Privacy Policy

Scan Vault — last updated: 14 September 2026

The short version

Your documents never leave your device.

Scanning, text recognition, converting Word files, merging, splitting, compressing, password protection — all of it runs on your phone. There is no account, no sign-in, and no server that receives your files. We could not read your documents if we wanted to, because they are never sent anywhere.

One qualification, because it is the honest version of that sentence: the camera screen you scan with belongs to Google Play Services, not to us. See Where Google fits in.

Text recognition happens automatically

Every document is read as soon as it is scanned or imported. You do not ask for it and there is no button to press: by the time a scan appears in your library, its text has usually already been extracted and indexed so you can search for words written inside it.

This runs entirely on your device, in this app's own process, using a model built into the download. It needs no connection. The extracted text is stored in the same private area as the documents themselves, is never sent anywhere, and is deleted when you uninstall the app.

A PDF that already contains text — one saved from a word processor rather than scanned — does not need recognising at all. On Android 15 and later the app reads that text straight out of the file, using Android's own PDF renderer on your phone. On older versions, and for pages that turn out to be pictures of text, it recognises the page as it would a scan. Either way, nothing is sent anywhere.

It also stops when you do. The reading happens while the app is open — closing it pauses the work and reopening it resumes where it left off. Nothing runs on your phone once Scan Vault is not on screen.

Reading that text on screen, and searching inside your documents, are limited on the free plan. The recognition itself is not, and never costs you anything.

What we do not collect

We do not collect, transmit, store, or have any access to:

• The documents you scan or import
• The images captured by the camera
• Text produced by text recognition
• QR codes and barcodes you scan, and any link they contain (a history is kept on your device so you can find them again — see below — but none of it is sent anywhere)
• File names, folder names, or search queries
• Anything you type into the app

All of it is stored in this app's private storage on your device and is deleted when you uninstall the app.

What is collected

The app itself collects nothing. Third-party components included in the app collect the following.

Advertising

The free version of the app shows ads, served by Google AdMob. Its policy: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

AdMob receives your device's advertising ID, approximate location derived from your IP address, and basic device information, and uses it to select ads. It never receives document content, because the app never has it in a form it could send.

Ads are fetched before you see them. So that "watch an ad" starts immediately rather than after several seconds of waiting, the app asks AdMob for the next rewarded ad in advance — which means a request can happen even if you never go on to watch one. It carries nothing beyond what is described above, and none of it happens at all until consent has been given where consent is required.

You can reset or delete your advertising ID at any time in Android Settings → Privacy → Ads. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland you will be shown a consent form when you first open the app, and you can change your choice later under Settings → Privacy options.

Buying Pro removes ads entirely, and with them this collection.

Purchases

Purchases are processed by Google Play and managed through RevenueCat (https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy). RevenueCat receives an anonymous identifier, your purchase history for this app, and your country. It does not receive your name, your email address, or your payment details — Google Play handles the payment and never shares your card information with us.

This happens only if you buy or restore Pro. If you never open the purchase screen, nothing is sent.

Crash and diagnostic reports

There are none. This app ships no crash-reporting or analytics SDK, so no diagnostic data is collected or sent anywhere. If that ever changes, this section will name the provider and this policy's date will change with it.

Permissions

None of these lets the app read your files, your photos, or your camera. The list is taken from the released app itself, so it includes the ones that arrive with Google's own libraries rather than only the ones we asked for:

You can check this yourself in Android Settings → Apps → Scan Vault → Permissions.

Where Google fits in

Two parts of this app are Google's code rather than ours, and it is worth being exact about which.

Text recognition runs inside this app. The model is built into the download — which is most of the app's size — and reads pages in Scan Vault's own process. It needs no connection and involves Google Play Services in no way.

Capturing does not. When you tap Scan, or scan a QR code, the camera screen is provided by Google Play Services and runs in Google's process, under Google's camera permission. The page you are photographing passes through Google's code before it reaches ours. Google documents both of these as processing entirely on your device and states that images are not uploaded, and we have no reason to think otherwise — but it is Google's software, and we cannot audit it any more than you can. So the accurate statement is: Scan Vault never transmits your documents, and the capture step relies on Google Play Services behaving as Google documents.

