Is Translate safe to use?

Translate integrates 0 third-party SDKs. It collects data linked to your identity including Location, Contact Info, Contacts, and User Content and 5 more categories. It does not include any advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Translate need?

Translate requests 4 iOS permissions: Camera, Microphone, Photo Library, and Calendars.

How many SDKs does Translate have?

Translate integrates 0 third-party SDKs.

Does Translate access your camera or microphone?

Translate requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "Let Translate use the camera to translate printed text". Microphone access is for "Let Translate use the microphone to translate speech". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Translate run in the background?

Yes. Translate registers 2 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Translate?

Other reference apps include Abide , Acorn , Aim High US Air Force , Translate AI , Curio , and Athkar . Each app takes a different approach to reference and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Reference · Privacy report

Google Translate

Free · ★4.3 · Google

Is Translate safe?

It collects a lot of your data itself.

Our take. Its own App Store privacy label declares Translate links 9 categories of your data to your identity, including location, contact info, contacts and user content. It is owned by Google, an advertising company, so that data is available to Google. That collection, more than any outside tracker, is the story here.

Privacy footprint · vs 101 referenceHeavy

Trackers from other companies0 · none

typical reference: 4

Data the app links to you9 types · a lot

typical reference: 1 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Translate links 9 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data Translate ties to your identity.

LocationContact InfoContactsUser ContentSearch HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataDiagnosticsOther Data

Who else is inside

Owned by Google.

Translate carries no third-party trackers, but that is not the reassurance it sounds like. It is built by Google, an advertising company, which builds its tracking in-house. The 9 categories of data it collects (above) flow to Google directly, no outside SDK required.

How it compares

Where it sits among reference.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one reference app. Translate sits high on the left: it collects a lot itself but uses few outside trackers.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v10.12.281, 2026-04-03.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 101 reference in our corpus. Trackers: median 4. Data linked to you: median 1.