trKey Privacy Policy
Last updated: 31 October 2026
Publisher: gravid.biz. "We" below means gravid.biz. For any privacy question, contact us through https://gravid.biz.
In short
- trKey translates what you type on your phone. The text you write is not sent to us or to anyone else.
- We have no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking.
- The app never writes your messages to a file or to the system log (unless you choose to use Google's ML Kit: see Optional: Google translations). It holds them in memory only while it translates, and for the Undo button until you leave the field.
- The one thing the app downloads is the language files it needs, from our server.
- Two things are optional and off until you turn them on, each with a warning: Google translations and clipboard history.
What trKey is
trKey is a keyboard for Android. You type in your own language, tap Translate, and the text in the message box is replaced by its translation, so you can chat with someone who speaks another language. It works inside whichever chat app you use.
What the keyboard can see
Like any keyboard, trKey receives what you type in the app you are using. It does not read other apps' content, and it does not read what you type in password fields or fields that ask keyboards not to learn from them. In those fields Translate is switched off.
When you tap Translate, trKey reads the text in the current field (or your selection), translates it, and puts the result back.
Where your text goes
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Typing | The text stays in the app you are typing into. trKey does not keep a copy. |
| Translating | By default the translation runs on your phone, using Firefox's open-source translation engine (Bergamot) and language files stored on the phone. The text is not sent anywhere. |
| Undo | The original text is kept in memory so Undo translation can restore it. It is dropped when you leave the field, hide the keyboard or switch app. It is never written to storage. |
| Logs | The app does not write message text to the system log. Test builds log technical events only, never text. |
If you turn on Google translations (see below), this changes for the languages that only Google's engine offers.
What is downloaded, and what our server sees
Language files are downloaded the first time you translate to or from a language, from dl.gravid.biz. The app also
downloads a small index file and its signature, to know which languages exist and to check that the files come from us.
- On mobile data (or a metered Wi-Fi) the app asks before downloading. You can turn this question off in Settings, Translate.
- Our files are served through Amazon Web Services (Amazon S3 and CloudFront). Like any web request, a download shows the server your IP address, the time, the file requested (which tells it the language) and technical details your phone sends with every request, such as the Android version and device model. We have not switched on access logging for this service and we do not collect or analyse this information. Amazon operates the service and may process request data to run and secure it, under its own terms.
- The file name does not contain, and the request never carries, any text you wrote.
Optional: Google translations (off by default)
For a few language pairs the offline engine has no model. If you turn on Use Google translations in Settings, Translate (after a warning), trKey uses Google's ML Kit code on your phone for those pairs.
- Google's terms for ML Kit say it processes your text on the phone and Google does not receive the text. Google does receive usage data: the languages you use, the length of your messages and details of your device and app. See Google's own policies for how it uses these.
- ML Kit's code writes the text you translate to the phone's system log. That log can be read with a computer cable or in a bug report, not by ordinary apps.
- The language models for this option are downloaded from Google, not from us.
Turn it off again at any time. With it off, none of Google's translation code is started.
What is stored on your phone
| Data | When | How to remove it |
|---|---|---|
| Your settings (languages, layout, theme, options) | Always | Clear the app's data in Android, or uninstall |
| Downloaded language files | When you use a language | Settings, Translate, Language models, tap to delete |
| Keyboard layouts you chose | Always | Settings, Languages & layouts |
| Recently used emoji | On by default | Settings, Media (turn off history) |
| Clipboard history | Off by default. Only if you turn it on | Settings, Clipboard: turning it off deletes everything stored |
| Entries you add to the user dictionary | Only if you add them | Delete them in the dictionary screen |
| Crash report | Only if the app stops unexpectedly | Cleared when you dismiss it; it stays on the phone |
Clipboard history, if you turn it on, saves everything you copy, including passwords, bank details and private messages, in readable form in a database on the phone, until you delete it. The app warns you and asks you to confirm before it starts, and deletes the history when you turn it off. It is never sent anywhere by trKey. Turning clipboard history on is entirely at your own risk (see Use at your own risk).
Crash reports are saved on the phone and shown in the app, with technical details of the crash and your device. The app never sends them. If you choose to pass one on, you do that yourself.
Android's cloud backup is switched off for trKey, so these files are not copied to your Google account. If you use the keyboard's backup export to make a file, you choose where it goes.
Permissions
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
| Internet | Only to download language files, and Google's models if you turn that option on |
| Network state | To tell whether you are on mobile data, so the app can ask before a large download |
| Vibrate | Key vibration (off by default) |
| Notifications | Optional: to open the crash report screen if the app stops. You can skip it during setup |
trKey does not ask for access to your contacts, location, camera, microphone, photos or messages. The microphone button hands over to a voice keyboard you already have installed, if any; it is not part of trKey and trKey does not hear what you say.
What we do not do
- We do not collect, store or sell your messages or what you type.
- We do not use advertising, analytics, accounts, or tracking of any kind.
- We do not share your data with anyone, because we do not receive any.
Your rights
We do not hold personal information about you, so there is nothing for us to give you, correct or delete. The only technical request data about your downloads is held by Amazon as described above. If you are in the UK or the EU you can ask us what we hold, and you can complain to your data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).
Children
trKey is a general-purpose keyboard and is not directed at children.
Use at your own risk
trKey is an early proof-of-concept release, provided "as is", without any warranty. Translations are produced automatically and can be wrong, incomplete or misleading, so check anything that matters before you send it. Your use of this product, and of any optional feature you switch on (Google translations and clipboard history in particular), is at your own risk. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for any loss or damage that results from using it.
Changes
If this policy changes we will publish the new version on this page and change the date above. A change that affects what is sent from your phone will also be shown in the app.
Third-party software
trKey is based on FlorisBoard (Apache 2.0). Translation uses Mozilla's Firefox Translations models and the Bergamot translator (MPL 2.0), Marian (MIT), SentencePiece (Apache 2.0) and related libraries. The full list, with licences, is in the app under About, Third-party licenses.