Privacy pages are written to be read generously. This is the opposite: a list of questions with answers you can verify without trusting anyone's copywriter. Work through them in order. The first one disqualifies most of the category.
1. Does it transcribe in airplane mode?
How to check: turn on airplane mode, dictate a sentence.
If text appears, the model is on the device. If nothing appears, the audio is being uploaded, and every subsequent question is about how responsibly that upload is handled rather than whether it happens.
2. Does the vendor say where the model runs?
How to check: search the privacy policy and docs for "cloud", "on-device", and "local".
Wispr Flow is admirably direct: “Transcription always occurs on the cloud.” MacWhisper is equally direct in the other direction. A vendor that will not say is telling you something.
3. Is your content used to train models — and is that a separate switch from storage?
How to check: look for the words "train", "improve", "model improvement", and "feedback" in the policy.
Wispr Flow's Data Controls page is explicit that feedback collects "audio recordings, transcripts, your edits" and that this may be used to "develop and train our AI models". It also states plainly that storage is "controlled by the applicable Service features, not by your model training preference" — two switches, not one.
4. What happens when you click thumbs-down?
How to check: read the feedback clause, not the settings page.
In a cloud product, a rating is often a data-sharing action that attaches the session. That is fine if you know; it is not fine if you think you are filing a bug report.
5. How long is content retained, and who sets that number?
How to check: find a retention section with a number in it.
"Configurable" is better than nothing. "Generally 30 days" is not a number you can hold anyone to. Wispr Flow offers three local-history options on desktop — keep, 24 hours, never — and describes them as "desktop today, with mobile coming soon".
6. Where does the local copy go, and on which platforms?
How to check: look for a per-platform note. Retention settings frequently ship on desktop first.
This is the single most common gap between what a vendor says and what a phone user gets.
7. What does "zero data retention" cover?
How to check: read the sentence around the acronym and look for exclusions.
Wispr Flow says it maintains ZDR agreements with third-party AI providers — and that "certain features, such as briefs for Notetaker" are not supported under ZDR. That is a subcontractor guarantee with a published carve-out, not a property of the product.
8. Does the app read the window you are typing in?
How to check: search the policy for "context", "active window", or "app".
Wispr Flow discloses both: optional Context Awareness may read "the text on the screen", and separately the app "always uses information about the app you are dictating in" plus "the surrounding textbox content".
9. Is there a compliance artefact you can actually read?
How to check: ask for the SOC 2 report, the DPA, and the subprocessor list. Not the badge — the document.
Fireflies publishes audit artefacts through its trust centre. Wispr Flow sells Type II and ISO 27001 at the Enterprise tier. Jot has none of this and does not pretend otherwise, which rules it out for regulated procurement and is worth saying plainly.
10. What happens to your transcripts when you stop paying?
How to check: cancel the plan in your head and reread the export and deletion sections.
A subscription answers this with a vendor policy. A local app answers it with a folder on your disk.
The ten answers, for the apps in this series
| App | Local model | Training | Local retention control | Compliance artefact | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jot | Yes | Not applicable | On-device by default | None claimed | $49.99 once |
| Wispr Flow | No — cloud | Setting, plus feedback path | Desktop only, "mobile coming soon" | SOC 2 Type II at Enterprise | $144 a year |
| Otter.ai | No — cloud | On by default | Not published | SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA on Enterprise | $99.99 a year |
| Fireflies.ai | No — cloud | Never, per policy | Enterprise-only custom retention | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 42001 | $120 a year |
| tl;dv | No — cloud | Never, contractually | Not published | SOC 2 Type II, EU AI Act | $216 a year |
| MacWhisper | Yes, macOS | Not applicable | On-device by default | None claimed | €64 once |
How to use the answers
Questions 1 through 4 decide whether the recording is private in the sense most people mean. Questions 5 through 8 decide whether the vendor's promises are narrow or broad. Questions 9 and 10 decide whether the tool is purchasable at all in an organisation.
For a personal dictation keyboard, the first group is the whole decision and the rest is detail. For a regulated buyer, the last group overrides everything, and no amount of local processing substitutes for a signed DPA.
Verdict
A vendor that answers all ten is rare. A vendor whose answers do not depend on a policy page is rarer.
If you want the answers that cannot change, they are the architectural ones: the model on your device, the transcript on your disk, the audio never uploaded.
That is Jot on the App Store.
Sources
Primary sources, read on the date above. Where a vendor publishes no answer, the table says so rather than guessing.