Start by separating upload, storage, and drafting
An online scribe may advertise encryption for information in transit and at rest. Those protections matter, but neither phrase by itself tells you where the note is written or who can access the conversation while it is being processed.
There are three separate questions: what is sent away, where copies are stored, and where the software turns the conversation into a note. Treating these as separate questions makes seemingly similar privacy claims easier to compare.
What the common promises do and do not tell you
| Claim | What it addresses | What remains to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Encrypted during upload | Protection while information travels. | Who receives it at the destination? |
| Encrypted storage | Protection of stored copies. | Who can decrypt them, and what is processed elsewhere? |
| Not used for training | One possible use of the information. | Is it uploaded, retained, or shared for other purposes? |
| Transcription and drafting on your device | Where the clinical work happens. | Does the app send any clinical content elsewhere? |
The last question is why a desktop icon alone is not enough. An installed app can still send a transcript to an online model. A genuinely local note-taking process keeps both the speech-to-text step and the drafting step on the device.
An unreadable stored copy is still a stored copy
A storage service can hold encrypted information without the key to read it. That is a different arrangement from a service that receives readable text to generate a note. Both are different again from a company that receives none of the clinical material.
HHS cloud guidance illustrates this distinction for HIPAA-regulated services: a provider maintaining encrypted ePHI can still be a business associate even when it lacks the decryption key. The privacy question includes holding the record, not only reading it.
For an existing cloud-scribe user, the important comparison is the actual recording and transcript your service processes. Find out which company receives each and whether the drafting step requires the conversation to leave your device.
Keep encryption and remove the scribe upload
Astralcyte does speech-to-text and note drafting on your device, with the working records kept in an encrypted vault. Its privacy policy states that the app does not send recordings, transcripts, or notes to the company.
You can keep a hosted EHR. Edit the draft locally and copy the finished note into that record. The EHR receives what you choose to file; the scribe provider never receives the fuller conversation used to prepare it.
This lets you retain the help you want from AI while removing an additional company-held clinical copy. Encryption remains part of protecting your records, and the clinical conversation stays out of the scribe company's systems.