What you read is one of the most revealing things about you. A news reader knows your politics, your health worries, your job hunt and your hobbies — which is exactly why the usual ones are free. Priv8RSS Reader is built so that nobody, including us, is on the other end of that. Your subscriptions, your reading history and everything the AI produces stay on your device and in your own private iCloud.
- We don’t track you. No analytics, no telemetry, no “anonymous usage data”. None.
- We don’t see your data. We operate no servers at all.
- We don’t sell anything about you. There is nothing to sell.
- No ads. Not now, not ever.
- No account. There is nothing to sign up for.
- The AI never sends your articles anywhere. It runs on the device, in your hand.
What the app handles, and where it lives
| Data | Where it lives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your feeds and folders — what you subscribe to, how you organise it | On your device. With iCloud Sync on (the default), also in your own private iCloud database. | It is the app. Syncing means your subscriptions follow you to your iPad. |
| Articles the app has fetched, including full text and cached images | Same as above, until they age out under your retention setting. | So the reader works offline and loads instantly. |
| Read, saved and starred state; keyword filters | On your device; synced through your private iCloud. Filters use your iCloud key-value store. | So an article you read on your phone is not unread on your iPad. |
| AI output — summaries, Daily Briefings, Ask answers, Watch Dog hits, section sorting | Generated on your device, stored with the article, synced through your private iCloud. | So a summary is written once rather than every time you open a piece. |
| Passwords for paid or members-only feeds | Your Keychain (iCloud Keychain if you have it on). Never in the app’s own database. | To fetch feeds that require a login. Sent only to that feed’s own server. |
| Trial start date | Your own iCloud key-value store. | So the 14-day trial cannot be reset by reinstalling. It never leaves your iCloud. |
| Purchase record | Apple, via StoreKit. | Required to confirm your purchase or subscription. We see whether a purchase exists, never who you are. |
| Event Log and diagnostics | On your device only. | Nothing is uploaded automatically. You can copy it yourself into a problem report. |
What we receive
The default answer is: nothing. We run no servers, so there is nowhere for your data to arrive. The app does not phone home — there is no home to phone. It talks to the feeds you subscribe to and to Apple’s iCloud. The one addition is Find feeds by topic, and only while you are using it. This is every outbound request the app makes:
| Destination | When | What it sends |
|---|---|---|
| The feeds you subscribe to | When feeds refresh: when you open the app, pull to refresh, or through Background App Refresh if you allow it. | An ordinary web request, the same as a browser’s. For a paid or members-only feed, the login you saved for that feed and nothing else. We are not in the middle and never see which feeds you added. |
| Article pages and images the feed points to | When the app pulls in full text for a feed that only publishes a summary, and when it loads an article’s images. | An ordinary web request to the address printed in the feed. |
| Candidate publisher sites | Only while you use Find feeds by topic. | An ordinary web request to check whether the site really has a feed. Your topic is matched on the device against the feeds already in the app; the topic itself is never sent. |
| Feedsearch (feedsearch.dev), a public feed-discovery service | Only while you use Find feeds by topic, and only when a site’s feed can’t be found directly. | The address of the site being checked. Anonymous: no key, no account, no identifier. |
| Apple iCloud | While iCloud Sync is on (the default). | Your feeds, articles, reading state and AI output, to your own private CloudKit database. Also your trial start date, to your iCloud key-value store. |
| Apple App Store | When you buy, restore or the app checks your purchase. | Standard StoreKit only. |
Every one of these is something you started or switched on: you subscribed to the feed, opened the article, ran the search or left sync on. The 665-feed Browse Suggested Feeds catalogue is built into the app, so opening it contacts nobody — nothing is requested until you actually subscribe to something.
No web view
Articles are rendered natively rather than in an embedded web view. No publisher JavaScript runs while you read, so the tracking scripts, cookies and cookie banners that come with a publisher’s web page never load. Images in an article are fetched from the addresses the article gives, as they are in any reader.
The AI runs on your device, and that is not a figure of speech
Summaries, the Daily Briefing, Ask the Reporter, Watch Dog and the automatic section sorting all use Apple Intelligence’s on-device model, which ships as part of iOS and runs on the phone’s own silicon.
- No article text, question or briefing ever leaves the device to be processed. Not to us, not to Apple, not to OpenAI, Google or anyone else. There is no API key in this app because there is no API being called.
- It works in airplane mode on articles already fetched. That is the plainest test of the claim, and you can run it yourself.
- Read aloud uses the speech voices already on your device.
