Privacy

Your data, your say.

Babbl helps you with personal things: letters, appointments, the people around you. That is why we tell you exactly where your data goes and what we do with it. Including the parts that sound less appealing.

How it works

Babbl only starts listening after “hoi babbl”.

Your speech is processed on infrastructure we manage ourselves, in the EU.

No third party processes your speech as speech.

Your passwords and keys never leave the device.

What Babbl remembers about you is encrypted with a key that exists only in your device. We cannot read it.

Where your data goes

From your question to an answer

A good conversation in Dutch needs more computing power than fits in a small device. That is why the listening and answering happen on servers. Here is how that works, step by step.

In your home
Babbl

Babbl waits for “hoi babbl”. Only then does your question go to our servers.

Stays here: your keys and passwords, and the key that encrypts your data.
Babbl’s servers, in the EU
Listening and speaking

Your voice is turned into text on computers we manage ourselves, in European data centres. The voice Babbl answers with is also created here.

Before anything else happens with the text, we replace personal details, such as names and numbers, with codes.
European provider
The language model

To understand what you mean and work out an answer, Babbl uses a language model from a European provider. That model only receives text with codes, never your voice.

The codes are swapped back for the real names in your own device.

Reading letters on your phone

If you take a photo of a letter, it is read on your own phone. For the reading, the photo and the text go nowhere. If you then ask Babbl to explain it, the same rules apply as for your speech.

Your email

Babbl only reads along in the mailbox you connect yourself. Its password stays in your device. Babbl never sends an email without you first hearing it and confirming, and never opens links from suspicious messages. To explain an email, the same rules apply as for your speech.

What Babbl remembers

Appointments, your shopping list and other things Babbl keeps track of for you belong to you. They are encrypted with a key that exists only in your device. We cannot read a backup.

Health

Babbl only does something with your health — remembering, keeping track or passing it on — if you give separate permission for it. If you say no, Babbl simply works for everything else.

Your trusted circle

What does your family see?

Only what you share with them. Babbl never shares anything with others on its own, and keeps watch over no one.

You decide who is in your circle
You decide what they can see
What you share travels encrypted from your device to their phone
You can always withdraw access

Organisations only get to see something if you give permission for it, organisation by organisation.

Honest about the limits

What Babbl is not

Without internet, Babbl can do little

If Babbl has no connection, it says so out loud. It then cannot answer questions or arrange anything for you.

Babbl is not an alarm system

Do not rely on Babbl in an emergency. Use an alarm button or call 112. Without internet, Babbl cannot call for help either.

Babbl is not a medical device

Babbl can read out a letter or a medicine box and explain what it says. Babbl does not give a diagnosis or medical advice.

Why this is different from before

We used to write that your data stayed at home.

That was our plan, and we gave it a serious try. But a small device could not understand Dutch speech quickly and accurately enough. We measured that; we did not assume it.

That is why the listening now happens on servers we manage ourselves, in the EU. No other party gets to process your voice. Your keys, your passwords and the key to your data stay in your device. We would rather adjust our promise than promise something that isn’t true.