Privacy Policy
Picture Talk · Last updated 28 September 2026
Your photos, the words you type and the recordings you make all stay on your device. The only information that leaves it is anonymous usage counts and crash reports, and you can switch those off.
Picture Talk is made by SwiftyApp. This policy explains what the app does with data, and what it does not do.
Your books
A Picture Talk book is made of your family’s photos, the words you type on them and your voice saying those words. None of it leaves your device. It is never uploaded, never sent to me, and never shared with anyone else.
Books are stored inside Picture Talk on the iPhone or iPad you made them on. Like the rest of the app’s data, they are included in your device’s iCloud or computer backup if you have one turned on; that backup is made and kept by Apple or by your computer, not by me. Picture Talk has no server and no sync of its own.
When a word has no recording, Picture Talk reads it aloud with one of Apple’s speech voices, either one that came with iOS or one you downloaded in Settings. That happens on your device; the word is not sent anywhere to be spoken, and the voice you choose is remembered only on your device.
If you upgraded from Picture Talk 2, your old presentations were converted into books on your device, and the original files were moved to a Legacy folder you can see in the Files app. Nothing was sent anywhere in the process.
Photos, camera and microphone
Picture Talk does not ask for access to your photo library. When you add photos, iOS shows its own picker and hands Picture Talk only the photos you chose. Location information is removed from each photo as it is added, so a book never carries where a picture was taken.
The camera is used only when you choose to take a new photo for a page. The microphone is used only while you are recording a word, and only to record it. Both permissions are optional: without the camera you can still use photos from your library, and without the microphone every spot can read its word aloud instead. Either can be changed at any time in iOS Settings → Picture Talk.
There is no account and no sign-in. Nothing you do in Picture Talk is tied to an identity I hold.
What is collected
Usage counts — Google Firebase Analytics
Picture Talk records anonymous events describing how the app is used, with counts and fixed choices only: that a book was created and how many pages it has, that a talking spot was added and whether by button, double-tap, paste or duplicate, how long a recording was in seconds, how many spots were heard when a book was played, whether the intro was finished or skipped, and similar. It records nothing from inside a book — no photos, no words, no recordings, no book titles and no file names.
Firebase also measures sessions and app updates automatically, and Google works out the country or region from a masked IP address. Firebase gives each install an app instance ID, which is what makes two events part of the same session. It is not tied to you, because Picture Talk has no accounts and no sign-in for it to be tied to, and deleting the app ends it.
Crash reports — Google Firebase Crashlytics
If Picture Talk crashes, a report is sent on the next launch containing the crash itself, the device model and iOS version. When the app shows you an error, such as a book that could not be saved, it records the kind of error and what was being attempted, and nothing else — error details that could contain a file name are removed before anything is sent.
Switching it off
Both are controlled by one switch, Share Usage Data, in Help (the ? in the library). It is on unless you turn it off. Nothing is sent before the app has read that switch, and turning it off stops both and deletes any crash reports not yet sent.
Advertising
There is none. Picture Talk shows no ads and contains no advertising SDK. It does not ask for permission to track you, does not read Apple’s advertising identifier (IDFA), and is built against the version of Google’s analytics library that omits it entirely. Every advertising setting in Google’s analytics is turned off. Nothing it sends is used to build an advertising profile, and nothing it sends is joined with data collected by anyone else.
Purchases and ratings
Picture Talk is bought once on the App Store and has no in-app purchases. The purchase is handled entirely by Apple; I receive no payment details. Now and then the app may show Apple’s standard prompt asking for a rating, never while a child is playing a book; that prompt and anything you write in it are handled by Apple.
Why
Usage counts and crash reports exist to tell me which parts of the app are used and what is broken, so that the next version is better. That is the whole of it; there is no other purpose, and the data is not used to profile anyone.
Who receives data
Google, as the provider of Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics, and Apple, as the operator of the App Store. Nobody else. Data is not sold, and there is nothing to sell — none of it is tied to a person, and none of it comes from inside a book.
Children
Picture Talk is made for parents and other grown-ups to use with young children. The grown-up makes the books; the child taps the pictures and listens. The app never asks anyone, child or adult, for a name, an email address or any other personal information, and nothing it sends identifies a child or a parent. The usage counts and crash reports above describe the app, not the person holding it, and a parent can turn them off in Help at any time.
The player has no links out of the app, no purchases and no ads, and leaving a book needs a grown-up to hold the close button for two seconds.
Your choices
- Usage counts and crash reports can be turned off in Help → Share Usage Data.
- The camera and microphone permissions are optional and can be changed in iOS Settings → Picture Talk.
- Deleting a book deletes its photos and recordings from the app. Deleting Picture Talk removes the app and every book in it; copies remain only in any device backup you have made.
- To ask what is held about your install, or to have it deleted, write to info@swiftyapp.ca. Because nothing is tied to an identity, I may need the approximate dates and the device in order to find anything at all.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and material changes are noted on this page. Sharing books with family is planned for a future version; if it changes anything here, this policy will be updated before that version is released.