Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy · Effective October 30, 2026. Votel is operated by Alphaorbit Holdings LLC. Contact voteldeveloper@gmail.com for privacy and support. This policy covers this website, Votel for Mac and Votel for iPhone. Download and purchase availability is shown on the App Store listing.

Online service usage data

Minimal operational usage and performance summaries are included when you use the online service after accepting its notice. There is no separate statistics switch. We measure connection, interruption, recovery and first-caption/translation waiting times and sample unacknowledged-audio backlog. Summaries include the app version/build, a UTC hour and a random batch reference for retry deduplication. The receiving service groups the network exit country or region; some regions are combined. A VPN exit is not your physical location. These measurements support service reliability, not advertising, user profiling, transcription accuracy scoring or sentence-by-sentence timing.

These service usage and performance summaries contain no recordings, audio, caption or translation content, recording titles, file paths, full IP addresses, persistent device/user identifiers, purchase receipts or raw error text. Requests use the existing authenticated service connection, so the hosting service necessarily processes network information and the receiving service validates the session token. That token and the identity used for short-lived rate limiting are not stored in the performance aggregate database; this is not a promise that transport is fully anonymous.

Pending summaries use a bounded local cache of at most 64 batches and 256 KB of encoded data, and expire 24 hours after the sampling hour. Cleanup runs while the app is running or on its next launch; it cannot erase files while the app is closed or the Mac is asleep. Uploads are combined at most once every 15 minutes, with a 5-second request limit and at most two attempts per batch. Expired, oversized or excess statistics are discarded without stopping recording, transcription, translation or billing. The server keeps hourly aggregates and batch deduplication references for 28 days, excludes expired data from queries and schedules automatic deletion. Hosting backups and recovery copies are not promised simultaneous erasure; expired data must be removed again after recovery.

To stop this collection, choose Help → Online Service Data → Withdraw consent for online processing; local recording remains available and pending summaries are cleared. Received aggregates still expire under the same 28-day rule. Collection begins only after you accept the online-service notice. Required account, subscription, usage, view-acknowledgement and support records described elsewhere are unaffected. Samples are incomplete and do not count individual people.

Your recording library stays on your Mac

Recorded audio, caption history and exported files are local. Manage and delete recordings in the library. Exported copies, system backups and other copies remain under your control. Recently Deleted is not secure erasure.

Local setup progress is kept in one file of at most 2 KB so setup can continue after macOS reopens the app. It contains the setup choice, selected sound source and attempted permission steps, not recordings, captions, account credentials or stored permission results. It is not uploaded, expires after seven days and is cleared when completed, cancelled or next found expired. Permission status is read again from macOS.

What happens when you enable AI?

Live transcription and translation require explicit consent. Audio, recognized text and necessary context are sent to our online services for processing to provide transcription and translation. Everything travels encrypted over TLS.

Votel processes and relays the selected audio, recognized text and necessary context using temporary in-memory buffers for transcription, translation and recovery. Votel does not provide a cloud recording library or persist an audio/caption archive, and request-body logging is not enabled. The necessary service records and operational aggregates below are separate from content processing.

You can withdraw consent in Help → Online Service Data. Future audio continues recording locally while transcription and translation stop. This does not undo earlier cloud processing.

Retention and limits

The AI provider handles data under its own terms. Session-resumption state may remain for up to 24 hours, and abuse monitoring may retain relevant prompts, context and outputs for 55 days. These provider periods are separate from the 28-day operational aggregate database and the local recording library.

Votel keeps the account, subscription, usage and purchase records needed to provide the service. Detailed usage has a 30-day cleanup target; support codes last seven days. Support-case categories, follow-up states and handling records have a 30-day cleanup target and are included in the service-identity deletion workflow. Cases contain no email bodies, recordings or captions. To understand service use, we aggregate pseudonymous usage identifiers, live audio delivery volume and country-level origin. These statistics contain no audio, caption content or full IP address, and we do not collect precise location. We also use the creation date of new service identities and the first subsequent acknowledged display to understand the initial service experience. Aggregates last 90 days; minimal date and confirmation markers remain with the service identity and are included in its deletion workflow. To understand repeat use, we separately record the first date an online result is sent and the first date a view update is acknowledged, plus whether the corresponding event occurs again on day 1, 7 or 30. Detailed activity dates have a 30-day cleanup target and aggregates last 90 days. The minimal first-date and return markers remain with the service identity and are included in its deletion workflow. Server-result return statistics do not confirm that a result was displayed; view-acknowledgement returns only mean that the client reported an updated view. Votel also reports view-update acknowledgements and waiting times for captions or translations to check that the feature works. These acknowledgements contain no caption text and do not prove that you read the content; detailed observations have the same 30-day cleanup target. Financial records, backups and historical copies are not promised immediate deletion.

Audience, availability and recording permission

Votel is for professional and business use by adults aged 18 or older, including work meetings, professional training and industry discussions. It is not directed at minors, general school classrooms or medical advice. Votel is being developed for users worldwide. Online feature availability depends on your region, network conditions and service support. Refer to your testing invitation, release information and store listing for availability. Inform participants and obtain the permissions required by your location and workplace before recording. Online features are not offered in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau.

