Answers from the web

Some questions can't be answered from your contacts alone.

"Which of my friends live near the flooding in Valencia?" "Somewhere for dinner near Anna — she's vegetarian." "What's a good Italian restaurant near me?"

Deeta needs to know what's flooded, or what restaurants exist, before it can answer. So it looks it up.

What goes out with a search

This depends on how you've set Deeta up, and on how you worded the question. Worth knowing which one you're on.

A question that isn't about anyone you know

"What's a good Italian restaurant near me?" — nobody you know is mentioned, so none of your contacts go with it. Deeta searches, answers, and your contacts are never part of it.

⚠️ Wording decides this, and the line is narrower than it looks. A question that mentions people is treated as being about your world, and your relevant contacts do go along:

The word my is enough on its own. So is a city, region or country where one of your contacts lives, and anything matching something you've written down — ask for "a plumber near me" and if you have a contact whose job is plumber, Deeta looks there first. That's usually what you wanted.

If your location permission is on, a question like this can also carry the rough area you're in — a town, not an address — so "near me" means something.

You turn this on in Deeta, under Settings → Location — "Use my location for nearby results". If iPhone has already been told no, the row says so and links you to iOS Settings to change it. With it off, everything else still works; only "near me" questions lose their bearings.

Private Mode — a screened search, and nothing else

If you've chosen Private Mode, the app puts it like this:

In Private Mode, your contacts and personal data never leave your device. When you ask about public information (like nearby restaurants), Deeta sends only an anonymous web search — never your contacts, names, or sensitive details — to fetch results, then matches them on your device.

So "somewhere for dinner near Anna" goes out as something like "vegetarian restaurants in Shoreditch". Anna's name never goes. The search carries only what's needed to find places — such as the area and what you're looking for — and the matching happens on your phone.

See Choosing how your questions are answered.

With a cloud provider — the search reflects what you asked

If you've chosen an AI provider rather than Private Mode, and the question is about people you know, the search can carry the details in your question, including names. It isn't stripped or anonymised first.

That's the trade you're making by choosing a cloud provider: better answers, at the cost of that provider and the search seeing what you asked. Deeta doesn't pretend otherwise.

Two things still hold:

• Only what the question needs — up to a limit. A broad question can carry as much of your contacts as fits, which can be all of them.

• Deeta keeps nothing — not the question, not the search, not the answer.

If you'd rather your contacts didn't leave the device, Private Mode is one setting away and costs nothing on any plan.

In the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland

Sensitive-category information — health, religion, and the other special categories — is still treated separately there. An ordinary web search that would carry it is blocked from leaving the device, and Deeta answers from what it already knows instead. (A "Who do I know near…" search never carries anyone's details — see below.)

"Who do I know near…"

Asking who's affected by something in the news is a real use — a storm, a fire, a strike.

This route works differently from the rest, and deliberately so. It runs without any contact information attached, and it blocks your contacts' names, and any phone number or email address, from reaching the search. So "who do I know near the fires in Napa County?" searches for the fires, never for your friends.

Deeta always tells you how many contacts it could actually check. Only contacts with an address can be matched, so "nobody you know is affected" would be misleading if most of your contacts have no address on file. If more went unchecked than checked, Deeta leads with that.

It's not a safety service. Treat it as a prompt to call someone, not a confirmation that anyone is fine.

Not in Private Mode. Finding who's near an event needs a web search and a cloud AI model, so in Private Mode Deeta says so instead of answering. To ask it, choose a provider in Settings → AI → AI Provider.

What you'll see

When Deeta has looked something up, it says so in the answer and names what it drew on — a magazine's list, a review site, whatever it found. That's written into the answer itself; there's no separate list of links to tap.

An answer built from public information rather than your own records is marked (unverified) — Deeta can check what you wrote down, but it can't vouch for the wider world. When anything in an answer carries that mark, Deeta says so at the end.

Who gets it

Web results are part of Plus and above. On the free plan, a question that needs the web gets this note and an Upgrade to Plus to search the web link instead of an answer. It doesn't use one of your monthly questions. Questions about your contacts are answered as usual, without web results:

Searching the web for places, products, and events is a Plus feature. Upgrade to include current web results in your answers.

See Plans and what's included.

Troubleshooting

"I couldn't search the web for that right now." The lookup failed. The rest of the answer still stands. Try again shortly.

"I searched the web but didn't find anything useful." The search ran and came back empty. Try naming a place or being more specific.

"I can answer about your contacts, but can't search the web while you're offline." Deeta will still answer about your contacts. Web results need a connection.

"I couldn't work out which areas that affects." Name the place — "who do I know near the fires in Napa County?" works better than "near the fires".

It answered from what it knew instead of looking it up. Deeta only searches when the question needs it. Ask more directly if you want current information.

It used my contacts for a question I thought was general. Check the wording against the table above — a people word, the word my, or a place where one of your contacts lives makes it a question about your world. Rephrase without them.

I'm in Private Mode and it never searches for places. It does on Plus and above, but only as a screened search. It won't answer "Who do I know near…" questions at all, because those need a cloud model — choose a provider for those.

I don't want my questions reaching a search engine at all. Switch to Private Mode. Public lookups then go out screened, with nothing about your contacts attached.

Questions

Which search engine? Deeta uses Brave Search through its own servers.

Does Brave know it's me asking? The request comes from Deeta's servers rather than your phone, so it isn't tied to you or your device. What the search text contains depends on the section above.

Is the search stored anywhere? Not by Deeta. Questions, searches and answers aren't kept on our side — see Asking Deeta a question.

Can I stop it searching? Ask questions about your own contacts and it won't need to. Private Mode restricts it to screened lookups.

Does a web answer cost more of my monthly allowance? It's one question, same as any other.