Privacy

Updated October 7, 2026

AI plans and purchases

Optional Brief Pro purchases are processed by Apple or Google and RevenueCat. RevenueCat receives your stable Brief account identifier and store purchase records to verify access and restore subscriptions. Brief does not receive payment card details. Its backend checks RevenueCat before admitting managed AI and stores per-account credit counters in Upstash. AI request identifiers, with no note content, expire after 24 hours to prevent repeat dispatch. Free credits are one-time; Pro credits reset monthly. Deleting your account immediately removes Brief’s account, shared notes, workspace credentials, and usage counters. RevenueCat customer deletion is attempted immediately. If RevenueCat is unavailable, Brief keeps only a random customer identifier and the deletion-request time in a retry queue until cleanup succeeds. The daily cleanup job normally completes this within 24 hours; a provider outage or permission error may delay it, and support can investigate. This does not cancel your app store subscription; cancel it in store settings first if desired. Store records may be retained under the store’s own policies.

Free AI credits and abuse prevention

Creating an account does not automatically grant AI credits. A supported iPhone can claim 10 one-time free credits after Apple DeviceCheck verifies eligibility. Brief sends an ephemeral DeviceCheck token to its server, which queries and marks a reserved Apple-managed device state. Apple stores that fraud-prevention state for the developer team, and it can remain after app reinstallation or account deletion. Brief does not save the raw token or a permanent device identifier, and the marker is not used for advertising. A new account cannot renew a used phone’s trial. Account credits and paid access remain associated with your Brief account. If a second-hand phone has already claimed credits or verification failed, contact support@withbrief.app for help. Signup and claim throttles use short-lived one-way IP/account identifiers. Aggregated, content-free service usage and upload-byte counters expire within 48 hours. Notes and reminders remain available without a trial or Pro.

Your own AI API keys

You may choose your own OpenAI or Anthropic API key instead of managed AI where enabled. Keys are stored in protected device storage, bound to your Brief account and backend. On web, they are held only in memory for the current session. The selected key passes through Brief’s HTTPS backend to its fixed provider endpoint for the current request. Brief never saves provider keys to its database or logs them; request bodies and credential headers must not be logged by hosting or monitoring configuration. Keys are removed on sign-out, account changes, and account deletion. Remove keys in AI & plan; revoke them in your provider’s console if they should stop working elsewhere. Provider API billing is separate from ChatGPT, Claude, and Brief subscriptions. Testing a key checks provider authentication without generating a paid model answer; it does not guarantee model access or sufficient API balance. Voice transcription still requires an OpenAI key. Brief does not silently use managed AI as a paid fallback.

Your notes and recordings

Brief stores your notes, reminders, screenshots, and original voice recordings in local app storage. An optional Brief account lets you share selected note copies to the cloud and download notes created through a connected AI app. This is not a full backup of your phone’s notes or media. Your device’s backup settings may include app data. Reminders are scheduled on your device; they do not require sending note content to a push notification service.

Brief accounts and cloud sharing

If you create a Brief account, its username, salted password hash, recovery-key hash, selected note copies, active connection permissions, and recent security activity are stored in Brief’s Upstash database. Brief never stores your account password in plain text. Your account recovery key is shown after signup or password reset and stays in protected device storage until you confirm you saved it. Account sessions also use protected device storage. Shared copies include a note’s title, category, summary, next step, completion state, and reminder time; original source text, recordings, screenshots, and phone notification identifiers are excluded. Shared copies remain until you remove them, turn off cloud sharing, or delete your account. Edits to a local note do not update its cloud copy until you choose Update shared copy. This service is not end-to-end encrypted; Brief and its hosting providers process the shared content.

ChatGPT and Claude connectors

You can add Brief as a custom connector inside ChatGPT or Claude and approve access in Brief using a short-lived connection code. Depending on the permissions you approve, the AI app can read your shared copies and create new notes or reminders. Connecting does not import your other conversations. New connector notes download when Brief opens or you refresh shared notes. Phone reminders are scheduled after that download; Brief does not send server push alerts for these notes. A missed reminder is saved as a note without an invented new alert. Remove a connection in Brief to block future access. Content already received by an AI app follows that service’s retention terms and cannot be recalled by Brief. Sign out ends this phone’s account session; existing AI connections remain active until you revoke them.

