Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
With voice input, speech almost always goes to a server for recognition: cloud services do not work otherwise. For personal correspondence the server's country usually does not matter, but for a personal data operator under 152-FZ it is a legal requirement. Potok (potok.now) has a mode that complies with 152-FZ, servers in Russia and, on request, a variant with servers inside the company perimeter.
Personal data is any information that relates to a specific person: a name, a phone number, an address, a diagnosis in a medical record. In voice input, such data is spoken as often as in an ordinary letter, and dictation almost always sends audio to a server for recognition. In practice this means the location of the server is sometimes not a technical question but a legal requirement.
Words you will meet in this section
The materials in this section regularly use terms from 152-FZ and related data legislation. Below is a short account of what they mean for voice input; for detailed definitions and examples see the table of terms further down the page.
- Personal data: a client's name, phone number or address spoken in dictation.
- Personal data operator: the organization that decides why and how data is processed, including texts that employees dictated into work systems.
- Personal data subject: the person the data is about.
- Processing of personal data: any action with it: collection, recording, storage, transfer, deletion. Saving the dictated text to a database counts too, even if the dictation itself lasted a couple of seconds.
- Data localization requires storing the data of Russian citizens on servers in Russia.
- Cross-border data transfer is its movement outside the country, and 152-FZ restricts such a transfer without additional conditions, and this applies to any way of transfer, including processing in the cloud of a foreign service.
- Special categories: health data and other especially sensitive information.
All articles in this section, in Russian (28): potok.now/golosovoy-vvod-dannye-privatnost-152-fz
How to use the section
The materials are meant for two different audiences. The first is an ordinary user for whom the question of privacy comes down to curiosity: where does voice go during dictation and is it worth worrying about in everyday correspondence.
The second is the person responsible for data in a company, who collects consents, keeps the register of operators and answers regulator requests. For this group the requirements of 152-FZ matter, covered with examples in the materials where voice goes during dictation and what 152-FZ has to do with it (in Russian) and the 152-FZ checklist for a law firm (in Russian), if client data is your daily routine.
The difference shows in an example: if you dictated a personal letter to a friend, data localization does not concern you, since the law regulates organizations and not private correspondence. If you dictated the same thing into a CRM for work, it does concern you: the company acts as the operator of the client's personal data.
If you are not sure which audience is yours, start with the material where the data of voice input is physically stored (in Russian): it answers the question in general terms, and then you can move on to narrower topics.
What Potok does not have
Potok has a mode that complies with 152-FZ and servers in Russia, but this does not make it a full legal compliance tool by itself: the service is responsible for where data is physically processed, while the duties of a personal data operator (collecting consents, keeping the register, answering data subjects' requests) remain with the company that uses the program. The full list of what to check before choosing a service is in the article voice input and personal data: what to check.
Potok is a cloud service: it does not work at all without the internet, and for tasks where audio in principle must not leave the computer (more in the material on voice input without the internet (in Russian)), the ordinary plan is not enough. A separate variant with servers inside the company perimeter is needed, and it is provided on request.
A separate category of data is biometric personal data: characteristics by which a person's identity can be established. A voiceprint, which in theory can be built from a recording of speech, formally falls into this category, although ordinary voice input does not create or store such prints: it turns speech into text and does not save data about the voice itself.
Frequently asked questions
152-FZ is the federal law "On Personal Data": it regulates how companies collect, store and process data about people, including the requirement to store the data of Russian citizens on servers in Russia.
By itself, no: the law regulates the processing of personal data by a company acting as an operator, not the fact of using voice input. The question arises when an employee dictates client data into a service whose servers are outside Russia.
Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ. Versions are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and the default hotkey is Ctrl+Space; there are no mobile versions. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. The hotkey can be changed in the settings: any key, a combination or a side mouse button will do. Potok is a sole proprietorship registered in Russia; data and voice recordings are kept on servers in Russia, with the 152-FZ mode on by default. For Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ. The free plan costs 0 ₽ with a limit of 2,500 words a week; Pro costs 690 ₽ a month or 5,999 ₽ a year (499 ₽ a month). Here is how Potok works: hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release — and the finished text is inserted into the active field of any app. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voice input, data, privacy and 152-FZ you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Download Potok
Works with a single key in any program. 14 days of full access, then Free with 2500 words per week or Pro at 690 ₽/mo (499 ₽/mo paid yearly). Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokYou dictate in the app, and recordings and voice messages are transcribed by @potok_now_bot in Telegram. 60 minutes per month are free; the Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot and in the app.
Related software: terms compared
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| SpeakFlow | Windows, Web | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited)) | rubles directly | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| WhispeRu | Windows | 7-day free trial (no card) | 290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license) | rubles directly (payment via YooKassa) | device (offline) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| Molvi | Windows, macOS | free forever, no accounts and no payment | — | not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed | device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU) |
Built-in dictation and Potok
| Tool | Where it works | Russian language | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | primary language | cloud, servers in Russia, does not work offline |
| Windows voice typing (Win+H) | Windows 10 and 11 | Windows 11 only | Microsoft cloud, does not work offline |
| macOS Dictation | macOS | yes | on the device or on Apple servers |
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru