Privacy Policy

Effective date: 19 October 2026
Applies to: Antelope for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android (see the Android section below)
Last updated: 27 October 2026

This policy describes this software build. It is written in plain language so you can see what the app actually does. It is not legal advice, has not been reviewed by counsel, and is not a guarantee of anonymity, unhackability, or “complete security.”

If a later version of the app changes how data is handled, this document will be updated and the in-app copy will change with it. The in-app Settings → About → Privacy Policy is the copy bundled with the binary you installed.

Apple editions

1. Plain-language summary

Antelope is a WKWebView browser with an optional on-device assistant. No account is required to browse. There is no analytics SDK. Tracking is off. Optional Plus purchases in the downloadable Mac edition use Stripe and a JTR Labs license service hosted on Cloudflare; this service does not receive browsing content.

• Default AI policy is Never Use Cloud. Page text is not sent to a commercial model provider unless you change that policy, add a key you control, and authorize the session.
• History, bookmarks, notes, chats, embeddings, downloads, and local model files stay on the device (with the exceptions in §6).
• Websites you visit still see you as a browser on a network. Private Mode reduces local traces. It does not hide you from sites, your ISP, or the websites’ servers.
• We do not sell personal information. This build does not operate an advertising network and does not use an advertising identifier.

“We” and “the developer” mean the person or organization that publishes this app. This build does not include a developer backend that receives your browsing.

2. Who processes data

This app does not include VPN, Personal VPN, IKEv2, Network Extension, or any tunnel, and does not run a proxy that your traffic is forced through.

3. App Privacy nutrition labels (this binary)

These statements match PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy in this build:

• Edition-specific billing. App Store builds without direct billing do not contact the Mac license service. The downloadable Mac edition sends purchase/license information only when you buy or restore Plus and during subsequent license checks; see §3.1.
• Tracking is off. NSPrivacyTracking is false. There are no tracking domains. There is no advertising identifier and no third-party analytics SDK in this binary.
• Required-reason APIs used on-device only: UserDefaults (CA92.1), file timestamp (C617.1), disk space (E174.1), system boot time (35F9.1).

If Apple’s App Store nutrition labels are published, they should match this section. If they ever diverge, treat the shipped privacy manifest and this policy as the description of the binary, and contact the developer through the store listing when one exists.

3.1 Optional Plus billing for the downloadable Mac edition

Stripe processes your billing email, payment details, recurring charges, invoices, and cancellations under its privacy policy. JTR Labs can access billing records in Stripe for subscription support; Antelope does not receive or store your full card number.

The JTR Labs license service runs on Cloudflare. It receives a license credential, a random installation identifier, and ordinary connection metadata such as an IP address when checking access. It looks up payment and subscription status in Stripe and returns a signed license valid for at most 24 hours. It stores paid-checkout fulfillment identifiers. Browsing history, page text, bookmarks, notes, AI prompts, and downloaded files are never included in these billing requests. We do not use billing data for advertising or tracking.

The license credential and cached entitlement stay in this Mac’s Keychain. Keep an exported license code private; it can restore Plus on another Mac. Subscription cancellation stops future renewal and preserves access through the paid period; refunds, payment failures, and ended subscriptions may remove paid access on the next check. Core free features do not require these checks. Contact [email protected] for billing data or license recovery requests; payment records may be retained where required for accounting and fraud prevention.

4. Information that stays on your device

Unless you export it or send it yourself, the following is stored locally with iOS Data Protection:

• Browser tabs, history (if you leave history enabled), bookmarks, folders, and tags
• Downloads you save
• Reader snapshots / saved pages you choose to keep
• Notes, collections, spaces, tab groups, research projects
• Assistant conversations you allow to be saved
• Opt-in assistant memory items (encrypted at rest)
• Local embeddings / semantic index only if you enable indexing
• Prompt-injection log entries
• Site permissions you grant or deny
• Network transparency log of destinations this app contacted (not a full packet capture)
• Settings, including cloud policy, search engine, and model roles
• Bookmarks and history you import from another browser
• Link a Mac pairing details (the Mac’s name and network addresses)
• Downloaded GGUF model files (excluded from iCloud Backup)
• Encrypted backup archives you create (files you choose to save or share)
• Crash-recovery flags in UserDefaults (tab counts, not page URLs)
• Home Screen widget configuration (deep links to Search / Private tab / Ask AI — not Private Mode URLs or history)

The SwiftData store and model directory are excluded from iCloud Backup. Downloads remain in Documents so you can export them through Files.

