Privacy Policy

1.Who we are#

Tangent is operated by Tangent, based in San Francisco, California ("Tangent," "we," "us"). We decide how and why the personal information described here is used, which makes us the controller under EU and UK data protection law.

This policy does not cover other companies' services, even when you reach them through Tangent. Our Terms of Service describe the rules for using Tangent.

2.What we collect#

Account information

Your email address and password when you sign up, and your first name if you give it. Passwords are stored by our authentication provider in hashed form, and we never see them. To keep your account secure, the authentication provider records when you sign in, along with the IP address and browser or device details of each session.

Content you create

Everything you capture or write in Tangent: thoughts, notes, tasks, plans and their steps, events, goals, habits, "when this happens, I will" intentions, saved ideas, chat conversations (including the text transcripts of voice calls), the original words of notes you dictate and keep whole, your answers in the evening review, and any feedback you give on suggestions or chat replies. This content is the service, and it is stored in your account.

When you save something to Tangent from outside the app, such as the Chrome extension, Siri, a widget, the iPhone share sheet, or a file you add to Tangent on the web, we store what you saved as a note in your account. For a web page, that includes its link and title. For a file, it includes the file's name, type, size and number of pages. We keep the text read from a file, not the file itself. If you ask Tangent to organize a capture, it waits as a note until you next open Tangent, which organizes it under the same AI settings as everything else you write. When an organized capture becomes tasks, the original note moves to Trash, where you can restore it for 30 days before it is permanently deleted.

Files you add on the web are organized right away, and possible tasks from them are saved only after you approve them.

Some people write about their health, relationships, or other sensitive parts of their life. If you do, that information is stored and processed the same way as the rest of your content, only to provide Tangent to you.

iPhone system sharing

On iPhone, Tangent can show task titles and times in widgets. In Siri & Spotlight settings, you choose whether Siri, Shortcuts, and Spotlight can find today's tasks or all open tasks, note titles or up to the first 2,000 plain-text characters of each note, and category names. Private, locked, and trashed content is not shared with these system surfaces. Dropped, archived, and completed tasks are not shared with Siri, Shortcuts, or Spotlight. These choices are stored on this iPhone for your account. Signing out removes Tangent's shared snapshot and Spotlight index from this device. Widgets use their own today and upcoming task view.

Voice

When you record a voice capture, the audio is sent through our server to our transcription provider, turned into text, and discarded. We do not store your recordings. Our server holds the audio in memory only for the length of the request. On the phone, the recording is written to a temporary file on your device before it is sent.

When you dictate a note and keep it whole, Tangent saves the words as you said them first. It then sends that text to an AI provider to tidy it: removing filler words and false starts, fixing punctuation, and adding a title. The tidied note replaces the text you see, and your original words are kept with the note so you can read them or put them back.

During a live voice call, your audio streams through our server to Google in real time, and the spoken replies stream back. The call audio is not recorded. The text transcript of the call is saved to your chat history, the same as a typed conversation.

If the web app cannot get access to a microphone, it may fall back to your browser's built-in speech recognition. That feature is provided by your browser maker (for example, Google for Chrome) under its own privacy terms.

What Tangent works out from your content

To organize your content, Tangent creates information from it: category names and groupings, themes, possible duplicates, Connections and Perspectives, suggested next steps, and a short list of facts you have stated about yourself in chat (such as your name or a preference) so chat can remember them. It also stores recent AI results so the same request is not processed twice.

Tangent also records how you interact with items, such as when a suggestion was shown, put off, or acted on, and the hour of the day you tend to capture things. This is what lets it bring back dropped work at a sensible time and skip what you have already dealt with.

Settings

Your theme and accent color, voice choice, notification preferences, whether Tangent may read items you marked private, your evening review timing, your chosen morning and weekly invitation times, and your time zone.

Device and notification information

If you allow notifications in the phone app, we store your device's push token, its platform (iOS or Android), a device identifier where one is available, and the app version. We also keep a record of which reminders have been sent, so the same one is never sent twice. A notification can include the title of the event or plan it is reminding you about.

Usage limits, access codes, and the waitlist

We count the live voice calls you start each month to apply the free limit. If you redeem an access code, we record which code and when. If you join the waitlist for a paid plan, we store your email address and the date you joined.

