game recording and deleted with it.

In Teams the two sides' banks (the scores a side collects over one game) exist only inside that game on that device; nothing about teams is written to crew stats or to a kept clip. In a blind vote the app counts the room's votes for that round only; who voted for whom is never shown, spoken or saved anywhere.

Children

Backtalk is suitable for all ages and has no age-gated content: every built-in word, phrase, tune title and dare is written for a 4+ rating. Because the app collects no personal information from anyone, it collects none from children either. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the applicable age in your region), and the app contains no mechanism that could do so. Sharing a clip is a deliberate, per-clip action through the system share sheet, never automatic, and can be switched off entirely in Settings ("Keep & share clips"). Parents and guardians with questions can contact us at the address below.

Your rights

Since we hold no data about you, there is nothing for us to access, correct, export or delete. Everything the app stores is on your device and under your control: delete clips in Clips ⭐ or Settings, reset crew stats in Settings, or delete the app to remove every file it created. If you believe this policy is inaccurate in any way, please tell us and we will fix it.

Changes to this policy

If the app ever changes in a way that affects this policy, we will update this page and the effective date above, and the App Store listing will reflect the change before the update ships. Version 1.1 (September 2026) added the Clips, Sharing and Crew stats sections and updated Microphone, Speech recognition and Data that stays on your device accordingly. Version 1.2 (September 2026) added the highlight reel to Microphone and Sharing, the automatic robot judge of Teams and Duel to Speech recognition, and the Duel speech voice, the new house-rule preferences, team banks and the blind vote to Data that stays on your device; What we collect is unchanged: nothing. Version 1.3 (2026-09-20) added Hum it to Speech recognition, the Guess it video to Sharing and Clips, the Speed round cap to Microphone, tune titles to Clips and Children, the Tunes deck and the Speed round switch to Data that stays on your device, and the App Store rating card to What we collect and Data that stays on your device; What we collect is otherwise unchanged: nothing.

Contact

PANSL LLC

Email: support@lumin-industries.com

Web: https://lumin-industries.com/backtalk/support/ (support) · https://lumin-industries.com/backtalk/privacy/ (this policy)