ScanBasic privacy.

Your documents stay on your iPhone and in your own iCloud; ScanBasic has no servers and the developer cannot see them.

Who this notice covers

This notice covers the ScanBasic iPhone app and the ScanBasic pages on the BasicApps website. ScanBasic is developed by Sean Meehan in Melbourne, Australia.

Privacy questions or complaints can be sent to support@basicapps.com.au. Describe the issue without attaching a document, a screenshot of a document or a password.

The short version

ScanBasic has no developer server, advertising, analytics, tracking or third-party SDK, and it does not require a ScanBasic account. Scanning, text recognition, PDF creation, markup, signing and password protection all run on your iPhone.

When your iPhone is signed in to iCloud, ScanBasic syncs your library through Apple’s CloudKit to the private database of your own iCloud account, so it appears on every iPhone signed in to the same Apple Account. The developer does not receive, inspect, sell or use your documents. You control them in ScanBasic and in your Apple settings.

The BasicApps production website separately uses cookieless Cloudflare Web Analytics for aggregate traffic measures, and AWS Amplify creates ordinary hosting request logs. Those website services do not receive documents from the app. Details are in the Website visits section below.

Information the app handles

ScanBasic handles what you put into it: the pages you scan or import, the PDFs it makes from them, the text it recognises on each page, document titles, folders and tags, markup, and the signatures you draw and save. It also keeps a few settings on each iPhone, such as whether App Lock and haptics are on.

ScanBasic uses this information only to provide the scanning, search, organising, markup, signing, sharing and sync features you use. Documents can be sensitive: ScanBasic keeps what you add on your iPhone and, when iCloud is available, in your iCloud.

ScanBasic uses the camera only while you scan. Importing from Photos uses Apple’s photo picker, which gives ScanBasic only the photos you choose and needs no access to your photo library. App Lock asks iOS to check Face ID or your passcode; ScanBasic receives only whether the check succeeded.

On your iPhone

ScanBasic keeps each document’s PDF as a file in its own folder on the iPhone, which you can see in the Files app under On My iPhone → ScanBasic. Titles, recognised text, folders, tags and signatures are kept in ScanBasic’s own storage on the iPhone. The library works fully without iCloud.

App Lock is a setting on each iPhone. When it is on, ScanBasic asks for Face ID or your passcode every time it opens and hides its content in the app switcher.

iCloud sync

When your iPhone is signed in to iCloud, ScanBasic syncs your documents — their PDFs with any markup and placed signatures, their recognised text and titles — and your folders, tags and saved signatures through Apple’s CloudKit to the private database of your own iCloud account. There is nothing to set up and no ScanBasic account. Every iPhone signed in to the same Apple Account downloads and keeps the whole library, including every PDF. The synced data uses your iCloud storage and is governed by your iCloud settings.

Apple transports and stores the synced data. The developer operates no server and has no tool for reading your iCloud data.

ScanBasic does not use iCloud Drive, and your documents are not visible in iCloud Drive or on a Mac or iCloud.com. To put a copy of a PDF in iCloud Drive, share it and choose Save to Files.

What happens when iCloud changes:

• Signing out of iCloud, or turning iCloud off for ScanBasic in Settings: the library stays on the iPhone and keeps working. Nothing syncs until you sign in again; then the changes you made in the meantime upload.
• Signing back in to the same Apple Account: ScanBasic syncs the whole library again. A document deleted on another iPhone in the meantime can come back, and you can delete it again.
• Signing in with a different Apple Account: ScanBasic uploads nothing to that account until you choose to add the library to it or to keep the library on this iPhone only.
• Deleting ScanBasic’s data from iCloud in Settings: the library stays on the iPhone and sync stops. ScanBasic offers to upload the library again and does so only if you confirm.
• A reset of your iCloud encrypted data: the library stays on the iPhone, and ScanBasic uploads it again from that iPhone to the same Apple Account.
• iCloud storage full: changes stay on the iPhone and sync when space is available.
• A PDF over 50 MB: the PDF stays on the iPhone that made it. Its title, recognised text, folder and tags still sync, and your other iPhones show the document as too large to sync.

