Privacy Policy — Echoless, practice chat for streamers

This policy explains how the Echoless developer ("we", "us") handles personal data when you use the Echoless desktop app (a practice chat for streamers), the Pro subscription, and this website. We wrote it to be read, not skimmed past.

The short version

Your voice, transcripts, screenshots, chat messages and game data never leave your PC. Speech recognition, the AI viewers and screen vision all run locally on your computer.
The app sends anonymous usage statistics by default, and you can switch them off at any time in Settings. They contain no name, no email, no IP address and no machine details.
If you buy Pro, we store your Discord account basics and your license, and PayPal handles the payment.
If you sign in with Discord to vote, suggest or review, your Discord display name and avatar are shown publicly next to what you post.
Live chat, when we offer it, only loads when you ask for it. The Crisp chat widget is never loaded before you click Help.
We never sell your data and we do not use advertising trackers.

Who is responsible

The controller for the data described here is the Echoless developer. You can reach us at the contact address on our website for any privacy question or request.

What stays on your PC

The Echoless app processes the following only on your own computer. None of it is sent to us or to anyone else:

microphone audio and the speech-to-text transcripts made from it;
screenshots used by the optional screen vision feature;
the generated chat messages and the persona memory (what the viewers remember about you);
game events from official game integrations (such as Valve's Game State Integration);
session metrics and reports (talk ratio, silences, clip markers).

These are stored in %APPDATA%\Echoless on your PC. You can delete everything by deleting that folder. Transcripts are only saved to disk if you turn on "Save transcripts" (off by default).

The language model runs in Ollama or another local model server you choose. If you point Echoless at a remote model server yourself, what you send to it is governed by that server's terms.

What we collect and why

1. Anonymous app statistics (you can switch this off)

What: a random installation ID created on your PC (not tied to your identity; it rotates and you can reset it), the app version, and events such as app opened, session started or ended (with duration, game profile and a rounded talk-ratio range), features used, error codes, and Pro activated. Crack or tamper events are not collected.
What is never included: your name, email, IP address, hardware fingerprint, audio, transcripts or chat text.
Why: to understand which features help streamers, find crashes, and decide what to build next.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in improving the app (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). You can object at any time by switching "Anonymous usage statistics" off in Settings; nothing is sent after that.
Retention: raw events are kept for up to 13 months, then deleted. Aggregated counts that cannot identify anyone may be kept longer.
IP addresses: our servers do not store the IP address of analytics requests.

What: from Discord, your Discord user ID, username, display name, avatar URL and email address. If you choose to show your connections, the names of your linked Twitch and YouTube accounts are read in your browser to display them; we do not store them.
Why: to create your account, deliver and restore your license keys, manage your subscription, and answer support requests.
Legal basis: performance of our contract with you (Art. 6(1)(b)).
Retention: while your account exists, and for up to 30 days after you ask us to delete it, except records we must keep for tax and accounting (see below).

3. Payments

What: PayPal processes your payment. We receive the subscription ID, plan, status, amounts, dates, and the payer name and email PayPal shares with us. We never see or store card or bank details.
Why: to activate, renew, pause or end Pro, and to keep accounting records.
Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) and legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).
Retention: for as long as tax and accounting law requires.

4. License activations

What: your license key, a one-way hashed machine ID computed on your PC (it cannot be turned back into hardware details), the app version, activation time and the time of the last license check.
Why: to activate Pro on your PCs, enforce the device limit, and let you remove devices from your account page.
Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in preventing key sharing (Art. 6(1)(f)).
Retention: while the license exists, and up to 12 months after it ends.

What: when you sign in with Discord to vote, suggest a feature or write a review, we store your Discord user ID, display name and avatar URL, together with the suggestions, votes and reviews you submit. We check how old your Discord account is from its user ID (the ID contains its creation date) to keep brand-new spam accounts out; we do not request anything else from Discord for this.
What is public: your display name and avatar are shown next to your suggestions and reviews.
Why: to run the public feature board, show reviews from real users, and keep spam out.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running the board and reviews (Art. 6(1)(f)). What you post publicly, you choose to publish.
Retention: while the board and reviews are online. You can delete your own reviews at any time. To delete everything else (suggestions, votes and your stored Discord details), contact us at the contact address on our website. Please do not put personal information in suggestions or reviews.

6. Private feedback

What: when you send private feedback from the app or this website: the category you pick, your message, an optional rating, optional contact details if you choose to add them, the app version, and a random anonymous ID that is not linked to your identity.
Who sees it: only us. Private feedback is never published.
Why: only to fix problems and improve Echoless.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in improving the app (Art. 6(1)(f)), and your consent for any contact details you add (Art. 6(1)(a)).
Retention: deleted after 12 months.

