Last updated: September 13, 2026
WriteOff: Deduction Scanner (“WriteOff”) is operated by Faba Development LLC (“we,” “us”). This notice describes what the app actually does with your information. The short version: your records stay on your phone; the photos, receipt text and questions you submit are sent to our server and to an AI provider only to be identified or read, are not stored by us, and are not used to train models; and the app sends no analytics.
WriteOff helps self-employed people in the United States work out whether an expense may be a federal income-tax deduction, and keep the records for it. It provides educational guidance and record organization. It is not tax advice, not a tax preparer and not a substitute for a CPA, enrolled agent or tax attorney. See the Terms of Use for the full statement.
To identify a photo, the photo is sent over an encrypted connection to our server and from there to Google’s Gemini API, together with your occupation and the tax year. Before upload the app re-encodes the image at a reduced size, which removes camera metadata such as location. The provider returns a description and category; our server discards the photo once the request completes. We do not keep photos on our server.
To read a typed question, the text is sent the same way. To read a receipt, the app recognizes the text on your phone using Apple’s on-device text recognition; only the recognized lines are sent, not the image.
To assess an expense, the item, category, tax year, your answers and your business profile are sent to our server, where a rules engine produces the assessment from published IRS guidance. No AI model is involved in that decision and nothing is stored.
For optional AI explanations and wording suggestions (“Ask Follow-Up” and “Suggest wording”), the assessment and your question are sent to the AI provider; the response is labeled as AI-generated in the app.
Who receives it. Two parties: our server, which relays the request, and Google, which processes it under the Gemini API Terms of Service. We use Google’s paid API. Under its terms Google does not use content sent through the paid API to train its models, and may retain it for a limited period for abuse detection and legal compliance. We do not send your name or any identifier that would let Google link requests to you. The provider is named in the app before your first check and on the “Your data” screen; if it ever changes, this policy and those screens change first.
Your consent. The app asks for your explicit agreement before anything is sent, and explains it again in Settings. You can decline, and you can still save records by entering them yourself.
Our server is hosted on Cloudflare. Our logs record request counts, timings and error codes; they never record photos, receipt text, questions, amounts, merchants or assessment contents.
To apply the free allowance and prevent abuse, our server keeps counters: how many checks an anonymous, app-generated identifier has used, and, for free checks, how many came from a network address that day. Each check also gets a random identifier, kept for up to 30 days, so finishing or following up on it does not count again. These are numbers and random identifiers, not content. They are not linked to your name or Apple Account.
Saved records, photos, receipt images, business purposes, notes and your business profile are stored in the app’s private storage on your device, protected with your device passcode (iOS data protection) and included in your device backups if you have backups enabled. WriteOff has no user accounts and no cloud storage of records. If you delete a record, or the app, it is gone; we hold no copy.
A check you leave before saving (its photo or receipt, the identification and your answers so far) is kept the same way under “In progress” on the home screen, so you can finish it without using another check. It is removed when you save or discard it, or after 30 days.
Subscriptions are processed by Apple. We use RevenueCat to validate purchases and manage access. RevenueCat receives the receipt Apple issues and a random app-specific identifier; it does not receive your name, email or any content from the app. The same random identifier is what our server uses to count free checks.
This version of WriteOff sends no usage analytics and does not track you across other companies’ apps or websites. If analytics are added in a future version, this policy will say so before that version ships, and events will never include photos, receipt contents, amounts, merchants, business names, questions or notes.
If you have opted into sharing analytics with app developers in iOS Settings, Apple provides us with crash logs. These do not include your records.
WriteOff does not request location, contacts, the microphone or notifications.
WriteOff is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new date, and material changes will be shown in the app.
Faba Development LLC — luke_fairbanks@icloud.com. Include “WriteOff” in the subject. Do not send passwords, payment details or tax identification numbers.