We chose this deliberately. The alternative is for the app to operate the camera itself, which would mean asking you for camera permission, and would not remove Google from the picture — Play Services already runs on your phone with more access than this app will ever have. If you would rather not use it at all, photograph a document with any camera app you trust and import the image; everything after that point is ours.

How it scans and opens files without those permissions

This sounds like a contradiction, so it is worth explaining. On Android there are two ways to reach the camera or your files: an app can hold a permission and do it itself whenever it likes, or it can ask a part of the system that already holds that permission to do the job and hand back the result. Scan Vault always does the second.

Scanning. Tapping Scan opens a camera screen belonging to Google Play Services, running under Google's camera permission, not ours. You frame the page there, it detects the edges, and it passes back a finished image. This app never receives a camera feed and cannot turn the camera on. Scanning QR codes and barcodes works the same way.

Opening and saving files. Choosing a file opens Android's own file picker. You pick the file; Android then grants this app access to exactly that file, and nothing else in your storage. Saving works the same way with a folder you choose. This is Android's Storage Access Framework, and it is the method Google now recommends in place of the old blanket storage permission.

Your scanned documents are kept in this app's private area, which no app needs a permission to use — every Android app can read and write its own. It is also why they are removed when you uninstall.

There is one real consequence, and it is a limitation rather than a trick: the app cannot browse your storage or your photo library. It only ever sees what you hand it, one file at a time.

The private safe

Documents you move into the safe are hidden from your library, your search results and the recycle bin until you enter your code. Your fingerprint or face can stand in for the code if your phone supports it, and that check is performed by Android — this app never receives your fingerprint or any representation of it.

Two things to be clear about:

There is no way to reset the code. It is stored only as a scrambled fingerprint of itself, which cannot be turned back into the code. Nobody can open your safe without it — not you, not us, not anyone with the phone. That is why the app insists you write yourself a reminder when you set it up. If you forget the code, the documents inside stay where they are and cannot be reached.

The safe hides your documents; it does not add a second layer of encryption. They are already stored in this app's private area, protected by your phone's own lock screen and its disk encryption, and the safe puts another door in front of them. It is built for the everyday situation where someone else is holding your unlocked phone. It is not designed to withstand someone with specialist tools and unlimited access to the device.

Scanning QR codes and barcodes

The code is decoded on your phone. What it contains is shown to you and is not sent anywhere, recorded, or kept after you leave the screen.

The app deliberately does not check a scanned link against any online safety or reputation service. Doing so would mean sending your scan to a third party, which is the one thing this app promises not to do. Instead it examines the link itself — for a web address disguised to look like a different one, for characters from another alphabet, for a shortened link whose destination is hidden — and tells you what it found.

Because of that, the warnings are not a guarantee that a link is safe, only that nothing about its text is suspicious. Nothing is ever opened without you choosing to open it, and when you do, the link is handed to whichever app you have chosen to handle it. What happens after that is between you and that app.

Scans are kept on your phone so you can find them again. The scanner keeps a history of the codes you have scanned — the most recent 200 — so you do not have to go back to the poster or the ticket to read one a second time. It is stored in this app's private area on your device, exactly like your documents, and is never uploaded.

Be aware of what that means: the history holds each code's contents as they were read. If you scan a Wi-Fi code, the network's password is part of that code and is therefore part of the history. You can delete any single entry, or clear the whole history, from the History tab on the scanner screen. It is also removed when you uninstall the app.

Your documents and uninstalling

Documents live in this app's private storage. Uninstalling the app deletes them permanently, and no copy exists anywhere else for us to restore. Use Save to device or Share to keep anything you need before uninstalling or changing phones.

Deleted documents sit in the recycle bin for 7 days — 30 days with Pro — and are then erased permanently.

Passwords

If you password-protect a PDF, that password is used to encrypt the file and is then discarded. It is not stored, not transmitted, and not recoverable. If you lose it, the file cannot be opened — by you, by us, or by anyone.

Children

Scan Vault is not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top and, for anything material, show a notice in the app.

Contact

xlogikcreations@gmail.com