7. Refund requests

What: the reason you give when you request a refund from your account page, together with the subscription it belongs to.
Why: to review and process the refund, and to keep accounting records.
Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) and legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).
Retention: kept with our billing records for as long as tax and accounting law requires.

8. Support messages and live chat

If you email us, we keep the conversation to help you and for our records, for up to 24 months.

This website has a Help button. When live chat is available, it is provided by Crisp and is loaded only after you click Help: until then, no Crisp code runs on the page and nothing is sent to Crisp. Once you open it, Crisp receives what you type, any name or email you choose to give, and the technical data its widget needs to work, such as your IP address, browser and device type, language, the page you opened it from, and a session identifier stored in your browser. Crisp stores the conversation for us so we can answer you. We keep live chat conversations for up to 24 months.

9. Bug reports

When: only when you press Send in the app's bug report form. Nothing is sent in the background.
What: the title, description and optional steps you type, optional contact details if you choose to add them, the app version, and, if you leave them switched on, the system info and the scrubbed app logs you saw in the preview before sending. System info means your Windows version and build, CPU, GPUs (with video memory and driver version), RAM, displays and language setting, plus Echoless details: Free or Pro, performance preset, chat and speech models, game profile, whether a session was running and how long the app had been open. A random anonymous ID is attached so we can limit spam; it is not linked to your identity.
What is never included: your voice, transcripts, chat text, your IP address or a machine ID. Logs are scrubbed on your PC before you see the preview (and again on our server) to remove transcript text, email addresses, license keys, tokens, IDs, IP addresses and your Windows user name.
Who sees it: only us. We get a short notice in our private Discord channel with the title, app version, when it happened and a hardware summary (Windows version, CPU, GPU and RAM); the description, steps, full system info, logs, contact details and anonymous ID stay in our database.
Why: to reproduce and fix the problem you reported.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in fixing the app (Art. 6(1)(f)), and your consent for any contact details you add (Art. 6(1)(a)).
Retention: deleted 6 months after it arrives or after our last change to it (such as a status update or note), whichever is later.

10. In-app announcements

The app checks for short announcements from us (updates, known issues, surveys) when it starts and every few hours. The check is anonymous: it sends only the app version and whether you use Free or Pro, never an ID, and we do not log who asked.

Cookies and local storage

This website uses no advertising or tracking cookies. It uses your browser's local storage for:

your sign-in session, only if you sign in (essential);
a random anonymous ID, sent only with private feedback;
small preferences such as dismissed notices.

If you click Help and live chat opens, Crisp stores its own cookies and local storage so your conversation continues from page to page. Nothing from Crisp is loaded before you click.

Because these are strictly necessary, set only when you ask for the feature, or do not identify you, no cookie banner is needed. Our hosting provider may process IP addresses in server logs briefly for security and abuse prevention; we do not use those logs for analytics.

Who processes data for us

We use a small number of providers who process data on our behalf under data processing agreements:

Supabase (database, sign-in and server functions);
PayPal (payments and subscriptions; PayPal is also an independent controller for the payment itself);
Discord (sign-in, where Discord is an independent controller for your Discord account; and private notifications to our own team channel when a new suggestion, review, private feedback message or refund request arrives, which contain the text you sent and any contact details you added; for a new bug report, the notice holds only its title, app version, when it happened and a hardware summary, never the description, logs or contact details);
Crisp (live chat, only when we offer it and you open it from the Help button);
our website host (serving this website);
an email delivery provider (sending license keys and receipts).

Some of these providers are located outside your country, including in the United States. Where required, transfers are protected by the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent safeguard.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, including under the GDPR, you have the right to:

access the personal data we hold about you and get a copy;
correct it;
have it deleted;
restrict or object to processing, including anonymous statistics (switch them off in Settings);
receive your data in a portable format;
withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
complain to your local data protection authority.

To use any of these rights, email the contact address on our website from the address linked to your account, or tell us your Discord username. We answer within 30 days. Because app statistics are anonymous, we usually cannot link them to you; switching them off or resetting your installation ID in Settings is the most effective control.

Children

Echoless is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit. Access to our database is restricted, license keys are stored encrypted, and machine IDs are one-way hashes. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we collect small on purpose.

Changes

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will update the date above and, where appropriate, tell you in the app or by email before the change applies.

Contact

the Echoless developer, the contact address on our website