Quantum Relay Privacy Policy

Summary

• Your voice recordings, messages and replies travel between your phone or watch and your own Hermes server. They never pass through Quantum Ink.
• No account, no advertising, no analytics, no crash reporting, and no sale or sharing of personal data by Quantum Ink.
• The microphone records only while you are holding to talk or have started a recording yourself.
• Optional phone voice uses your own ElevenLabs key and sends reply text to ElevenLabs. It is off unless you turn it on.

What the apps access on your devices

Microphone

To record what you say to your agent. Recording starts only after you grant the permission and make an explicit gesture (holding the watch face or the phone's talk button), and stops when you let go or cancel. Audio is streamed to the Hermes server you are talking to.

Network and local network

To connect to your Hermes servers, usually over your private Tailscale network, and to let the phone forward your watch's encrypted connection when the watch is not on Wi-Fi.

Notifications

To tell you when a reply, task or approval request arrives. Notifications use private previews on the lock screen.

Foreground services, start at boot and vibration

To keep the phone-to-watch relay running while you use it, to restore it after a restart if you enabled it, to play spoken replies on the watch, and for haptic feedback.

Timers (watch)

Only when you ask your agent to set a timer, so the watch's clock app can start it.

Content you share

Text or links you share into the app from other apps, and pictures you choose for a profile. These are used only for the action you chose.

The apps do not request location, contacts, camera, health or fitness sensors, call logs, SMS, photos (other than a picture you pick), or the advertising ID.

Where your data goes

Your Hermes server

Recordings, typed and shared messages, approval answers, the watch battery percentage, the results of device actions you asked for (such as a timer being set), and a random device identity created during pairing are sent to the Hermes server you chose. That server is run by you, not by Quantum Ink. What it does with this content, including transcription, storing history and sending text to AI model providers, depends on how you configured it and on those providers' own terms.

Your phone, as a relay for your watch

When the watch connects through the phone, the watch's connection stays encrypted from the watch to your server. The phone forwards it without being able to read it. The phone can see which server is contacted, when, and how much data is sent.

Google Play Services (phone and watch)

The phone and watch exchange setup details (server names, addresses and optional access tokens), profile pictures and relay traffic through Google Play Services' Wearable Data Layer, which may route it over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Google's cloud transport. Pairing identities and ElevenLabs keys are never synced this way.

Tailscale

Tailscale is a separate app you install and sign in to. It carries the connection between your phone and your computer under Tailscale's privacy policy.

ElevenLabs (optional, phone only)

If you turn on phone voice and enter your own ElevenLabs API key, the text of replies to be spoken and your chosen voice are sent to ElevenLabs over HTTPS, using your key. Usage is billed to your ElevenLabs account and handled under ElevenLabs' privacy policy. Your key stays on the phone and is never sent to your Hermes server or to Quantum Ink.

Local connections without encryption

If you deliberately add a server on your local network without TLS, the app asks for your consent for that specific address. Traffic to it, including pairing keys and conversation content, is then readable by others on that network.

What Quantum Ink receives

Nothing. The apps contain no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting SDKs and do not contact any Quantum Ink server. Quantum Ink does not collect, sell, share or use your data to train AI models. If you choose to send us a bug report or a connection report, we receive only what you send, and use it only to help with your report.

Google Play may provide us with aggregate install and crash statistics under Google's privacy policy; these do not include your conversations or recordings.

Storage on your devices

• Pairing identities, server settings, phone conversations and your ElevenLabs key are encrypted at rest with keys held in Android Keystore.
• The watch keeps a small cache of profile pets and pictures, and an encrypted short excerpt of the last reply for its tile. A watch face complication receives only a generic status (such as Ready, Listening or Offline), never reply text or keys.
• Android cloud backup is turned off for both apps, and the phone app blocks screenshots and screen recording of its screens.

Retention and deletion

Data on your phone and watch stays there until you delete it:

• Remove a profile or a server in the app to delete its settings and cached pictures.
• Use Reset on the watch to delete all of its stored identities, settings and caches.
• Uninstalling either app deletes everything it stored on that device.

Removing setup on one device does not remove it on the other; remove it there too. Conversation history, pairings and recordings held by your Hermes server, and anything held by ElevenLabs or Tailscale, must be deleted through those services. Quantum Ink holds none of it, so there is nothing for us to delete.

Security

Connections use TLS with certificate and host name checks, each device is paired with your server using its own key that you approve on your computer, and the apps fail loudly rather than falling back to an unencrypted connection. Please report security problems privately through GitHub security advisories.

Children

Quantum Relay is not directed at children under 13 and is intended for adults who run their own Hermes server.

Contact

Quantum Relay is published by Quantum Ink Labs. For questions about this policy, email dev@quantumink.dev.

Changes to this policy

Updates will be posted on this page with a new "Last updated" date. Material changes will also be noted in the app's release notes.