Messages you send us

If you use the contact form on our website, we collect your email address, plus your name and message if you include them, and forward them to our own inbox by email so we can reply. If you choose Report a bug in the phone app, Tangent opens an email draft for you to review and send. It contains the description you wrote, app version, operating system version and device model, plus a screenshot only if you selected one and your mail app can attach it. We receive that information only if you send the email. The report does not automatically include notes, logs, or account IDs. If you email us directly, we receive whatever you send.

Our website

Our website counts page events: the name of the event, the page path, and the host name of the site that referred you. These counts use no cookies, and no IP address is stored with them.

Our pages load fonts from Google Fonts, so your browser connects to Google, which receives your IP address as part of that request. Our hosting providers keep standard technical logs, such as IP address, time, and the page or endpoint requested, to operate and secure their services.

Stored on your device

The web app keeps you signed in by storing a session token in your browser's local storage, and it keeps a few preferences there, such as your theme and whether you have seen the first-run guide. The phone app keeps the same kind of information in its own storage on your device. Tangent does not set cookies.

If you choose calendars to show in Tangent, Tangent reads their events on your iPhone. Your events aren't stored on Tangent's servers. When you ask Tangent AI to help you plan, it can see when you're busy but not what your events are, unless you turn on "Include event titles when planning."

What we do not collect

Tangent does not automatically collect your precise location, contacts, photos, or calendar. A screenshot you choose to send in a bug report is the only photo the report can include. Neither app contains advertising or analytics software, and neither sends anything to a crash-reporting company. When an app hits an error while you are signed in, it sends Tangent a short error report: the kind of error, where in the app’s code it happened, the app version and whether you use the phone or web app. Quoted text, email addresses and identifiers are removed before it is sent, and it never includes your notes, tasks, chats or recordings. Reports are stored in Tangent’s own database, are included in Download my data, and are deleted with your account.

3.How we use it, and our legal bases#

We use personal information for the purposes below. If you are in the EU or UK, the law requires us to name a legal basis for each one, and those are listed too.

If your content includes special categories of information, such as details about your health, we process it on the basis of your explicit consent, given when you choose to put it in Tangent and allow AI processing.

We do not use your content to train AI models, and we do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.

4.AI processing#

Most of what makes Tangent useful runs on AI models operated by two providers. We send them what a feature needs to do its job.

When you add an image or a scanned PDF on the web, Tangent AI reads the text in it and saves that text as a note. Tangent doesn't store the image or PDF itself.

• Groq organizes what you capture, writes most chat replies, sorts items into categories, transcribes voice recordings, and tidies notes you dictate.
• Google, through the Gemini API, builds longer plans and does background work such as naming categories and writing Connections and Perspectives. It also runs live voice calls, turns short pieces of text into embeddings for meaning-based search and matching your situation to techniques in its built-in library, and plays the voice samples you hear when choosing a voice. Voice samples use fixed sample sentences, not your content.
• If one provider is unavailable, the same request may be sent to the other so the feature keeps working.

Finding notes by meaning.

When you search or use Ask your notes, Tangent finds notes by meaning, not just matching words. To do that, it sends the text of your saved notes, tasks and plans to Google's Gemini API, which returns a list of numbers that represents what the text is about. We store those numbers with your account and use them only to match your searches. They're deleted when you delete the item or your account. Private, locked and deleted items are never sent, and nothing is sent while Tangent AI is turned off.

What is sent

The text of the capture, message, or item a feature is working on, and the context it needs, such as related items from your library, your first name, the date and your time zone, and facts you have told chat to remember.

Items you mark private are left out of Connections, Perspectives, and category naming unless you turn on Private thoughts in Settings. Marking an item private does not stop Tangent from organizing it when you first capture it.

Morning planning invitations are optional and use the time you choose. If you also allow AI processing, their wording may be generated from whether you have plans today. Task names, note text, private content, and counts are not sent for this wording. Without AI permission or when generation fails, Tangent uses written fallback copy.

How long providers keep it

• Groq: we use Groq with Zero Data Retention turned on, so Groq does not retain the inputs we send it or the outputs it returns.
• Google: we use the paid Gemini API. Google does not use our prompts or responses to improve its products. It logs them for a limited period, only to detect abuse and to meet legal requirements.

