PicPrepPicPrep privacy notice
[DRAFT - lawyer review pending. Not legal advice. Remove this line only after an Israeli lawyer has reviewed this notice.]
Effective [date]. Controller: Tal Afek, [postal address], Israel. Email: support@getpicprep.com.
The short version. PicPrep works on your computer. Your photos, projects, captions, file names and settings never leave it, unless you choose to attach them to a report. There are no analytics, no ads, no tracking and no telemetry.
What stays on your computer
Your drafts, settings, licence record and any reports waiting to be sent are kept in PicPrep's user folder on your computer. I cannot see them. The user information at https://getpicprep.com/compliance/ says where the folder is and how to delete it.
What leaves your computer, and why
PicPrep makes no network connection except these. None of them carries a photo, a file, folder or project name, or the content of your projects, and none is needed to open or view your work.
1. Licence activation and the weekly check
- What is sent. Your licence key (with the licence record the service issued for it, which names the store's id of that key), a random installation id that PicPrep creates (it is not derived from your hardware), your operating system and its architecture, the PicPrep version, and a label with your computer's operating-system name. The label is shown in the store's customer portal, so you can tell your computers apart.
- Where and when. It goes to PicPrep's licence service, which runs on Cloudflare and checks the key with the Reseller, Polar. This happens when you activate, and about once a week when you are online.
- If the licence service is down. If the licence service cannot be reached when you first activate, PicPrep sends the same activation directly to Polar's licence service instead.
- What is kept. The licence service keeps no logs. Polar keeps the activation (key, installation id and label) for as long as the licence exists. Both services see your IP address while connected.
- Legal basis. Performing our contract.
1a. Manage subscription
- What is sent. When you press "Manage subscription" in Settings, PicPrep sends your licence key and its installation id to the licence service, which checks the key with Polar and asks Polar for a link that opens your account in Polar's customer portal without signing in. The link opens in your web browser and lasts a short time.
- What is kept. Nothing: neither PicPrep nor the licence service stores or logs the link. If the licence service cannot be reached, your browser opens Polar's sign-in page instead, where Polar asks for your email address.
- Legal basis. Performing our contract.
1b. Signing in with Google, Apple or Microsoft (optional)
- What happens. If you choose "Sign in with Google", "Sign in with Apple" or "Sign in with Microsoft", your web browser opens that company's sign-in page. After you sign in there, it tells PicPrep's licence service who you are: an account id that company made for PicPrep, and your email address. PicPrep itself never sees your password or that company's tokens.
- What PicPrep sends. A one-time sign-in code, the installation id and the fields of an activation (section 1); after that a sign-in token kept on your computer, readable only by your user account. If you press "Start free trial", also the machine hash of section 2.
- What is kept. The licence service keeps your account id with your licence, trial or grant, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your sign-in token. It does not keep your email address, except as a one-way hash while a free licence given to that address waits for its first sign-in. When you buy from inside PicPrep while signed in, the purchase at Polar is linked to your account id. Signing out frees your computer and ends the sign-in.
- Legal basis. Performing our contract, at your request.
2. Trial: one per computer
- What is sent. When you start a trial, PicPrep also sends a one-way hash of your operating system's machine id. The hash is specific to PicPrep: it cannot be matched with other apps' records, and the machine id itself cannot be recovered from it.
- What is kept. The licence service hashes it again with a secret and keeps the result, with the trial's end date, for 18 months. This is so a computer gets one trial, not a new one with every email address.
- Legal basis. My legitimate interest in offering a free trial without it being abused.
3. Updates and downloads
- What is sent. PicPrep asks the licence service whether a newer version exists, about once a day, sending its version, your operating system and architecture, and nothing about you or your licence. Updates are downloaded from private storage on Cloudflare, through links that expire after a few minutes.
- On the website. Downloading PicPrep needs no key, email or account. The licence service counts downloads per version and system, and briefly limits how many one internet address can start in an hour; it does not store the address.
- Turning it off. You can turn off automatic updates in Settings.
- Legal basis. Performing our contract, and my legal obligation to provide security updates (EU Regulation 2024/2847).
4. End-of-life check
- What is sent. About once a week, PicPrep fetches one fixed address (https://getpicprep.com/eol-unlock.json, and the same file from the licence service) to see whether PicPrep has been discontinued. The request carries nothing about you or your work. The servers see your IP address.
- Legal basis. Performing our contract (it keeps your copy working if PicPrep is ever discontinued).
5. Purchase
Polar, the Reseller, collects your payment details under its own privacy policy (https://polar.sh/legal/privacy). I never see your card details. I receive your name, email address, country, orders and licence status, to provide your licence, updates and support (performing our contract) and to keep tax and accounting records (legal obligation).
6. Bug reports, ideas and security reports (only when you send one)
- Bug reports and ideas. The title and description you write are posted as a public issue in PicPrep's feedback repository on GitHub. The report bundle is stored in a private repository that only I can read. The bundle holds the versions, recent errors, the names of recent buttons and keys (never what you type), the settings, and only the private items you tick, such as a screenshot, your project or photos.
- Security reports. Nothing is public: the title, the description and the bundle are all stored only in the private repository.
- What is hidden. Names and paths are hidden unless you choose to include them.
- How it travels. Reports pass through a relay on Cloudflare. The relay keeps a count of reports per installation id for one hour, to limit abuse. It also keeps a record linking the report id to your installation id and the issue number, so your copy of PicPrep can show the report's state.
- Legal basis. Your consent, which you give by pressing Send.
7. Email
When you email me, I use what you send to answer you (my legitimate interest in answering, or our contract).
8. The website
- The website is served by Cloudflare. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics or third-party scripts.
- Cloudflare processes your IP address to deliver the pages.
Who processes your data for me
| Service | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Polar Software, Inc. (and its payment processor, Stripe) | sales, renewals, licence keys | United States |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | licence service, update storage, report relay, website, email forwarding | worldwide network |
| GitHub, Inc. | storing reports | United States |
| [email provider] | my mailbox | [country] |
Some of these services are in the United States. Transfers rely on [the EU–US Data Privacy Framework / standard contractual clauses], as those providers state.
How long data is kept
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Purchase and tax records | [7 years] (tax law) |
| Licence activations | while your licence exists |
| Trial records (hashed) | 18 months |
| Report bundles | deleted after 30 days if no issue refers to them, and 90 days after their issue is closed |
| Public issues | public until you ask me to edit or remove them |
| Security reports | [until 12 months after the fix is released] |
| Report status records | while the issue exists |
| Support emails | [24 months] |
Your rights
You can ask for access to your data, correction, deletion, objection, restriction and portability. Where you gave consent (a report), you can withdraw it. Email support@getpicprep.com.
You can complain to the Israeli Privacy Protection Authority or, if you are in the EU or the UK, to your data protection authority. [EU representative: name and address, if required.] [UK representative: name and address, if required.]
Children
PicPrep is not directed at children under [16].
Changes
I will post changes to this notice here, with the date. If a change adds a new network connection, it is listed here before the version that makes it is released.
On this website
To show prices in your currency, a page asks Cloudflare, which already serves this website, which country you are connecting from. The answer is used to pick the prices shown and is not stored.
When the store (Polar) sends you back to the Download page after a purchase, the address carries a short-lived token from Polar. The page uses it once, in your browser, to ask Polar for your licence key and show it to you, then removes it from the address. The token and the key go only between your browser and Polar; this website does not receive or keep them.