Privacy and safety

Ark's product promise depends on being honest about privacy, security, and critical-use limits.

Privacy posture

Ark is designed as a local-first app:

• No account is required for core use.
• No backend is required for app launch.
• Notes, imported documents, saved spots, routes, settings, RSS cache, download metadata, and indexes are stored locally.
• Backups are user-initiated encrypted .arkbackup files.
• AI/RAG is designed to work over local files when native model support is available.

Network access

Network access should be user-directed or cache-directed:

• Downloading content packs, map packs, routing packs, and model packs.
• Refreshing weather forecasts or RSS feeds.
• Resolving remote catalogs/manifests.
• Using optional online map/geocoder sources.
• Opening OS handoff links.
• Registering custom model/content URLs.

Core boot must continue to work when all of these fail.

Sensitive data

Treat these as sensitive:

• Vault notes and note metadata.
• Imported documents and OCR output.
• Saved spots, coordinates, and routes.
• Backups.
• Chat prompts and local AI history.
• Downloaded private/custom files.

Do not add logging that prints these values. Dev logs should stay structural: IDs, counts, durations, and non-sensitive status codes.

Safety copy

Use conservative wording for:

• Medical and first aid content.
• Foraging and food safety.
• Weather and disaster forecasts.
• AI-generated answers.
• Personal safety and conflict content.
• Navigation/routing in dangerous conditions.

Ark can help users prepare and retrieve information offline. It must not imply guaranteed safety, medical authority, official emergency status, or edible plant/mushroom identification.

Data sources and licensing

Third-party guides, models, maps, RSS feeds, APIs, ZIM archives, and PDFs keep their own licenses and terms. LICENSE covers this repository's code and project-owned assets only.

Before adding a curated source, verify:

• The source is reputable enough for the use case.
• Downloading/offline caching is allowed.
• Attribution requirements are understood.
• Checksums or stable versioning exist where practical.
• The content does not create obvious safety risk.

Release implication

A beta release can be public, but it should be framed as a preparedness/offline toolkit under active development, not a finished emergency product. Keep the README, screenshots, release notes, and Reddit post aligned with that.