Customer privacy notice

Contact details

If you have questions about this notice, or want to exercise your data protection rights, you can email support@subsmith.app.

What information we collect and why

The information SubSmith processes depends on which product you use:

• Account information – your email address, optional name, authentication provider, provider account identifier, and an internal SubSmith user ID. This is used to create and secure your account, let you sign in, provide allowances or subscriptions, and respond to support requests.
• Authentication information – sign-in tokens from Apple or Google and SubSmith session tokens. Mobile refresh tokens are stored securely on your device.
• Transcription records – job status, usage allowance, media type, duration, and language needed to process mobile transcription requests. The mobile app stores completed transcripts and playback information locally on your device.
• Advertising attribution data – when you arrive from a paid ad, the site may record the ad click identifier, campaign, keyword, match type, device category, referring page, and an anonymous handoff identifier. This is used to understand whether SubSmith's own ads lead to a download, trial, or purchase. New handoff and download attribution records expire after 180 days.
• App analytics and diagnostic data – the apps send limited information about app usage, device type, and errors to help measure reliability and improve the Service. This does not include your media, transcript text, or filenames.

I don't sell your personal data, build cross-site advertising profiles, or use this data to advertise other companies' products.

How your media is processed

Temporary audio copies are deleted after processing or expire automatically. Cloud transcription records are deleted when you delete the associated job or your account, subject to provider backup and legal-retention practices.

Lawful bases and your rights

Under UK data protection law, there must be a "lawful basis" for using your personal information. For the activities described on this page, I mainly rely on:

• Consent – when you ask for updates (for example, by joining a waitlist or requesting information) and I email you in response.
• Contract or legitimate interests – when it's necessary to set up your account, provide transcription and dictionary features, process subscriptions, prevent abuse, respond to support requests, measure product reliability, or diagnose problems so the service can be operated and improved.

Regardless of the lawful basis, you have rights over your personal information, including the right to access it, correct it if it's wrong, and in some cases delete it or object to how it's used. You can also withdraw consent at any time where consent was the basis.

Who your information is shared with

I use a small number of trusted service providers to operate SubSmith. Providers that process personal information on my behalf are required to protect it to the same or an equivalent standard described in this notice.

• Cloudflare – hosting and analytics.Hosts the website via Cloudflare Pages, receives form submissions (like waitlist sign-ups), and provides privacy-focused web analytics. Cloudflare may also process technical logs to keep their service secure and reliable.
• Railway – API and database hosting.Hosts the SubSmith API and database containing the account, subscription, transcription-job, allowance, attribution, and diagnostic records described in this notice.
• S3-compatible object storage – temporary mobile transcription media.Temporarily stores prepared audio while a mobile transcription request is processed.
• Cloud transcription provider – mobile speech-to-text processing.Receives prepared audio and language settings when you request cloud-generated subtitles in the mobile app.
• Apple and Google – account authentication.Confirm your identity when you choose their sign-in option. Their handling of information is governed by their own privacy terms.
• PostHog – mobile product analytics.Receives limited product-usage events and an internal user ID.
• Sentry – mobile crash and error diagnostics.Receives error reports and limited diagnostic information, but not your media or transcript text.
• Resend – transactional email service.Sends emails such as account updates, login links, and support replies. Your email address is used only to send the specific messages you requested or need for using the app.
• Stripe – payment provider.Processes your payment details (if you subscribe) and handles fraud prevention. I receive limited information from Stripe, such as your email and basic transaction details, so I can manage your subscription and provide support. Your full card details are not stored by me.
• Google Ads – advertising measurement.Receives limited click and conversion information so I can measure whether SubSmith's own advertising leads to downloads, trials, or purchases. Raw media, transcripts, and subtitle content are never shared with Google Ads.

International transfers

Some service providers used by SubSmith – including Cloudflare, Railway, Stripe, Resend, Apple, Google, PostHog, Sentry, and the cloud storage and transcription providers – may process information outside the UK, including in the United States or European Economic Area.

When personal information is transferred outside the UK, these providers use standard contractual safeguards or similar mechanisms required under UK data protection law (for example, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or equivalent protections in their data processing terms).

Analytics and diagnostics

The website uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to understand which pages are visited and how people discover SubSmith. This setup is privacy-focused and does not use tracking cookies.

• No marketing cookies, pixel-based ad tracking, or cross-site profiling.
• Paid-ad attribution is based on first-party URL parameters and server-side event records.
• Mobile analytics are limited to an allowlist of product events and do not include media, transcript text, filenames, email addresses, or precise location.
• Mobile error reports are scrubbed before transmission and are used to diagnose failures and improve reliability.

Retention and account deletion

Account, subscription, and transcription-usage records are kept while your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. Short-lived upload and download links expire automatically. Anonymous YouTube extraction diagnostics are normally retained for 30 days, and desktop first-launch diagnostics for up to 180 days.

You can delete a mobile account from Settings. After confirmation, SubSmith deletes the account and associated sessions, transcription jobs, usage records, temporary stored media, and cloud transcription records. The mobile app also removes its locally saved transcript sessions and thumbnails. Some limited records may remain where required for legal obligations, fraud prevention, security, dispute resolution, or provider backups.

Open-source components

SubSmith is built on top of several important open-source projects. Full license and acknowledgement details are available on our acknowledgements page.

• Whisper by OpenAI
• FFmpeg

View full open-source acknowledgements →