Privacy policy
JemRec has no servers, no accounts, and no analytics. Nothing it records or reads ever leaves your phone.
Last updated: October 2026.
What it collects
Nothing is sent anywhere. There is no backend to send it to. The developer cannot see your recordings, your contacts, your call history, or that you use the app at all.
What stays on the phone
| Data | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| Call recordings | The phone’s Recordings/JemRec folder, or a folder you
choose. Yours to play, share, move or delete like any other file. One
deleted in JemRec waits 30 days in Recently deleted, then is removed:
in the standard folder, Android’s own trash does that; in a
folder you chose, it waits as a hidden file that JemRec removes.
Delete all for good removes them all at once, when you ask.
Messages the answering machine took are recordings too; which ones
are messages, and which you marked to keep, is kept by file name in
the app’s private storage, and written inside each recording
as well, so that a reinstall still knows. |
| Caller colours | Only once you use the Multitrack look: which of its six colours each caller has, so a caller keeps theirs, also after you change the look. Kept by a one-way code worked out from the name, not the name itself, in the app’s private storage, and in no backup. Uninstalling deletes it. |
| Your greeting | Only if you record one for the answering machine: in the app’s private storage, and a copy the recorder plays from. Deleting it in the app deletes both, and so does uninstalling. |
| Answering machine tests | What its checks found about the phone, and the result of each test call by call type (2G, VoLTE, Wi-Fi Calling). No numbers, no names. Copy a report puts them on the clipboard, only when you tap it. |
| Contact names and photos | Read from the phone’s own call log and contacts, only if you allow it, to label a recording, to show the Calls tab, to keep or leave out a call by who it was with, and to notice a call that was not recorded. Names and numbers are not copied or stored; the lookup happens each time it is needed. Two choices change that, and only when you make them: a file name with the caller in it puts their name or number in the recording’s file name, and for those JemRec keeps which way each call went, by file name, in its private storage and inside the recording; and the contacts you pick under Whose calls to keep are stored there as your contacts app’s own links to them. Exact call tracking, below, keeps numbers too. |
| Call tracking | While Exact call tracking is on, which it is unless you turn it off: for the last 40 phone calls, when each began, was answered and ended, which way it went, and how far apart the phone’s two clocks were during it — and its number, only if you allowed JemRec to read the call log, which has it anyway. In the app’s private storage, to cut each recording to its call and name it. Turning tracking off deletes it. |
| Messenger callers | Only if you turn on Show who called for messenger calls: from the call notifications of the messengers whose calls you record, the caller’s name, the time, and whether the call rang first, for the last 30 calls, in the app’s private storage. A recording named by date alone keeps its caller’s name there too, by file name; one named with the caller has it in the file name. Either way the name is also written inside the recording, where no music app shows it, so that a reinstall still knows who it was — and a recording you share carries it. |
| Call times | When each recorded call started, which way it went and how long it lasted, the time of any call the app told you was not recorded, of any call your choice of whose calls to keep left out, and of any call whose caller hung up during your greeting, and of the answering machine’s test calls. No names, no numbers. Kept in the app’s private storage for seven days, so the missed-call check never reports a call twice or takes a recording you deleted for a call that was missed. Also when you last called an emergency number — noted with the answering machine on or off — and when you last chose to answer again before a day had passed, so the answering machine stands down for a day after such a call: the latest time of each, no number, until the next. Also when recording was switched on or off or changed mode, so the Calls tab can say why a call was not recorded: times and the setting only, the last 300 changes. |
| Notifications | Only if you ask JemRec to hide Android’s debugging notification, or turn on Show who called for messenger calls. It then has notification access. For the first it looks only at notifications from Android itself, to find that one, and keeps the IDs of the ones it hid, so it can bring them back. For the second it looks only at the call notifications of the messengers you switched on (see Messenger callers). Nothing else is read or kept. |
| Waveforms | For each recording, its loudness: 800 numbers, no sound, worked out from the file to draw its waveform - when a call is saved, or while the app is open. In the app’s cache, under a code made from the file’s name rather than the name itself, until the recording is deleted; Android may clear it sooner. |
| Settings | The app’s own private storage: whether recording is on, whether to ask before each call, whether to show each call when it ends, where to save, how to name files, whose calls to keep, which messengers’ calls to record, the auto-delete rules, the answering machine’s, which recordings you marked to keep (by file name), and random tokens the app uses to talk to its own recorder and to its own notifications. |
While a recording plays
The phone’s media controls show who the call was with, as they show a song’s title: in the notifications and Quick Settings, and to a Bluetooth device or a car the phone is connected to. On the lock screen they say only Call recording. Apps you have allowed to read your notifications can see it, as they can any notification; other apps are turned away. Nothing of it is kept: it goes when the recording stops.
Network use
The app holds the INTERNET permission and uses no network. Android
requires that permission for any TCP socket, including one to
127.0.0.1, and the app’s two sockets are both to the phone
itself: pairing with the phone’s own Wireless debugging during setup, and
talking to its recorder afterwards. Neither reaches your router, let alone the
internet.
The answering machine’s Carrier voicemail asks your carrier, when you tap it, when its voicemail answers, and on a second tap changes that. It is a request over the phone network, the same as dialling a carrier code, and holds nothing but the timer. A test call to a number you type is an ordinary phone call.
This website
Static files served by GitHub Pages, with no analytics, no cookies, and no fonts or scripts fetched from anywhere else. The one thing it stores is whether you chose light or dark, in your own browser, where it stays. The setup video is the one exception, and only when you ask for it: the pages show a picture of it, and nothing from YouTube loads until you press play. Pressing play loads YouTube’s player from youtube-nocookie.com, and from then on YouTube’s own privacy policy applies to it. The Support link leads to Donatello, a separate service with its own privacy policy; nothing about a donation reaches the app.
The microphone
The app holds no microphone permission and never records. Calls are captured by a separate shell-privileged process, which the app starts during setup and which writes to a file the app collects afterwards. So is your answering-machine greeting, only while you record it; the app plays it back to you when you ask.
While the answering machine takes a message, the recorder mutes your microphone, so the caller hears nothing of the room you are in. It gives it back when the call ends or when you take the call.
Deleting your data
Delete individual recordings in the app, or the whole folder from any file manager. Start fresh in Settings undoes the setup and hands the permissions back, and deliberately keeps your recordings. Uninstalling the app removes the app and its settings; the recordings stay, because they are yours and are not the app’s to take.
Children
The app is not directed at children and collects nothing from anyone.
Changes
If this policy ever changes it changes in the open, in the same repository as the code, with the change visible in the history.
Contact
Questions and bug reports: GitHub issues.