Most scanner apps "understand" your documents by uploading them. The OCR happens in a data center. The categories come from a cloud model. Your rental contract takes a round trip through servers you cannot see, governed by a privacy policy you did not read.
Catadoc is built the other way around. The reading, the understanding, the search index, the PDF compression: all of it runs on the phone. Not because a server would not be easier. Because for passports and bank statements, "trust us" is not an architecture.
Claims you can verify
- Airplane mode is a feature. Turn radios off and use the app. Scanning, understanding, search, and sharing all work. That is the entire pitch, demonstrated in your own settings.
- One network call, and it is yours. The app makes exactly one kind of network request: the feedback you write and choose to send us. Nothing automatic, ever.
- No account. There is nothing to sign up for, so there is no profile of you to leak.
- No telemetry. We deliberately ship without analytics. We learn about problems when you tell us, not by watching you.
- Encrypted at rest. Your library is an encrypted database, keyed from the phone's own secure keychain. Delete the app and it is gone.
The cost we accepted
Building on-device means our understanding engine had to become good without a giant cloud model behind it. It reads the way an accountant reads: labels, positions, checksums, arithmetic that has to add up. When it is not sure, it says nothing instead of guessing, and you can fix any fact yourself with one tap. We think that trade, honesty over theater, is what handling other people's paperwork should look like.