What exactly does it change? For something that has not liked anything to users and has already generated some reaction in social networks: as soon as the new rule takes effect, Evernote employees will be able to read your notes.

It is not the first time we see that Evernote is faced with a situation that users do not like. Last June, the popular application to take notes up prices and limiting the free option , which made those who had thought of finding myalternatives.

Aside from having more multiplatform options like Simplenote, currently owned by WordPress , there are also other online like Laverna , which allow to take encrypted notes without records . This always helps to give a bit more security to our annotations.

Does Evernote charge the privacy of its users?

From Evernote they deny that this invades the privacy of those who use their application. The reasons given for reading user notes are as follows:

The latest Privacy Policy update allows some Evernote employees to exercise monitoring of machine learning technologies applied to the content of an account, subject to the limits described below, for the purposes of developing and enhancing the Evernote service.

This is done primarily to ensure that our machine learning technologies work properly, so that you can get the most relevant content and features. While our computer systems do a pretty good job, sometimes a limited amount of human supervision is simply unavoidable to ensure that everything works exactly as it should.

To what limits do they refer exactly? For the three Evernote laws on privacy :

  • Your data is yours.
  • Your data is protected.
  • Your data must be portable.

As long as these three laws are respected, Evernote will not (according to its own standards) incur an invasion of privacy. Three security controls on your employees’ access to your notes have also been identified .

On the one hand, they will limit the number of employees who have access to the users’ data to those who need it to perform any of the tasks indicated in the new privacy policy . Or what is the same:

Here are the limited circumstances in which we may need to access or review the information or content of your account:

  • We believe that our Terms of Service have been violated and confirmation is required or we will be required to review your Account Content as described in the Terms of Service;
  • We must do this to solve problems or to maintain and improve the Service;
  • Whenever necessary to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Evernote and its users (including to protect against potential spam, malware or other security issues);
  • In order to comply with our legal obligations, such as responding to orders, court orders or other legal process. We protect the privacy of your Account Content and, where possible, we will notify you if we believe that we are required to comply with a request from a third party to obtain information about your account. Please visit our Authorities Information page for more information.

In addition, employees who have access to the data will be subject to examination by the company and will receive training focused on privacy and security at least once a year. The company expects, in this way, to ensure that they are up to date with the latest standards in these matters.

Finally, they will only allow user data to be saved in secure environments . Access to such environments will only be allowed to authorized users, using strong authentication measures to protect such access. Not only that, but they have posted will monitor the web for any bugs that could lead to a security breach.

UPDATE: Preventing Evernote employees from reading what you write

As we have learned from The Next Web, there is a way to keep them from reading your notes . To do this you have to follow the following steps:

  • Enter Evernote and go to Personal Settings.
  • Swipe the screen until you reach the section Allowing Evernote to use my data to improve my experience . You’ll see it’s marked, uncheck it.
  • Click the Save Changes button.

With this, no Evernote employee should be able to access your notes, regardless of their reasons.