Privacy Policy
Effective: 5 July 2026 · Version 1.0
The short version: Abschrift was built so that we cannot see your data. The app has no account, no telemetry, no analytics, and no servers of ours. Your recordings, transcripts, and notes exist only on your Mac. This policy lists, completely, the few network interactions that exist and who is behind them.
1. Controller
The controller for the processing described here is the operator identified in the Imprint (based in Switzerland). Contact for privacy matters: the email address given there. We process personal data in accordance with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and, for visitors and customers in the EU/EEA, the GDPR.
2. The app: local by architecture
Recording, transcription, speaker recognition, and search run entirely on your Mac
(on the Apple Neural Engine). Audio never leaves your device. Voice profiles are
numeric fingerprints (not recordings) stored in a local database. Notes and transcripts
are plain files under ~/Abschrift. We do not receive, store, or process
any of this — deleting the folder and the app removes everything. Details of what is
stored where, and the automatic deletion schedule, are described in
Privacy & retention.
The app sends no telemetry and no crash reports. There is nothing to opt out of.
3. The complete list of network interactions
3.1 This website
Hosted on Google Firebase Hosting (Google Ireland Ltd., Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). When you visit, Google processes technical access data (IP address, time, requested URL, user agent) in server logs to deliver the site and keep it secure. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in operating the website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Transfers to Google LLC in the USA are covered by the EU–US and Swiss–US Data Privacy Frameworks. This site sets no cookies and uses no analytics or tracking — which is also why there is no cookie banner.
3.2 Downloading and updating the app
The app download and the built-in update check are served from GitHub (GitHub,
Inc., USA; releases repository vedmakk/abschrift-releases). GitHub sees
the technical access data of the download/update request (including your IP address).
Update checks contain no personal data beyond the request itself and can be turned off
in Settings. Legal basis: performance of the contract / legitimate interest in
distributing secure, current software (Art. 6(1)(b), (f) GDPR).
3.3 One-time speech-model download
On first launch, the app downloads its speech-recognition models (~0.5 GB) from Hugging Face (Hugging Face, Inc., USA), which sees the technical access data of that request. The models then run offline; no audio or content is ever sent to Hugging Face. Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
3.4 Buying and activating a Pro license
Pro licenses are sold by Polar Software Inc. (USA) as merchant of record; payment data is processed by Polar and its payment providers under Polar's privacy policy — we never see your payment details. When you activate a license, the app sends to Polar: your license key, your Mac's computer name (as a label so you can recognize the device in Polar's customer portal, e.g. "Jan's MacBook Pro"), and a one-way hash of a hardware identifier (we deliberately never transmit the identifier itself). This enforces the 3-device limit. Occasional re-validation sends the key and activation ID. Legal basis: performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Tip: your Mac's computer name is yours to choose (System Settings → General → About).
3.5 Optional: cloud AI providers for notes — only if you configure them
By default, no meeting content leaves your Mac. If you choose to configure a cloud provider for note-writing (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google) with your own API key, the app sends the transcript text of a meeting — never audio — directly from your Mac to that provider when notes are generated. This happens under your account and contract with that provider and their privacy terms; we are not involved in that processing and receive nothing. Every meeting displays exactly what, if anything, was sent and to whom. "Local-only mode" in Settings blocks all cloud providers, and Pro users can generate notes fully locally with Ollama.
Note on meeting participants' data: transcripts naturally contain what participants said. All of it stays on your Mac unless you configure a cloud provider. Respecting participants' privacy — including whether recording and any cloud processing is appropriate — is in your hands as the person recording (see the Terms of Use).
4. What we do not do
No accounts. No telemetry. No analytics. No advertising or tracking of any kind, on the website or in the app. No sale or sharing of data — we have none to sell. No processing of your meeting content, ever.
5. Retention
We store nothing about you, so there is nothing for us to retain or delete. Server logs at our hosting provider are subject to Google's standard log-retention periods. Data held by Polar (purchase records, license activations) is retained by Polar under its own policy and statutory commercial-record obligations. Everything on your Mac is under your control, with the app's own auto-deletion schedule for transcripts and audio described here.
6. Your rights
Under the FADP and (where it applies) the GDPR you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability, and objection, and the right to complain to a supervisory authority — in Switzerland the FDPIC, in the EU/EEA your local data-protection authority. Practical note: since we hold no personal data about app users, requests concerning purchase or activation data are best directed to Polar; concerning website logs, they can be directed to us via the contact in the Imprint and we will assist.
7. Changes
If the app ever gains a network interaction not listed here, this policy will be updated first and the change will be called out in the release notes — the complete-list promise in § 3 is the point of this document.