- Optional Piper voices come from a separate, free app that you install yourself if you want them. They are not bundled with Priv8RSS Reader, and none of their code is in it. That app has its own privacy policy.
- On devices without Apple Intelligence the AI features simply show as unavailable. Nothing is quietly sent off-device instead.
If a future version ever offers something that needs an off-device model, it will be off by default, clearly labelled at the point you turn it on, and described here before it ships.
The Event Log is not analytics
The app records what it has been doing — refreshes, AI sorting, slow screens, with timings — and shows it to you in Settings → About → Event Log. It is a mechanic’s log, not telemetry:
- Nothing is ever transmitted. No upload, no server, no timer. It moves only if you copy it into a message yourself.
- The log kept in release builds records event names, counts, timings and feed or section names — not article text, not your Ask questions, not your search terms. Content-bearing detail is compiled out of the shipping app entirely.
- Copy Diagnostics is a deliberate act and the app warns you first: what it puts on your clipboard can include feed addresses and article titles, and it goes only where you paste it.
- You can read it, share it or clear it at any time from that same screen.
Feedback is the one thing you can send us
Settings → About → Send Feedback opens a short Google Form in your browser. We use a form rather than email so you don’t have to hand over your address to tell us something. The app attaches nothing to it — no logs, no feed list, no device identifiers — and once the browser opens, you are on Google’s page under Google’s privacy policy, not ours. We see only what you choose to type, so please don’t paste anything sensitive into it. It is entirely optional; support@priv8apps.com works just as well.
Permissions
| Permission | Why | If you decline |
|---|---|---|
| Notifications | Only if you schedule a Daily Briefing or switch on alerts for a Watch Dog term. The app asks at that moment, not at launch. | Everything works; you just check the app yourself instead of being told. |
| Background App Refresh | Lets the app fetch new articles before you open it, so the timeline is already current. | Feeds refresh when you open the app or pull to refresh. |
That is the entire list. Priv8RSS Reader does not request Location, Camera, Microphone, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Photos, Health or Motion access — a news reader has no business with any of them, and the permissions are simply not in the built app.
The notifications the app sends are composed and scheduled on your device. We operate no push server and cannot send you anything.
iCloud sync
iCloud Sync is on by default and can be switched off at any time in Settings. When it is on, your feeds, articles and reading state are stored in your private CloudKit database: only your Apple ID can read it. We cannot. Apple encrypts it in transit and at rest. The app uses no shared or public CloudKit database, so there is no path for your reading to reach anyone else through it. Turn sync off and everything already on your device stays there.
Feeds that need a password
Some paid and members-only feeds require a login. When you add one, the credentials go into your Keychain — the same place Safari keeps your passwords — and sync between your devices through iCloud Keychain if you have that on. They are never written into the app’s database, never included in an OPML export or backup, and never sent anywhere except to that feed’s own server when it asks for them. We have no way to read them.
Your reading is not indexed for anyone but you
The app offers its articles to Spotlight and to Siri and Apple Intelligence through App Intents, so you can find a piece from the home screen or ask for one by voice. That index lives on your device and belongs to the system, not to us. Turning Siri or Spotlight indexing off in iOS Settings turns it off for this app too.
Your data is yours, paid or not
Priv8RSS Reader has a 14-day trial, after which reading requires a purchase. Nothing you already created becomes locked, hidden or unreadable. Your subscription list exports as OPML at any time, to any other reader, and your saved data stays reachable and exportable for as long as you keep the app — whether you bought it or not. What stops is the reading of new articles, not your access to your own work. Export is always available, including after the trial ends.
Changing your mind
- Switch off iCloud Sync in Settings — what is already on your device stays there.
- Set a shorter retention period in Settings to have older articles and their cached images expire sooner, or clear the image cache outright.
- Export your subscriptions as OPML at any time and take them to any other reader — they were never locked in.
- Delete your iCloud data in iOS Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → Priv8RSS Reader.
- Delete everything by deleting the app.
Children
Priv8RSS Reader is not directed at children under 13. We collect no data at all, so this is largely academic, but for completeness: please do not use the app on behalf of a child under 13. Note that the app shows whatever the feeds you subscribe to publish, and news feeds are not curated for children.
Third-party code
Priv8RSS Reader is built with Apple’s own frameworks and nothing else. It contains no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no attribution SDK, and no third-party code of any kind.
Changes to this policy
If we ever change a meaningful privacy practice, we will say so in the app as well as here, and update the date at the top.
Contact
Privacy questions: support@priv8apps.com
Priv8RSS Reader is made by one developer, Ray, in the United States.