AI results you save are stored in your account like the rest of your content. Generated invitation wording is used for the notification; the delivery record keeps its identity and time, without saving that wording.

Your permission

Before Tangent first sends your content to an AI provider, the app asks for your permission and records the version of this policy you agreed to. You can withdraw permission at any time in Settings. AI features will not run while permission is withdrawn, and the content already in your account stays there.

AI can get things wrong. Our Terms of Service explain why you should check anything important before relying on it.

5.Service providers#

These companies help us run Tangent. Each one processes personal information only to provide its service to us.

6.What we do not do#

• We do not sell your personal information.
• We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and there are no ads in Tangent.
• We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

We share personal information only with the service providers above, when you ask us to, or when the law requires it, such as a valid court order. If Tangent is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, and this policy, or one at least as protective, will keep applying to it.

7.How long we keep it, and deleting it#

We keep your account information and content for as long as you have an account. You can delete individual items at any time.

You can delete your whole account in Settings. Deletion is immediate and permanent: your account, content, and settings are removed from our database and cannot be recovered. Settings offers Download my data first, so you can keep a copy.

Our database provider keeps backups so the service can recover from a failure. Deleted data can remain in those backups until they expire on their normal schedule, and it is never restored from them into your account.

• Voice recordings are not stored. See Voice, above.
• Copies held by AI providers follow the terms in AI processing, above.
• Messages you send us are kept as long as we need them to reply and follow up. Ask and we will delete them.
• Technical logs are kept by our hosting providers for limited periods on their own schedules.
• We may keep limited information longer when the law requires it, such as a record that we received and answered a legal request.

8.Your rights#

Wherever you live, you can:

• Get a copy of your data, using Download my data in Settings.
• Correct it, by editing it in the app or asking us.
• Delete it, one item at a time or your whole account from Settings.
• Withdraw your permission for AI processing, in Settings.
• Turn off notifications, in Settings or your device settings.

Making a request

You can do most of this yourself in the app. For anything else, email hello@usetangent.app from the address on your account. We may need to confirm the request came from you. We aim to respond within 30 days, and if a request needs longer, as the law allows, we will tell you why. We will not charge you or treat you differently for exercising any of these rights.

California

If you live in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives you the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose; to access it; to delete it; to correct it; to opt out of its sale or sharing; and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as the law defines those terms. We use sensitive personal information, such as your account login and the contents of what you write, only to provide the service, which is already the use the right to limit allows. You may use an authorized agent to make a request, and we may ask for proof that the agent is authorized.

We collect this information from you, from your device, and from what Tangent works out from your content. California residents may also ask whether we share personal information with third parties for their direct marketing. We do not.

Other US states

Residents of other states with privacy laws, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, and Virginia, have similar rights, including the right to appeal a decision we make about a request. To appeal, reply to our response with "Appeal" in the subject line, or email hello@usetangent.app.

EU and UK

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to access, correct, and erase your personal information; to restrict or object to how we process it, including processing based on our legitimate interests; to receive it in a portable format; and to withdraw consent at any time, which does not affect processing that happened before you withdrew. You also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority, such as the one where you live or work, or the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

9.International transfers#

Tangent is based in the United States, and your account data is stored in the United States (Northern California). Our AI and other service providers may process information in the United States and in other countries. If you use Tangent from outside the United States, including from the EU or UK, your information is transferred to the United States. Where the law requires it, those transfers rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum, or another lawful mechanism offered in our providers' data processing terms.

10.Security#

Connections to Tangent are encrypted in transit. The database that stores your content restricts every account to its own data, so a signed-in account cannot read anyone else's. Our AI endpoints only answer signed-in users, and the keys to our AI providers stay on our server rather than in the apps.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

11.Children#

Tangent is not directed to anyone under 18, and you must be 18 or older to use it. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that someone under 18 has created an account, we will delete the account and its data. If you think this has happened, email hello@usetangent.app.

12.Changes to this policy#

We will update this policy when what we collect or how we use it changes, and the effective date at the top will show the current version. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. Where the law requires your consent to a change, such as a new use of your content by an AI provider, we will ask for it again.

13.Contact#

Questions, requests, or complaints about privacy or these documents: email hello@usetangent.app. We read everything sent there.

Tangent, San Francisco, California