Is the Friend AI necklace private? What it hears, keeps, and trains on

The Morse teamPublished November 6, 202610 min read

As of November 2026, the Friend AI necklace isn't private, for you or for the people around you. Friend's own FAQ says that while the pendant is connected to your iPhone, "your friend is always listening," and its privacy policy lets Friend train its AI on what it collects and keep records for five years or more (Friend, Friend privacy policy). Whether anyone nearby agreed to be heard is, in the FAQ's words, something "You're responsible for."

We read the product page and FAQ on friend.com, Friend's privacy policy and terms of service (both marked "Date Last Updated: June 14, 2025"), the Friend app's App Store listing, and an archived August 2025 copy of Friend's FAQ on November 6, 2026. We took Friend at its word and ran no tests. Friend is still selling: the pendant costs $249, ships to the United States and Canada, and its app's latest update, version 1.17, came out on September 30, 2026 (App Store). Friend earns credit for plain answers. Its FAQ says outright that the pendant is always listening, says that if you disconnect the app "they hear nothing," and promises "We never sell personal data for marketing or advertising."

Friend necklace privacy at a glance

Read on Friend's own pages, November 6, 2026.

Does the Friend necklace record everything you say?

It listens to everything in range while it's connected. Friend's FAQ says the pendant "pairs with your iPhone over Bluetooth and needs an internet connection. While connected, your friend is always listening" (Friend). The FAQ says your friend "listens to the activities you share, like watching a movie, having a conversation, or going for a hike, and replies out loud." The spec list names a speaker and a microphone.

The way to stop it is the app. Friend says the pendant listens "only while connected to the friend app over Bluetooth, at standard iPhone range. Disconnect the app and they hear nothing."

Whether Friend keeps the sound itself is less clear. The privacy policy says that when you use the device, you allow Friend "to collect data from your surroundings, which may include but is not limited to biometric information, biometric data, facial recognition, voice and audio recordings" (Friend). The App Store privacy label Friend filed for its app lists usage data, contact info, identifiers, and diagnostics, and no audio data (App Store). Apple asks developers to "Mark 'Audio Data' for voice recordings," but counts data as collected only when it's kept "longer than what is necessary to service the transmitted request in real time" (Apple). The label fits a Friend that throws the audio away once it has answered, and the policy allows for keeping it. Neither page says which happens today.

Where does Friend send what it hears?

To the cloud, in the United States. The pendant "needs an internet connection," per the FAQ, and the privacy policy says "Friend currently processes data in the United States of America," adding that its cloud services "might process and retain data and your personal information in different jurisdictions" (Friend).

Friend doesn't say which AI company hears it. Its terms say the product uses "one or more large language models ('LLM') developed by us or other third-parties" (Friend terms), and the privacy policy says vendors and service providers will process personal data "only in the course of performing their duties to us." None of the Friend pages we read on November 6, 2026 names a model or the company that runs it.

Does Friend train its AI on your conversations?

Yes, its policy and terms allow it. The privacy policy lists, among the uses of your data, "the training of our artificial intelligence and machine learning models," and says "the data you provide may be used to train the models that power Friend" (Friend). The terms go further. For anything you "create, record, generate, upload, post, or otherwise make available," you give Friend "a worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid-up, perpetual, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), and non-exclusive license," and one listed purpose is "to train and improve our artificial intelligence models" (Friend terms).

We found no training switch on any Friend page. The FAQ sums up Friend's use of your data as "only to operate and improve your friend" (Friend), and the privacy policy counts training as part of improving the service.

The same terms ask you to keep secrets out: "You agree not to submit any information or other materials that you consider to be confidential or proprietary." For a pendant that hears every conversation in range, keeping that promise means disconnecting it first.

How long does Friend keep your data?

Longer than your friend remembers it. On the free plan, the FAQ says "memories fade after 30 days," and an "optional $9.99/month memory subscription lets your friend keep memories forever" (Friend). That's what the character can recall. Friend's own records run on a different clock. The privacy policy keeps personal data "for as long as needed to provide the Service," says "we may keep your data for longer than 5 years if we cannot delete it for legal, regulatory, or technical reasons," and holds recorded information for "5 years after our business relationship with you has ended or longer" (Friend).

Friend has changed where memories live. Its FAQ in August 2025 said "All memories are encrypted by your friend's circuit board. If your friend is lost or damaged, they are inaccessible forever" (archived Friend FAQ). Fortune's review of October 3, 2025, which still ranked for this question on November 6, 2026, says "You can destroy all of your data with the necklace" (Fortune). Today's FAQ says "you can meet up to 20 friends in the app and connect any of them to your device," and "Conversations are encrypted and protected by a root key created during setup" (Friend). A friend is no longer tied to one pendant. The FAQ doesn't say who holds that root key or whether Friend's servers can read your conversations. To delete your data, it says to email team@friend.com.

Is it legal to wear a Friend necklace around other people?

It depends on where you are, and Friend makes it your problem. The FAQ says "You're responsible for following local recording and consent laws. We recommend being open with the people around you" (Friend). The terms say "YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH ALL APPLICABLE PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE LAWS," and the privacy policy asks you to agree that "Friend will not be held liable in any civil or criminal legal action" over what the device collects (Friend terms, Friend privacy policy). This isn't legal advice.

