Privacy Policy

Last updated 20 October 2026

Herald is a narrator for tabletop games. It is built to keep what you photograph on your iPhone. There are no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking.

Photos and card text

When you snap a card, Herald reads its text on your device using Apple’s text recognition. The photo is never uploaded. A small thumbnail, the recognised text and your narration settings are saved in your history on the device. You can delete entries, a game night or your whole history at any time in the app.

On-device voices

The free narrators use Apple’s built-in speech voices on your iPhone. Nothing leaves the device.

Premium cloud voices

With Herald Premium, the expressive narrators are generated in the cloud. When a premium narrator reads a card:

• The text being narrated (never the photo), the chosen narrator and the mood are sent over an encrypted connection to Herald’s server, which runs on Cloudflare.
• The server passes them to OpenAI, which turns the text into speech and returns the audio. OpenAI handles it under its API data policies, which say API data is not used to train its models.
• To confirm your subscription, the app sends Apple’s signed purchase receipt. The server checks it with Apple’s certificates.
• The server does not store the text or the audio. It keeps only a count of characters narrated per subscription, to apply fair-use limits. Daily counts expire after two days and monthly counts after 40 days.
• The audio is saved on your device so replays are instant. You can clear it in Settings › Storage.

Camera

Herald asks for the camera only to photograph cards. You can also pick a photo from your library instead.

Purchases

Subscriptions and purchases are handled by Apple. Herald never sees your payment details.

Children

Herald collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the date above will change too. Questions are welcome on the support page.