AI is optional

Before AI sharing starts, Brief asks for your permission. If you allow it, captures and saved note titles, summaries, next steps, and reminder times are sent through Brief’s backend and Vercel AI Gateway to the selected AI model: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), or Google (Gemini). Voice recordings are sent to OpenAI for transcription. AI Gateway may use its hosting partners to serve the selected model. Your date, device time zone, and the content needed for the request are also sent. Saved notes may be summarized automatically when you open your morning brief after granting permission. You can save, edit, and schedule notes without using AI.

Ask Brief

When you choose Ask Brief, your question and text from a bounded selection of saved notes are sent through Brief and Vercel AI Gateway to your chosen provider. This includes titles, summaries, next steps, and completion state. Original text and voice transcript excerpts are excluded unless you turn on Include original text and voice transcripts for that question. Recordings, screenshots, and calendar caches are not sent by Ask Brief. Answers show supporting quotes and links to the selected notes; matching a quote does not guarantee the AI’s interpretation is correct. Questions and answers are kept only in the current screen’s memory, not saved as chat history. Provider-held service records follow the retention terms described below. Declining AI sharing keeps this feature off.

Temporary uploads

AI screenshots and recordings are temporarily uploaded to private Vercel storage. Brief’s backend attempts to delete each uploaded copy after processing, including failed AI requests. Abandoned uploads and failed deletions become eligible for cleanup after one hour and are removed on the next daily cleanup run. A cleanup failure may extend retention. Your local original is kept. Deleting this temporary copy does not delete records retained by Vercel, an AI provider, or a hosting partner under their service terms.

Service records and retention

Vercel and the AI services process the request and may retain service, security, or abuse-prevention records under their terms. Brief requests that text AI responses are not stored as reusable responses, but this is not a promise of zero retention. Brief uses Upstash to keep temporary request counts linked to a one-way identifier derived from private beta access. AI counters expire within 24 hours. Connector sign-in and request counters expire within an hour, with signup and registration counters retained for up to 24 hours. Recent account activity is bounded to 50 entries. Device sessions expire after 30 days; connector access tokens expire after 30 minutes and refresh credentials expire after 30 days. Connection codes expire within 10 minutes, and automatically registered client records expire after 90 days. Removing an account immediately makes its remaining credentials unusable; hashed credential records disappear when their expiry is reached. Hosting services may process network details such as an IP address. Brief does not include advertising, sell your notes, or use an advertising tracking SDK.

Sharing and connections

When you choose Share, your phone lets you select the destination. Copy & open AI places the prompt on your clipboard; you choose whether to paste and submit it in the other app. Original source text is excluded by default. Sending a note to the phone’s Calendar opens a system review screen. Optional account connections use the service’s own sign-in and permission flow. Brief does not import personal AI conversation history or use a personal AI subscription for its own AI requests. Choosing a model in Settings does not link that provider account. Device account sessions, Google profile details, and beta access are kept in protected device storage.

Google Calendar agenda

Google linking requests read-only access to events and your calendar list. You choose up to six calendars and can show today’s meetings in Morning Brief. Brief caches a seven-day agenda, your selection, and up to three viewed month grids in local app storage. The calendar view combines local reminders with selected Google events, independently of the Morning Brief toggle. Month caches are tied to your account, selection, and phone time zone; opening or returning to a month reuses data for up to five minutes, and pull to refresh forces an update. Unvisited months may have no Google data offline. Changing calendar selection clears month caches. It refreshes on opening the agenda, or on opening, refreshing, or returning to Morning Brief with meetings enabled. A failed refresh keeps the last complete agenda. Meeting preparation matches saved notes locally; agenda data is not automatically uploaded to Brief’s AI or cloud service. Explicitly saving a meeting creates an ordinary Brief note and, for a future timed event, a local reminder. That saved copy follows your AI, cloud-sharing, and export choices. Repeated saves preserve the existing note; Google changes do not modify it. Successful Google disconnect revokes access and removes its profile, cached agenda, and month grids. Connecting a different Google account also clears the old caches. Saved note copies remain.

Apple Calendar on iPhone

Apple Calendar is optional and uses your iPhone’s full calendar permission to read events from up to six calendars you choose. Brief does not edit or delete those events. Selected calendars, the Morning Brief display choice, and up to three viewed month grids are stored locally, with five-minute cache reuse and explicit refresh. Cached events can include a title, time, calendar name, location, description, and event link. Meeting-to-note matching happens locally. Calendar caches are not automatically sent to Brief’s AI or cloud service. Saving a meeting creates an ordinary local Brief note; that copy follows your choices for AI use, cloud sharing, and export. Disconnect removes Brief’s selection and caches while keeping saved notes. Revoke the system permission in iPhone Settings to block future calendar access; Brief purges its cached data when it next detects revocation. Calendars already connected through Google may appear twice if selected through both connections.