Importing, sharing and password protection

When you import photos or PDFs, ScanBasic reads and processes them on the iPhone. When you share a document, ScanBasic prepares the PDF on the iPhone and passes it to Apple’s share sheet, where you choose the destination, such as Mail, Messages, AirDrop or Files. That destination’s privacy practices apply after you share.

If you turn on Protect with password, ScanBasic protects the shared copy with the password you enter. ScanBasic does not store or log the password, keeps the protected copy only until sharing finishes, and cannot recover a forgotten password. The copy in your library stays unprotected.

Device and iCloud backups

Local app data may be included in an iPhone backup when backups are on. iCloud data and backups are controlled through your Apple Account and iOS settings. Apple’s handling of those services is described in Apple’s Privacy Policy.

Deleting a document in ScanBasic does not remove an older copy from a backup. PDFs you have shared or saved elsewhere are ordinary files and must be removed separately from each destination.

Retention and deletion

Your documents stay until you delete them. Deleting a document in ScanBasic removes it from that iPhone, and sync removes it from iCloud and your other iPhones — unless another iPhone changed the document before the deletion reached it, in which case the change wins and the document is kept.

Deleting a PDF in the Files app does not delete the document. ScanBasic marks it as missing and lets you delete the entry or, when iCloud is available, download the PDF again.

Deleting the ScanBasic app removes the copy on that iPhone. The copy in iCloud stays until you delete ScanBasic’s data from iCloud in Settings.

Step-by-step instructions are in ScanBasic support.

Access and correction

You can view, rename, organise and delete your documents in ScanBasic.

Because the developer cannot access your iPhone or your iCloud data, an email request cannot retrieve, correct or delete documents on your behalf. Support can explain the controls but cannot delete anything remotely.

Website visits

The ScanBasic pages are static. They have no account or form, set no first-party cookie, and do not use browser storage to track you.

The production BasicApps website uses Cloudflare Web Analytics. It is cookieless, uses no browser storage and does not build a profile of your activity across other sites. It reports aggregate visits and page views rather than counts of unique or identifiable people. Protected preview versions exclude Cloudflare analytics.

The website is hosted on AWS Amplify. Serving a page creates routine access and security logs that can include an IP address, browser user agent, request time, and the requested path or query string. AWS retains those logs until the Amplify app is deleted. BasicApps does not export them for routine audience analytics; access is restricted to hosting, reliability, abuse-prevention or security needs, and a downloaded incident working copy is deleted when the incident is resolved.

Do not put a document title, document text, a password or another secret in a website path or query string. The ScanBasic app does not do this.

Emailing support sends the information you choose through your email provider to the developer. Do not attach a document, a password or an unredacted screenshot unless you have deliberately removed personal details and support has specifically asked for the file.

The site-wide explanation is available in BasicApps website privacy.

Disclosure and overseas processing

The developer does not disclose documents. Apple, AWS, Cloudflare, your email provider and the destinations you choose through the share sheet or document picker may process relevant service data in locations governed by their terms, privacy notices and your account settings.

The developer does not control where Apple stores iCloud data and does not receive your documents from CloudKit.

Security and honest limits

ScanBasic relies on Apple platform storage, CloudKit and the protections built into iOS. No security mechanism is perfect. Access to your iPhone, the security of your Apple Account, your backups and the files you share remain under your control.

Use an iPhone passcode, protect your Apple Account, turn on App Lock if other people use your iPhone, and check the destination before you share a document.

Questions, complaints and changes

Send privacy questions or complaints to support@basicapps.com.au. Information about privacy rights in Australia is available from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

This notice will be updated before a release changes how ScanBasic handles data. Material changes will use a new effective date and clear in-app or release wording.

The ScanBasic terms of use also apply when you use the app.