Arca Connect privacy
Arca Connect turns a tap on a ring or card into a person you remember. We keep as little as we can. This page says what that is.
What we store
The owner's card. If you set up a card, your name, what you do, company, one-line intro, up to three links and your card address (like min in ring.heyarca.app/c/min) are saved on your iPhone. The public parts that appear when someone taps your ring are also saved on our server so the card can open for people without the app. A secret sign-in token is stored on your iPhone, and only a hash of it is kept on the server.
A visitor's details, only if they agree. When someone taps Connect and agrees, we store the name they typed, plus the email, phone, links and place of meeting if they filled those in, and the time and how they connected (ring, card, QR or link). Nothing is sent without that agreement. You can still view a card and save the owner's contact without sending anything.
What we do not store. No IP addresses or browser details are kept with the details a visitor sends. We use no analytics, no ads and no tracking cookies on the web card. A short-lived, salted hash of the network address is kept for about two minutes only to slow down abuse.
Conversations, photos and sign-in
If you press Start, your iPhone records the conversation. The recording goes over an encrypted connection to our server, which sends it to ElevenLabs to transcribe and to OpenAI to write a short summary. Our server doesn't keep the audio or the transcript; they're discarded as soon as the summary is back in your app. These providers may keep data briefly under their own API terms.
The transcript and summary are stored only on your iPhone. Deleting a connection deletes its conversations.
Only record people who agreed. When someone taps Connect on your card they can choose "Okay to remember this conversation"; otherwise Arca Connect asks you to confirm they agreed before it records.
To tell your voice apart, Arca Connect keeps a short sample of you reading one sentence, on your iPhone. It's sent with each recording for processing and isn't stored on our server.
If you add a profile photo, it's stored on our server and shown on your card until you remove it or delete your card. A photo someone adds when connecting is held only until your app picks it up, then deleted from our server.
In the App Clip you can continue with Apple to fill in your name and email. Nothing is sent until you tap Agree & Connect.
Anything not picked up within 30 days is deleted. Delete my card removes your card, photo and anything waiting for you.
Test: is this me? records a few seconds and sends it with your voice sample to be transcribed and compared. Nothing is kept on our server.
If you type a username, Arca checks a short list of public sites for profiles with that username and may read their public name, bio and links. It doesn't sign in anywhere, guess emails or phone numbers, or use data brokers. Results are cached for 10 minutes and nothing else is stored. You choose which accounts are yours; only what you confirm is sent. The same username doesn't always mean the same person.
Why
The owner's card exists so a tap can show who they are. A visitor's details exist so the owner can remember them and follow up. We do not use either for anything else, and we do not sell or share them.
Where it lives
- On the owner's iPhone: their card, and the people they have met.
- On Cloudflare (Workers and a D1 database), which runs our small exchange service: the owner's public card fields, the token hash, and visitor details waiting to be picked up.
- On Vercel: the web card pages you are reading. They hold no personal data.
How long, and how to delete
Visitor details wait on our server only until the owner's app picks them up. The app saves them on the owner's iPhone and then removes the server copy. Anything not picked up is deleted automatically after 30 days.
- Owners can delete any person they have met inside the app, and can delete their card and everything stored on our server.
- Visitors can ask the owner to delete what they sent, or write to us at the address below and we will remove it if it is still on our server.
- Deleting the app removes what is stored on your iPhone.
Children
Arca Connect is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their details.
Changes
If this changes in a way that matters, we will update this page and the date above.
Contact
Questions or deletion requests: me@heyarca.app.