Privileged stays privileged.
Privilege does not survive being handed to a third party you did not vet. Walkie's On-Device Mode transcribes on your own machine and makes no network request, so privileged material never becomes someone else's inbound traffic.
You are handling attorney-client privileged communications, work product, and the parts of a matter that are not yet anybody else's business, under your duty of confidentiality, and the expectation that you understand where a tool sends what you say into it. Here's exactly where it goes, tier by tier — starting with the option that sends nothing at all.
Why on-device, and not just a good policy
Sending privileged material through a third-party transcription service is a decision you may have to defend, and "their policy said they delete it" is a weaker answer than "it never left the machine." On-Device Mode gives you the second answer. There is no vendor in the chain to disclose, diligence, or explain.
What actually leaves your machine
Ranked from strongest to weakest — because these three guarantees don't mean the same thing.
The speech model runs on your own machine and makes no network request at all. There is no server to trust, no policy to read, and no log to audit — the audio has nowhere to go. This is unlimited and free forever, on every plan and with no account.
Audio is transcribed in the cloud under Zero Data Retention: the request is processed and the content is discarded when the response is returned. Walkie does not retain it. Providers are contractually bound not to train on it. Cloud Mode also sends the name of the app you are dictating into, and can send the text around the cursor so polish can format the sentence — you can switch that off. If even that is unacceptable, use On-Device Mode.
A meeting archive you can search later is, definitionally, stored. Recordings and transcripts live in your account until you delete them, and deletion is permanent. Walkie can capture and summarise a meeting entirely on-device on a Mac with Apple Intelligence — but recorded hours are metered the same either way, so on-device capture is a privacy decision, never a cheaper one.
What you would dictate
Dictate the first draft at the speed you argue it. Editing a full draft beats staring at an empty page.
Summarise while the transcript is open and the impression is fresh, without typing through it twice.
Speak the note the moment the call ends. On-Device Mode keeps a privileged conversation from becoming a cloud request.
Talk through documents as you review them. Custom dictionary handles party names and defined terms.
Dictate billing narratives at the end of the day instead of reconstructing them on Friday.
Engagement letters, demand letters, and the twelfth email of the afternoon.
What Walkie does not do
Procurement will ask. Here first.
- Walkie is HIPAA-ready, not HIPAA-certified, and does not sign Business Associate Agreements. If your work requires a BAA, On-Device Mode removes the question instead of answering it — there is no third party to cover.
- There is no SSO, SCIM provisioning, or admin console. If your security team works from a procurement checklist, Walkie will not fill in every row.
- Recording other people is a legal question that varies by jurisdiction and often turns on consent. Walkie captures your computer's audio without joining the participant list, which makes telling people you are recording your job, not the app's.
Questions
This is not legal advice, and the answer depends on your jurisdiction and your engagement terms. What Walkie can tell you factually: in On-Device Mode no third party receives the material, because no network request is made. In Cloud Mode audio is sent to a transcription provider under Zero Data Retention. If the distinction matters to a matter, use On-Device Mode.
On-Device Mode makes no network request, which is the mode built for material under legal privilege, under NDA, or covered by a policy that forbids third-party processing. Check the order's terms — but the technical answer is that nothing is transmitted.
Dictation history is stored locally and can be cleared from Settings → History. Your custom dictionary and snippets sync to your account only if history sync is switched on.
Walkie runs on macOS and Windows and works system-wide. There is no SSO, SCIM, or admin console yet, so a firm with a formal procurement checklist will find rows Walkie cannot fill. On-Device Mode needs no account at all, which is sometimes the easier approval.