Keychain is used for secrets such as encryption keys, optional API keys (including a Brave Search API key), an optional Kagi token, and Link a Mac pairing keys. Items use WhenUnlockedThisDeviceOnly (or equivalent device-bound accessibility) in this build.

Passwords for websites use system AutoFill / iCloud Keychain. This app does not keep a password vault for the assistant and does not give page passwords to the model.

5. Information we do not collect

This build does not run a developer telemetry pipeline. We do not collect, on a server of ours:

• Your name, email, or phone number from browsing. Optional billing contact information is handled as described in §3.1.
• Advertising identifiers
• Precise location for the developer (sites may still request location from you)
• Analytics events, funnels, or A/B flags
• Full browsing history uploaded “for improvement”
• Microphone, camera, or speech audio uploaded to us
• Contacts, photos, or Health data for our servers

If you never leave the device, the developer of this app does not receive a copy of what you browse.

6. Information that leaves the device

Leaving the device is normal for a browser. It is not the same as “we collect it.”

6.1 Web navigation

When you open a URL, your device performs ordinary HTTPS (or, if you allow it, other) requests to that host. The site may set cookies, see your IP address, user agent, and whatever the page loads (scripts, ads, trackers on that site). This app applies:

• HTTPS-Only upgrades for public http URLs (localhost and RFC1918 are left as-is so you can reach a machine you own)
• Optional stripping of common tracking query parameters (utm_*, fbclid, gclid, and similar)
• WebKit content rules built from a bundled host list and, if you turn them on, downloaded filter lists such as uBlock Origin, EasyList and EasyPrivacy (§6.14), plus WebKit tracking prevention. Content blocking cannot stop every ad or tracker
• Global Privacy Control and DNT signals you can enable, which ask sites to respect privacy; sites may ignore them
• Fingerprinting protection (on by default): small, invisible random changes to canvas, WebGL and audio readings, a generic GPU name, and a varied CPU core count, so sites cannot use those readings to recognize your device across sites or app launches. The random values are derived on the device from a key created at each launch and are never sent anywhere. It does not hide your IP address or every fingerprinting signal (for example screen size and installed fonts).

6.2 Search

The query you type into search is sent to the engine you selected. Default is DuckDuckGo. Private Mode can force DuckDuckGo. A bang (for example !w) may send you to a third-party site. Optional Kagi search may attach a token you stored, only on kagi.com URLs.

6.3 Model downloads

Catalog downloads (for example Qwen2.5 Instruct GGUF from Hugging Face) occur only when you tap Download. The request includes a product user agent. Files are checked for the GGUF magic header; invalid files are deleted. Model licenses (Apache 2.0, Gemma License, and others) are shown in Model Manager and are your responsibility to review.

6.4 Link rewriting and site forgetting (local)

Before a page loads, Antelope may rewrite the address on the device: known tracking-redirect links (for example Google /url or Facebook l.php) are replaced by the destination they point to, Google and Bing AMP copies are replaced by the publisher’s own page, tracking parameters are removed and HTTP is upgraded to HTTPS. These rewrites make no network request of their own; each can be turned off in Settings → Privacy. “Forget me when I close this site” and the global “Forget every site” option delete a site’s cookies, storage and caches from this device when its last tab closes, and optionally its history entries. “Shred” does the same immediately. On a page that answers 404 or a similar status, Antelope can offer a Wayback Machine lookup; nothing is sent to archive.org until you tap Check, and the lookup is recorded in the network transparency log.

6.5 Antelope Search

Antelope Search is a results page drawn by the app, not a website. With a Brave Search API key you pasted into Settings → Search, each search sends the query and that key to api.search.brave.com; Brave bills your own account and sees the query, your IP address and the key, but no cookies, page contents or identifiers from this app. Without a key, in private tabs, or when Brave fails, the browser fetches DuckDuckGo’s HTML results page (html.duckduckgo.com) exactly as if you had opened it. Lenses (your ranking rules), the Discussions view, the “Your pages” section (from the on-device page index, when enabled) and the AI answer run on this device or your own Mac over Computer Link. Brave entity suggestions while typing are off by default; when on, what you type is sent to search.brave.com as you type. Every request appears in the network transparency log. Results are shown for the current page only and are not stored.

