HOWIE — PRIVACY
21 September 2026
Howie is a private journal. This page describes what data exists, where it is, who can read it, and how to erase it.
PUBLISHER
Howie is published by Studio Vaxa, a French company (SASU) based at 47 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, registered at the Paris trade registry under number 130 725 781. Contact: howie [at] studiovaxa [dot] com or the contact form.
TWO WAYS TO USE HOWIE
Howie Free is the app on a phone, with or without an account. Everything written stays on that phone: the notes, the photos, the voice recordings. None of it is sent to Studio Vaxa.
Howie One is a paid subscription. With it, the journal is saved online, encrypted, so it can be opened on another phone and in a web browser. What "encrypted" means here is described below.
The web version of Howie is for One subscribers only. It holds no notes of its own: it shows the same encrypted journal as the phone.
WHAT HOWIE COLLECTS
What users write. The text of their notes, their photos and their voice recordings. Their notebooks, their tags and the emoji attached to them. The date of each note. The transcripts of their recordings, which are added to the note's text. On Howie Free, all of this stays on the phone. On Howie One, it is sent to the server, encrypted.
The account. An email address, if an account is created. It identifies the user and receives the sign-in code. Signing in with Google or with Apple hands over the address held there, and nothing else from those accounts. A first name, if the user chooses to give one. The answers to the "how could Howie help you" screen, if any are picked.
Two things leave a phone even without an account. The names of the tags, so Studio Vaxa can see what people come to Howie for: only the labels themselves, never what is written under them. And the names of the notebooks, for the same reason and with the same limit. Neither is encrypted.
The subscription. Whether the account has Howie One, since when, and until when. The purchase itself is made with Apple or Google, which keep the payment details; Studio Vaxa never sees a card number. RevenueCat, the service that tells Howie a purchase happened, receives the purchase receipt and an identifier for the app install, and nothing written in the journal.
Usage. The web version of Howie uses Umami, a cookieless analytics tool. It records which screens are opened and a few actions, such as a note written or a share started. Never the content of a note, and with nothing that identifies anyone. The phone app carries no analytics tool.
ENCRYPTION
Anything a journal sends to the server is encrypted on the device first, with AES-GCM-256: the text of the notes, the photos, and the voice recordings.
The key is worked out on the device, from the account's email address and a salt stored with the account. The key itself is never sent anywhere, and what reaches the server is already encrypted.
What that is not: this is not end-to-end encryption. Both of the things the key is made from are in Studio Vaxa's database, so Studio Vaxa could work the key out too. Nothing does: no person and no system here reads a user's notes, and none of this is used for AI or analysis. But the honest description of the architecture is "encrypted at rest, with a key we could rebuild", not "we cannot read it". Making that claim true would mean asking for a passphrase that never leaves the device, and losing it would mean losing the notes for good. That trade has not been made, and this page will say so if it ever is.
On Howie Free there is nothing to encrypt against, because nothing is sent. Notes stay in the phone's own storage as they were written. What protects them there is the phone: its own lock, and Howie's, which can be turned on in the “My account” tab and asks for a face, a fingerprint or a passcode before the app opens.
Tag names and notebook names are not encrypted. Nothing else is stored in the clear.
TRANSCRIPTION
A voice recording is turned into text so it can be read and searched. On a phone, Howie first asks the phone's own speech recognition, the one iOS or Android already has, and asks for its offline mode: the recording is written down by the phone, and does not leave it for that. On Howie Free, that is the only transcription there is.
The permission dialog iOS shows for speech recognition says that voice data may be sent to Apple. That text is the same for every app that asks, whichever mode it then uses. What Howie asks for is the offline one, and nothing about that transcription passes through our servers.
With an account, and always in the web version, a recording the phone could not transcribe is sent once, unencrypted, to the transcription provider, at the moment of recording, and is not kept by them. A recording has to be heard to be written down; this is the one deliberate exception to "nothing leaves in the clear". The stored file is encrypted like everything else.
WHAT IT IS USED FOR
Notes, notebooks, tags, recordings and photos are used to show them back to their author, and nothing else.
The email address identifies the account and carries the sign-in code. The first name is used to say hello. The answers from the welcome screens, the tag names and the notebook names help Studio Vaxa understand what people come for.
Howie runs no AI over its users' notes. Nothing is analysed, summarised, or used to train anything. The transcription of voice notes is the only exception, and it is described above. Howie sells nothing to anyone and shows no advertising.
WHO ELSE IS INVOLVED
Supabase holds the database, the accounts and the files: the encrypted notes, photos and recordings, the tags, the notebooks, the email addresses, the subscription status. Vercel serves the web version. Groq transcribes the voice notes the phone could not. Resend sends the sign-in emails. Google and Apple handle authentication for users who sign in that way, and payment for the subscription. RevenueCat relays the subscription status from Apple and Google. Umami counts screens on the web version.
Notes are stored on servers in Sweden, inside the European Union. They do not leave it to be stored.
Groq, Resend, RevenueCat, Google and Apple are established in the United States, and receive only what the paragraphs above describe, for as long as the task takes.
WHEN A SUBSCRIPTION ENDS
When Howie One stops, nothing is saved online any more. The app brings the photos and recordings back down to the phone, so nothing is lost, and the account stays open so the subscription can be taken again. The encrypted copies stay on the server, unreadable to anyone but the account, until the account is deleted.
HOW LONG IT IS KEPT
Notes stay as long as their author keeps them. There is no expiry and no automatic clean-up.
Deleting a note deletes its recordings and photos with it. Deleting an account, from the “My account” tab and without asking anyone, deletes everything: notes, notebooks, tags, recordings, photos, and the account itself. On a phone, the copy held there goes at the same moment. It is immediate and final. There is no bin and no grace period.
YOUR RIGHTS
Under the GDPR, users may access their data, correct it, erase it, object to its processing, and receive it in a readable format.
Erase: the "Delete my account" button, in the “My account” tab. Immediate, without going through anyone. Correct: names, notebooks, tags and notes are all editable in the app. Receive: the "Export my data" button, in the same tab, produces a file with every note, photo and recording, readable without Howie. Anything else: write to howie [at] studiovaxa [dot] com; a reply will follow within a month.
A complaint may also be lodged with the CNIL (cnil.fr).
MINORS
Howie is not intended for anyone under 15. No data about them is knowingly collected.
CHANGES
This page changes when the app does. The date at the top says which version this is, and anything significant is flagged inside the app.