Your choices and privacy requests

You can withdraw consent to future online AI processing in the app and manage or delete local recordings. Contact the support email for access, correction, deletion or other privacy requests. We handle requests according to their type, applicable requirements and minimal necessary identity checks, and explain limits that prevent immediate completion. You can delete this device’s online service data yourself under Help → Online Service Data in the app; this does not cancel your Apple subscription or delete local recordings and exports. For other requests, contacting support does not promise immediate removal of every remote record. Declining online AI does not delete local files or cancel an Apple subscription. Do not submit personal or confidential content you are not authorized to process.

Service providers

We share data only with providers that help us run Votel, and only for that purpose:

• Google LLC (Gemini API and related Google Cloud services): live transcription and translation of the audio, recognized text and context sent while online AI is on, with the retention described above.
• Cloudflare, Inc.: hosting for this website and Votel’s servers, relay of online processing, storage of the account, subscription and usage records described above, and website analytics.
• Apple: App Store purchases, restoration and subscription status, under Apple’s own privacy policy.

We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and Votel does not use your recordings or captions to train AI models. We may disclose information when the law requires it or to protect the service and its users.

Legal bases in the EEA, UK and Switzerland

Where data-protection law of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland applies, we rely on: providing the service you request (contract) for live transcription and translation, account, subscription and usage records, and support; your consent for online AI processing, which you can withdraw at any time in Help → Online Service Data without affecting earlier processing; our legitimate interests in operating, securing and improving the service and website, including aggregate statistics, which you can object to; and legal obligations, such as keeping financial records.

International transfers

Votel’s operator and its service providers are based in the United States, and data may be processed in the United States and other countries where those providers operate. These countries may not offer the same level of protection as yours. For data from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, we rely on the providers’ data-protection terms, such as the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions where the provider participates, or standard contractual clauses. Contact us for more information about these safeguards.

Your rights by region

EEA, UK and Switzerland: You can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or port your data, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and withdraw consent. We respond within one month, extendable where the law allows. You can also lodge a complaint with the data-protection authority where you live or work, such as an EU supervisory authority, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

United States: Depending on your state, you may have rights to know, access, correct and delete your personal information. We do not sell or share it as California law defines those terms, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

Japan: Online processing provides personal data to Google LLC and Cloudflare, Inc. in the United States. The United States has no comprehensive federal personal-information law equivalent to Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information; some states have their own privacy laws. These providers protect the data under their data-protection terms. Our safety measures include encryption in transit, access to service records limited to the operator, minimal retention and no server-side storage of audio or caption text. This information is provided so you can decide whether to turn on online AI.

South Korea (overseas transfer): Items: audio, recognized text and necessary context during live captions, plus account, subscription and usage records. Destination: the United States and other countries where the providers operate. Timing and method: during online processing, over encrypted network connections. Recipients: Google LLC and Cloudflare, Inc. (contact details in their privacy policies). Purpose: transcription, translation, hosting and record keeping. Retention: as described above. If you do not want audio and text transferred, do not turn on online AI; recording on your Mac still works, but live captions and translation are unavailable.

Other regions: You can exercise the rights your local law provides, including in Taiwan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, by emailing us.

Language of this policy

This policy is written in English. Translations are provided for convenience; if a translation differs from the English version, the English version prevails, except where local law requires otherwise.

Policy updates

We will update this page when processing changes materially and provide an in-app notice where appropriate. Online processing that requires renewed consent will ask again.

Apple and subscriptions

Purchases and restoration use Apple. Votel does not receive Apple passwords, card numbers or full payment details. An extra Votel account is not required.

This website and support

This site uses website analytics for page visits, referring domains, browser and device categories, and loading performance. The current configuration excludes visitors in the EU. We do not use these statistics to identify individuals or link visits to purchases. There are no ads or collection forms. Browser blocking can leave gaps; statistics are accessible for up to the previous six months. They cannot access your recordings or captions. We separately aggregate deliberate help, release-status and preview-mode clicks using only the UTC date, language, button, location and a fixed source category. A one-time random request number has a five-minute duplicate-prevention window and is removed by scheduled cleanup; click aggregates have a 90-day cleanup target and are not linked to purchases or personal identities. Browsers set to a European time zone do not send click requests, and EU or unknown-region requests are not recorded. Click collection respects browser Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals. Basic request and security information may be processed to operate and protect the website.

For support and privacy questions, email voteldeveloper@gmail.com (Votel Support). Test participants should use their original test contact channel. Do not send passwords, login tokens or unnecessary recordings and captions.

Votel for iPhone

This policy also covers Votel for iPhone. The iPhone app records through the iPhone microphone only; once you start, recording continues in the background and on the Lock Screen until you end it. Recording History, audio and exports stay on that iPhone and do not sync to a Mac or to a cloud recording library. Online processing, consent, retention and service records work as described above. You can delete this device’s online service data yourself under Settings → Help & Support → Online Service Data in the iPhone app; this does not cancel your Apple subscription or delete local recordings and exports.