6.6 Selection menu and Organize Tabs

Selecting text on a page adds an “Ask Antelope” entry to the selection menu (it can be turned off in Settings → AI). Choosing an action sends only the selected text, the page title and your question to the AI location you have chosen in Settings → AI (this device by default; your own Mac over Computer Link, a private server or a confirmed cloud provider only if you set them up). “Organize Tabs” sends the titles and site names of your open non-private tabs to that same location so the model can suggest groups; page addresses, page contents and private tabs are never included, and nothing changes until you apply a suggestion.

6.7 Optional cloud or private-network AI

Default execution mode is local-only. If you set policy to allow cloud or a private-network OpenAI-compatible / Ollama endpoint:

• You must store an endpoint and, if required, a key
• You must approve the session after Antelope shows which provider and endpoint will receive your requests. Every policy, including Cloud First, needs this once per session, and changing the provider or endpoint asks again
• Prompts, page extracts you include, and conversation context will leave the device to that endpoint
• Outside Private Mode, the network transparency log records app request attempts. Private assistant and fact-check requests do not persist destination entries. The log is not a packet capture or a complete record of website/system traffic.

Turn the policy back to Never Use Cloud to stop. Keys remain in Keychain until you delete them.

6.8 Link a Mac (Computer Link)

Settings → Link a Mac lets Antelope on iPhone or iPad use larger models running in Antelope on your own Mac. You pair by scanning the QR code the Mac shows in Settings → Share Models with iPhone, or by pasting its pairing text. The camera is used only for that scan; the code is decoded on the device and no image is saved. iOS asks for local network permission when you link a Mac.

While the link is on and the Mac is reachable, your question, the page excerpts you ask about and the conversation context are sent directly to that Mac over your local network, or over your own Tailscale network if you use one, encrypted with TLS using the pairing key, and the answer streams back. Nothing passes through a server of ours. The Mac answers with its own local model and does not save the requests; while Antelope is open it shows only how many requests it served and the time and address of the last one. Each request is recorded in the iPhone’s network transparency log. When the Mac is not reachable, Antelope uses the model on your iPhone or iPad and says so.

To stop, use Unlink this Mac in Settings → Link a Mac. On the Mac, turning sharing off or regenerating the pairing key disconnects every linked device.

6.9 Apple on-device intelligence

On supported hardware and OS versions (Apple Intelligence / Foundation Models, typically iOS 26+ where Apple makes them available), generation can run on-device via Apple’s system frameworks. This app’s default is still Never Use Cloud: it does not send those prompts to Private Cloud Compute or a developer server. Apple’s own system privacy rules apply to Apple’s frameworks.

6.10 llama.cpp / GGUF

On a physical iPhone or iPad, this build can load a GGUF you downloaded and generate on-device (Metal, then CPU fallback). Simulator builds cannot link the XCFramework (no iOS Simulator slice) and will not run GGUF inference. Weights are never bundled in the App Store binary.

6.11 Importing from another browser

Import from Another Browser (Settings → Tools & Automation → Import / Export, or the Library) reads only the export file you choose in the system file picker: a Safari export, a bookmarks HTML file, Chrome, Brave, Edge or Arc Bookmarks and History files, Google Takeout history, or Firefox bookmarks. The file is read on this device; a temporary working copy is deleted as soon as it has been read. Bookmarks, and history if Save history is on, are added to Antelope’s local library. Passwords, payment cards and extensions are never read. Nothing is uploaded. Undo Import removes everything that import added.

6.12 Share extension, widgets, Spotlight

• Share-in writes a local inbox file, then the app imports it on-device.
• Widgets open deep links (privatebrowserai://). They never encode Private Mode URLs or history.
• Spotlight may index bookmarks you saved, not history and not private tabs.

6.13 Encrypted backup

Backup is a local file you export (passphrase or device-key formats). Restore refuses archives that claim to be iCloud data. You choose whether that file is copied to Files, AirDrop, or another device. New passphrase backups use AES-GCM with a salted PBKDF2-SHA256 key. Device-key backups can only be restored where the original Keychain key is available. Antelope cannot recover a lost passphrase.

