Pearls is built so that almost nothing about you reaches us. This page explains exactly what happens to your recordings, your notes, and your personal information.
Pearls is made by Fellow Medical LLC, a limited liability company formed in Florida, United States. You can reach us at steve@fellowmedicalllc.com.
Pearls has no sign-up, no username, and no password. We do not collect or store your name, your email address, your Apple ID, or your phone number. We have no way to identify you, and no list of who uses the app.
When you dictate, the audio is recorded to your device and transcribed there, using a speech model that runs entirely on your iPhone. The audio file is deleted as soon as a transcript exists. Your voice is never uploaded, never sent to us, and never sent to anyone else.
Your notes, case log, quizzes, and flashcards are stored on your iPhone. If you have iCloud enabled, they also sync through your own private iCloud account so they are available on your other devices and survive a lost phone.
That iCloud storage belongs to you, not to us. We cannot see it, and we have no ability to read, retrieve, or delete your notes.
Pearls uses artificial intelligence to organize what you dictate. That requires sending text to a language model, which cannot run on a phone. Those requests pass through a server we operate, which adds our credentials and forwards the request to Anthropic, the provider of the model.
Your text passes through our server. It is never stored there. We do not write request or response content to logs, to a database, or to disk — not in production, not for debugging. This is enforced in the code and covered by automated tests, not simply intended.
What our server does record, for each request, is limited to: an anonymous subscription identifier supplied by Apple, a timestamp, the number of tokens used, the resulting cost, and whether the request succeeded. That record exists so we can enforce fair usage limits and pay our bills. It contains nothing about you and nothing you wrote.
Before any text is sent, Pearls removes patient identifiers on your device — names, dates of birth, record numbers, addresses, contact details, and similar. This happens before the text leaves your iPhone.
The de-identified text is processed by Anthropic to generate the notes, quizzes, and answers you see. Anthropic's handling of that data is governed by their own terms and privacy policy, available at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
Subscriptions are sold and processed by Apple. We never see your payment details, your billing address, or your Apple ID. What our server receives is a signed transaction from Apple containing an anonymous identifier for the purchase, which we use to confirm your subscription is active and to apply usage limits. That identifier refers to a purchase, not to a person.
If you send feedback, the form opens in your browser and is hosted by Google Forms. It receives what you type, plus your app version, build number, iOS version, and device model, which help us reproduce problems. It does not receive any of your notes or recordings. Please do not include patient information in feedback.
Pearls keeps a small activity log on your device to power features such as usage summaries. It stays on your phone, is not synced to iCloud, and is never sent to us.
Settings contains a control that permanently deletes everything Pearls has stored, on your device and in your iCloud. Because we hold none of it, that removes all of it. You can also export a complete copy of your notes first, as a document, a PDF, or a backup file.
Pearls is intended for medical students, residents, and clinicians. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.
If this policy changes in a way that affects how your information is handled, we will update this page and change the effective date at the top. Continued use of Pearls after a change means you accept the updated policy.
Questions about this policy can go to steve@fellowmedicalllc.com.