Scout Notebook is provided through financial institutions. You get access when your institution gives you a VisionFI key — there are no consumer accounts, no sign-up, and we sell nothing to advertisers. This policy explains what the app does with your information, in the order you'd encounter it.
Your VisionFI key. You (or your institution) enter one access key. It is stored in the iOS Keychain on your device. The app sends it to Scout HQ (VisionFI's provisioning service) to verify your institution and fetch your institution's configuration.
Chat messages. What you type to an assistant.
Attachments. Files you add to a chat — a photo you take, an image from your photo library, a file from the Files app, or a file shared into Scout Notebook from another app. Attachments are capped at 20 MB.
Notebooks. Scout notebook files (.scoutnb) you import or create. These are databases of documents, extracted data, and analysis results.
The app requests camera access only, and only when you choose to take a photo to attach. Picking from your photo library or from Files uses Apple's out-of-process pickers, so the app never has access to your photo library or files beyond the items you pick. The app does not access your location, contacts, microphone, or browsing activity.
The app contacts Scout HQ (hq-*.scoutnotebook.com) for provisioning and catalog sync. These requests carry only your VisionFI key — no device identifiers, no usage data, and never any notebook, chat, or attachment content. In return, HQ delivers your institution's configuration: the list of assistants, their instructions, document schemas, and the service credentials your institution has provisioned (stored on your device).
Chat and document processing are powered by large language models running on one of two providers:
api.anthropic.com) — the primary provider, and where everything goes unless Anthropic is unavailable.api.x.ai), formerly xAI, a subsidiary of SpaceX — used only by the fallback assistant, which exists so the app keeps working during an Anthropic outage. The hostname is still api.x.ai; if your institution maintains an allowlist, that is the name to allow.No other model provider receives your content.
Content goes directly from your device to the provider — it does not pass through VisionFI's servers. A request includes:
Importing a document into a notebook also uses the AI provider: the app sends page images and document sections to the model to segment and transcribe them. Document import is not a purely on-device operation.
Anthropic does not retain your content. VisionFI has a zero-data-retention agreement with Anthropic: content sent for processing is used to generate the response and is not stored by Anthropic afterward, and is never used to train models.
SpaceXAI does not retain your content either. Under zero data retention, API inputs (your prompt) and outputs (the model's response) are never persisted to disk, and SpaceXAI does not train on API inputs or outputs.
Some institutions enable a loan-application assistant whose tools query financial data services directly from your device: vehicle data (MarketCheck), core-banking lookups (DCI iCore360), loan-origination search (MeridianLink), and payment/disclosure calculation (CalcWorks). These requests carry the specific query the assistant makes (for example, a VIN, a customer lookup, or loan terms) and your institution's service credentials. If your institution has not enabled that assistant, the app makes none of these connections.
The app makes no other network connections. There is no update check, no license ping, no crash reporter, and no analytics endpoint.
The app keeps this data until you delete it: delete a chat or notebook in the app, or delete the app to remove everything (your Keychain entries included, per iOS behavior). VisionFI cannot access, export, or delete the data on your device.
Scout HQ retains what your institution provisioned: your institution's configuration and the fact that a key was issued. Because your key identifies your institution's tenancy, HQ can see when a key checks in for sync. HQ holds no content you create.
Scout Notebook is provisioned by your institution, which acts as the data controller for content you process with it. Requests about data held by your institution or its AI providers should go to your institution's administrator. For questions about this policy or VisionFI's handling of provisioning data, contact privacy@visionfi.ai.
You can stop all data flows at any time by deleting the app.
Scout Notebook is a workplace tool for financial-institution staff and is not directed at children under 13.
We will update this policy when the app's data practices change and note the effective date above. Material changes will be called out in the app's “What's New” notes.
VisionFI
Questions about this policy: privacy@visionfi.ai