Lectern
Privacy policy
Updated November 2, 2026.
This policy covers the Lectern iPhone app, published by Robot Design Pty Ltd (“Robot Design”) in Australia.
Your words stay on your iPhone
Lectern saves your speeches, titles, emphasis, sections, notes, reading settings and reading place on your iPhone. It uses that information to show your library, edit your words and restore your reading place.
The app has no account system, advertising or analytics service. It does not send your speech library to Robot Design or anyone else, and it does not track you across apps and websites. The one exception is Speechwriter, described below, and only for the answers you choose to send. The microphone is used only when you choose Dictate, choose Learn my pace in practice, or choose to talk it through with Speechwriter, and the camera only when you choose Scan pages. Dictation and scanning are turned into text on your phone. Learn my pace listens on your phone only to measure how fast you read. No audio, words or images from any of them are kept or sent. Talking it through is described below. If you paste a link to a public Google Doc, Lectern downloads that document’s text from Google; nothing about you or your speeches is sent.
Speechwriter
Speechwriter asks questions about your occasion and writes a first draft from your answers. It is the only part of Lectern that sends your words off your phone, and it sends nothing until you agree on its consent screen, once for each speech.
After you agree, Lectern sends the answers you give, with the occasion, length and pace you chose, to Lectern’s server. The server passes them to OpenAI to write follow-up questions and to Anthropic to write the draft, then returns the result to your phone. Lectern’s server processes your answers in memory and does not save them. It briefly holds prior answers while opening a voice conversation, then discards them. Its logs hold only counts and timings, never your words. OpenAI and Anthropic may each keep them for up to 30 days to check for misuse, then delete them unless the law requires longer. Anthropic may keep text its automated checks flag as misuse for up to 2 years. Neither uses them to train its models. Anthropic handles them under its data retention policy, and OpenAI under its API data policy. Nothing else in your library is sent.
If you choose to talk it through instead of typing, your voice streams through Lectern’s server to OpenAI, which holds the conversation and turns what you say into text. Lectern’s server passes audio and transcript fragments between your phone and OpenAI in memory. It does not record, store or log them. While the conversation is open, the server holds its running transcript in memory so it can suggest ideas when you ask for them, and it discards that transcript when the conversation ends. Suggestions are written by OpenAI from that transcript. Lectern does not keep the audio. The transcript stays on your phone as your answers and is sent to write the draft as described above. OpenAI handles the conversation under its API data policy.
To check that the speech has been paid for, Lectern’s server receives the anonymous purchase ID described below and a random ID for the speech. It keeps only a count of requests for that speech, in memory, to limit use. A pass saved on your phone lets you keep answering and come back to the same speech for 90 days without paying again. The answers and the draft stay on your phone with the speech.
Buying Lectern
Preparing any speech is free, and so are practicing and delivering the first 2 minutes of any speech. To practice and deliver all of a longer speech, buy Lectern through the App Store in one of two ways. Lectern once is a one-time purchase that includes one Speechwriter speech. Lectern Plus is a yearly subscription that includes 6 Speechwriter speeches each year, and it renews each year until you cancel. Cancel any time in Settings > [your name] > Subscriptions, at least 24 hours before it renews. You can also buy an extra Speechwriter speech on its own. Apple handles the payment, and Lectern never sees your card or Apple Account details.
Lectern uses RevenueCat, a purchase service, to confirm and restore your purchases. RevenueCat receives the App Store’s record of your purchase with an anonymous ID the app creates on this phone, and keeps that purchase history, including any Speechwriter purchases not yet used, so your purchases can be restored. It is not linked to your name or email address, it is not used for tracking, and your speeches are never sent. RevenueCat handles that record under its own privacy policy.
Files, copying and sharing
When you choose a document to import, Lectern reads that file and lets you review its words. A file stored by a cloud provider may need that provider’s connection to download it.
Copy speech and Copy words only put text on the system clipboard when you choose them. Apple’s clipboard features may make copied text available to your other devices, depending on your settings.
Share a copy opens the iPhone share sheet. The destination you choose receives a text copy of your speech, including action lines. Separate document notes are not included. That destination handles the copy under its own privacy practices.
Backups and deletion
Your device’s backups may include Lectern’s app data, depending on your backup settings. Lectern does not provide its own cloud sync or backup service.
Saved speeches remain in the app until you delete them. To remove a speech, open it, open Speech options and choose Delete speech. Confirm deletion to remove that speech and its notes from the app’s library.
Deleting the app removes its local app data. Deletion does not remove copies you shared, clipboard contents or data in earlier device backups. Manage those copies through the destination or backup service you used.
Robot Design cannot retrieve or delete your local speech library remotely.
The launch email list
If you give your email address on lecternspeech.com, Robot Design keeps it, with the page you used and the time, on the server that runs the website. It is used for one email when Lectern is on the App Store, and nothing else. It is not shared, sold or added to any other list. To have your address removed, email support@lecternspeech.com. Robot Design deletes the list by December 31, 2026.
The website counts visits with its own analytics service, run by Robot Design. It uses no cookies, does not track you across other sites and does not record your email address.
TestFlight beta testing
If you install Lectern through TestFlight, Apple supplies crash logs and usage information to Apple and the developer through its beta service. This collection is part of TestFlight, not an analytics service built into Lectern.
Feedback you send through TestFlight can include your comments, contact information, screenshots and device details. Check screenshots for personal words before sending them. Beta diagnostics and feedback help investigate problems with Lectern.
Deleting a speech or the beta app does not delete feedback already sent through TestFlight. Use the feedback contact in TestFlight to ask Robot Design about feedback you sent or request its deletion. Apple manages the data held by its TestFlight service under its own terms and privacy policy.
Contact
For help or a privacy question, email support@lecternspeech.com. During beta testing you can also open TestFlight, select Lectern and choose Send Beta Feedback.
Robot Design Pty Ltd publishes Lectern and is responsible for this policy.