Reminders and notification actions

You can complete, snooze for 15 minutes, or reschedule a reminder from Brief or its notification. Notification actions open Brief and may require unlocking your phone. Repeating reminders retain one current occurrence: completing advances to the next future date in the series’ original time zone, and snoozing affects only the current occurrence. Completing a one-off reminder cancels its pending alert. Rescheduling can change or remove a repeat schedule. Notification previews follow your saved privacy setting. No reminder actions or repeat schedules are automatically sent to an external calendar or workspace.

Linear and Notion exports

When configured, you can authorize Linear or Notion through a Brief account. Brief stores the connected workspace name and encrypted provider access and refresh credentials in its Upstash database. The encryption key is held on Brief’s server; this is not end-to-end encryption. Brief reads available teams or pages and sends only the text you review when creating an issue or page. Original text requires an explicit choice; screenshots and recordings are excluded. The reviewed text passes through Brief’s backend to the chosen provider. Export receipts retain a fingerprint and the created item’s ID, title, and URL, rather than its body. Server receipts are bounded to 500 and entries older than seven days are removed when another export is submitted. Account-scoped receipts also remain in local app storage to prevent duplicate retries. Browser connection tickets expire after two minutes and authorization state after ten minutes. Disconnecting removes the saved credentials after provider revocation succeeds. Password recovery removes saved workspace connections. Deleting a Brief account removes its server credentials and receipts and blocks further Brief access; revocation is attempted even if the provider is unreachable. Items already exported remain in that workspace under its retention terms until removed there.

Your choices and deletion

Withdraw AI permission in Settings → AI sharing to stop future AI requests; Brief also cancels active requests from this device where possible. Cancellation cannot recall content already received by a service. To delete a note, open it and choose Delete note; its saved attachment and scheduled reminder are removed from Brief. Copies you exported, device backups, and provider-held records are outside that deletion. Delete your Brief cloud account in Profile → Account → Delete account, or remove selected cloud copies in AI connector. Manage subscription is also in Account; account deletion does not cancel store billing. Account deletion removes the cloud account and shared notes and blocks its existing AI and workspace connections; notes on this phone remain. Local deletion alone does not remove a previously shared cloud copy. Remove beta access in Settings, disconnect any optional accounts in Connections, and contact support for questions about service-held data or deletion requests. You can hide note details in notifications and keep reminder titles hidden in lock screen widgets.

Permissions

Photos are chosen using the system picker. Brief asks for microphone access when you start recording and visibly shows recording status; recording stops when the app goes into the background. Notification permission is requested when you schedule an alert. Apple Calendar requests full calendar access only when you choose to connect it. You can change these permissions in your phone’s Settings. Brief does not require location or contact access.

Opt-in automations

Meeting prep, follow-up drafts, and capture workflow rules are off until enabled in Profile → Automations. While Brief is open, enabled flows can send relevant saved titles, summaries and next steps plus selected meeting titles, times and locations or rule directions through the existing AI service. Original text and transcript excerpts require a separate choice; recordings, screenshots, meeting descriptions and join links are excluded. Brief prepares up to three automatic generations per UTC day, counting attempts even if a request fails. Each generation uses one managed AI credit or your own provider bills API usage. Manual retries can use additional credits. Rules prepare Linear or Notion text drafts and do not send them automatically. Generated work and edited drafts use account-scoped storage on this device, capped at 30 records. They expire after seven days and are removed on the next storage read. Turning off a flow removes its prepared work; withdrawing AI permission clears prepared work and turns off AI automations for all local account scopes. Source notes stay as saved. Calendar-aware reminder suggestions are calculated locally from selected calendars and weekday working hours. Calendar availability must be freshly confirmed before approval. Moving a reminder or saving a proposed follow-up commitment requires an explicit review action. Repeating reminders keep their schedule. These automations do not promise background AI generation when Brief is closed.

Automatic memos and AI suggestions

AI may make mistakes. With AI permission and Save memos automatically enabled, stopping a voice recording saves the organized memo and creates separate reminders for clear timed commitments. A time without a day uses its next occurrence in your device time zone. Brief shows what it created, lets you edit the saved notes and reminders, and offers Undo while the result is open. You can turn automatic memo saving off in Settings and review before saving instead. Text and screenshot suggestions require you to choose Save. Always check names, dates, times, and next steps. Untimed voice thoughts remain notes without an automatic alert.

Service privacy information

Contact Brief

For help or a service data deletion request, email support@withbrief.app.