Federal law lets you record a conversation you're part of (18 U.S.C. § 2511), which our Plaud page covers. Some states ask more, and some name transmitting a conversation as well as recording it. Washington bars using any device "designed to record or transmit" a private conversation "without first obtaining the consent of all the persons engaged in the conversation," and treats an announcement to everyone as consent, provided the announcement is recorded too (RCW 9.73.030). Illinois makes it eavesdropping to use a device "in a surreptitious manner" for "transmitting or recording" a private conversation you're in without the consent of everyone else in it (720 ILCS 5/14-2). In Canada, the other country Friend ships to, the Criminal Code allows interception with the consent of one party to the conversation (Criminal Code, s. 184).

Friend's pages also claim biometric data. Its terms say "THE PRODUCT PASSIVELY RECORDS YOUR SURROUNDINGS, INCLUDING VIDEO, AUDIO, AND BIOMETRIC DATA SUCH AS FACIAL RECOGNITION AND VOICE RECOGNITION," and the privacy policy lists "Biometric data, such as facial recognition, voice recognition" among the data Friend may collect, while saying elsewhere "We do not process sensitive information." The spec list on friend.com names a microphone and no camera. Illinois requires a company to inform a person in writing and receive "a written release" before it collects their biometric identifier, and to publish a schedule for destroying it (740 ILCS 14/15). Friend's privacy policy has no separate schedule for biometric data, and none of its pages says whether the pendant builds a voice profile of anyone it hears.

New Yorkers raised the bystander question in public in the fall of 2025, writing over Friend's subway posters during a launch campaign that founder Avi Schiffmann said cost "less than US$1mil" (The New York Times, reprinted by The Star).

What rights do Friend's terms take away?

Your right to sue in court, unless you opt out within 30 days. The terms require "binding arbitration" run by JAMS, waive "the right to participate in class or representative actions," and say the two sides "SHALL EACH PAY AN EQUAL SHARE OF THE COSTS AND EXPENSES" of the arbitration, except where the law forbids it (Friend terms). Neither side nor the arbitrator may disclose "the existence, content, or results of any arbitration" without both parties' written consent.

To opt out, mail a letter within 30 days of agreeing to the terms to "Friend Global, Inc.-Arbitration Opt-Out, 505 Montgomery Street, Suite #1100, San Francisco, CA 94111," with your full legal name, the email on your Friend account, and a statement that you want to opt out of arbitration. The terms ask for a letter, not an email.

How Morse keeps your conversations off an always-on microphone

Every question above starts with a microphone that sends what it hears to Friend's cloud, under your account, with a perpetual license to train on it, while the people in the room get no say. Morse can't change what a pendant hears. Morse is a web app where you type only what you choose to share, so nobody nearby ends up in it, and your chat history is stored in your browser, encrypted, not on our servers (Morse privacy policy).

If what you want is a companion, Characters on Morse keeps your character chats, the characters you make, and your personas in your browser too, encrypted, and the Free plan includes unlimited character messages. If a character conversation reads like suicidal thinking, Morse shows crisis lines, and that check runs on your device. For everything else, you pick a privacy mode per chat:

• Private, for what you'd tell a friend and no company should keep. It's the mode a new chat starts in. Open-weight models like DeepSeek, Kimi, and GLM, plus Grok, run here, and Morse has zero data retention agreements with its inference, search, and other providers, so they keep nothing. Where a provider confirms zero retention on each reply, Morse checks it and refuses a reply that doesn't.
• E2EE, for what no one at any company should read. Your browser checks the enclave's hardware attestation before anything leaves your device, then encrypts the message so only that enclave can read it, and our servers relay text they can't read. The enclaves are run by third-party providers, not by Morse, and the protection rests on the enclave hardware and attestation working as designed. E2EE chats come with Pro, at $19 a month.
• Anonymous, for GPT, Claude, or Gemini without your name attached. Our proxy removes your account, email, and IP address and sends the message under Morse's own account. The provider sees the message without knowing it's you and may keep it for a limited time to check for abuse, under its own policy, so leave out names you'd rather keep to yourself.

Your character chats stay in your browser on every plan, for as long as you keep them there. Morse doesn't train AI on your content, sell your data, or show ads, so there's no training switch to look for. Our servers don't keep messages or log what's in them, and your history locks when you sign out; opening it takes one key that never leaves your device and one our server gives you at sign-in. Because we don't store chats, we usually have very little to give authorities. Clearing your browser or deleting your account deletes your chats for good, and Morse can't recover them, so keep a copy of anything you need.

So is the Friend necklace private enough for you?

• Your own conversations: Friend hears everything in range while it's connected and may train on it. Disconnect the app before anything you'd keep from a company, and type it into a Private chat on Morse instead.
• The people around you: Friend's FAQ leaves recording and consent laws to you and recommends "being open with the people around you." Washington's law counts an announcement to everyone as consent only if the announcement is recorded too.
• Deleting: email team@friend.com. Don't count on breaking the pendant, since a friend can move to another one.
• Your right to sue: mail the opt-out letter within 30 days of agreeing to Friend's terms if you want to keep it.
• Companionship: on Morse, character chats stay in your browser, encrypted.

For other devices that listen, see are Meta AI glasses private and does Siri record your conversations. For companion apps, see our AI companion app privacy comparison of 14 policies, and for a recorder you clip on for meetings, is Plaud AI safe.

Try a chat from the Morse home page without an account, or start free with no card needed.