Library Sync is separate, optional, and manual. It reads and writes encrypted bookmark and note snapshots in the folder you explicitly choose. Your file provider (such as iCloud Drive) may transfer those encrypted files between devices under its own policies. Sync excludes browsing history, tabs, cookies, chats, credentials, downloaded pages, and API keys. Deliberately saved bookmarks and notes are included even if you saved them while browsing privately. Antelope does not send them to a JTR Labs sync server. A random installation identifier is used only in the sync filename. The passphrase is held in memory during the operation and is not saved by Antelope.

Sync adds missing saved items; it does not propagate deletions. Conflicting note versions are retained separately. Stop using Library Sync to stop Antelope reading or writing the folder; copies already in the provider remain until you remove them there.

6.14 Protection-list updates

Automatic checks contact pgl.yoyo.org at most once daily when the browser opens outside Private Mode. You can also request an update manually, including while in Private Mode. The server sees your IP address and a generic updater User-Agent. Antelope sends no visited URLs, page text, history, cookies, or device identifier. Update attempts are recorded in the app network log and are unrelated to the current page. Downloads use HTTPS with redirects disabled. Only validated domain lists are accepted; downloaded scripts and arbitrary filtering code are not executed. Failed updates retain prior rules. Settings → Tracker Shield → Protection list updates lets you disable automatic checks or return to bundled rules.

Filter lists follow the same rules. When they are on, Antelope downloads the lists switched on in Protection lists (uBlock filters with its Quick fixes and Unbreak lists, EasyList, EasyPrivacy, uBlock Privacy, URL tracking protection, and Badware risks) from ublockorigin.github.io over HTTPS with redirects disabled, at most every few hours when the browser opens outside Private Mode. Lists must carry a uBlock list header and are parsed as data: hostnames, URL patterns, CSS selectors, and the names and string arguments of page fixes built into the app. Unknown page fixes are ignored; downloaded lists cannot add code. URL tracking protection removes listed tracking parameters from a link on the device before the page is requested; nothing about the link is sent anywhere. Per-page counts of hidden elements and applied fixes shown in Tracker Shield stay on the device. Failed updates keep the previous lists. Settings → Tracker Shield → Protection list updates lets you turn each list or all Filter lists off, or remove the downloaded lists.

Block cookie consent notices (Settings → Privacy, on by default) works the same way with two more lists from the same host: EasyList Cookie Notices and uBlock Origin’s cookie-notice fixes. They hide consent banners and, on sites that require an answer, the built-in page fixes may store a consent cookie or storage value on that site recording the “reject” or “necessary only” choice, or press the notice’s reject button for you. These values are written only to the site you are visiting and never leave the device.

6.15 Background tasks

Opportunistic BackgroundTasks may refresh page or price monitors you created. They run on-device when iOS allows; they cannot run continuously. They do not upload those snapshots to us.

6.16 Background playback

When “Play audio and video in the background” is on (Settings → Privacy), audio or video you started on a page keeps playing after you leave Antelope or lock the screen, and iOS shows playback controls on the lock screen and in Control Center. Nothing is sent anywhere because of this setting. When it is off, page media pauses as Antelope leaves the screen.

6.17 Original sources for assistant answers

When you ask about search results, Antelope may request up to three selected original HTTPS pages to find supporting passages. Source websites and DNS services receive normal connection metadata, including your IP address and requested URL. Your chat text is not sent as a request body to those source websites. These requests use no shared cookies, credential storage, or disk HTTP cache. Page scripts and remote subresources are disabled during extraction. Redirects are bounded and checked against destination restrictions. Pages that require sign-in, executable page content, unsupported formats, or blocked access may not be readable; the assistant labels snippet fallbacks.

In Local Only mode, drafting and checking sourced claims run on the device. If you have selected and authorized a remote AI provider, the selected source passages are included in the request to that provider. Private source retrieval is not persisted in the network log. Captured passages are stored with saved normal-mode chats so citations can be inspected later; private chats remain unsaved. A citation does not guarantee that the source or the model’s interpretation is correct.

7. Permissions the system may ask for

Usage strings exist because websites or optional device features can request them. Denying a prompt is supported.

The assistant does not get silent access to camera, microphone, or location for “training.”

8. Private Mode

Private Mode uses a non-persistent website data store, skips history / chats / embeddings / memory writes, can force DuckDuckGo, and can close private tabs on exit. Closing the last private tab starts a fresh cookie store. Private permission checks, assistant injection warnings, and private AI/fact-check destination logs do not persist visited hosts. Private assistant context excludes normal tabs. Private video and file downloads require confirmation and remain on disk if approved. App-switcher blur can hide the preview.

Private Mode is not anonymity, not Tor, and not a VPN. Destinations you visit still see a network request from your IP address (or whatever path your device already uses, such as iCloud Private Relay if you enabled it in system settings).

9. Children

This app is a general-purpose browser. It is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent age in your country). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children on a server of ours because this build does not collect personal information on a server of ours. If a child uses the browser, websites they visit have their own policies. Parents should use iOS Screen Time and system restrictions as they would with Safari.

10. Automated decision-making and AI outputs

On-device or optional remote models may summarize, compare, or extract text you provided. Outputs can be wrong, incomplete, or biased. Page-grounded actions are designed to stay extractive; they are not professional, legal, medical, or financial advice. You remain responsible for what you do with answers and with sites you visit.

Website tools follow the Agent permission level in Settings → AI. Level 1 reads, searches and navigates without asking. Level 2 adds clicking and typing, which ask first or run under a 10-minute grant for one task. Submit, purchase, post, delete and account actions ask for your confirmation every time; CAPTCHA solving and downloads are never automatic. The assistant will not bypass CAPTCHAs, paywalls, DRM, or site security.

Prompt-injection defenses split untrusted page text from system instructions and can freeze website interaction after blocked patterns. No filter is perfect.

11. Retention, deletion, and your controls

Because the store is on-device, you already hold the data.

You can:

• Clear history, cookies / site data, chats, memory, embeddings, and downloads from Settings
• Delete a downloaded model (the runtime unloads it)
• Delete an encrypted backup file you created
• Remove optional API keys from Keychain via Settings
• Reset the local database from launch recovery (models and downloads are left in place unless you delete them)
• Delete the app, which removes its container (Keychain items may persist until you uninstall according to iOS behavior; delete keys in Settings first if you want them gone)

There is no developer dashboard where we can “see your history,” because it is not uploaded to us.

If a privacy law (for example GDPR or CCPA) gives you rights against a service that collects personal information, those rights still apply to websites and optional endpoints you use. Against the developer of this build, the practical equivalent of access and erasure is: look at Settings, export if you wish, then delete.

12. Sale, sharing, and “selling” under CCPA / CPRA

We do not sell personal information. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not operate a data broker. Optional third parties in §2 receive data only because you navigated, searched, downloaded, enabled an endpoint, linked a Mac, imported a file, or left protection-list updates enabled.

13. International transfers

This app does not host your browsing on a developer server, so we do not transfer a profile of you to another country. Your device, Apple’s systems, and any site or API you contact may be anywhere on the network. Those parties’ policies apply.

14. Security

We use platform Data Protection, Keychain, encrypted memory values, HTTPS-Only defaults, and local encryption for backup files. No consumer app is unhackable. A person with your unlocked phone, a compromised website, malware, a backup file you copied, or a cloud endpoint you enabled can still expose data. Protect the device with a passcode, enable App Lock if you want it, and treat backups as sensitive.

15. Third-party terms

WebKit, Swift, SwiftUI, SwiftData, CryptoKit, NaturalLanguage, Vision, Speech, llama.cpp (MIT), and downloaded model licenses are described in Licenses in the app. Hugging Face, DuckDuckGo, Kagi, Brave, the Internet Archive, GitHub, Apple, and any cloud provider you add (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) have their own terms and policies.

16. Do Not Track / GPC

You can send DNT and Global Privacy Control headers. They are signals, not enforcement.

17. Changes

Material changes will update this document and the bundled in-app copy, and may appear in What’s New. Continued use after an update you installed means that build’s policy applies. There is no browsing account. Billing messages may be sent using the email you provide to Stripe.

18. Contact

Contact JTR Labs at [email protected] or visit https://jtrlabs.com/antelope/support.html for product and privacy questions. Only include information you choose to share; do not send passwords or private browsing content.

For websites you visit, contact that site. For Apple services, contact Apple. For a cloud endpoint you configured, contact that provider.

19. What we do not claim

• Not anonymous
• Not a Tor browser
• Not an app-operated VPN
• Not a guarantee that every ad or tracker is blocked
• Not counsel-reviewed legal advice
• Private Mode ≠ hiding from the network
• Demo mode is not a real model
• Cloud AI is optional, confirmed, and off by default