What Fluo stores, what it sends, and to whom

Last updated: [DATUM] · Applies to Fluo for macOS version 1.0

Fluo has no user accounts, no servers, and no analytics. Nothing you do in the app is reported anywhere. This page explains the exceptions — the three cases where Fluo makes a network connection, and what leaves your Mac when it does.

What Fluo collects about you

Nothing. There is no account, no sign-in, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no usage statistics, and no advertising identifier. We receive no data from the app and has no way to see what you use it for.

Apple provides aggregate download and crash statistics to developers who distribute through the App Store. These are anonymous and are not linked to individuals. If you have opted out of sharing analytics with app developers in your macOS settings, Apple sends nothing at all.

Where your recordings and transcripts live

Recordings, transcripts, highlights and saved analyses are stored on your Mac, in a location you choose. They are ordinary files. Fluo does not copy them anywhere, does not synchronise them, and does not need an internet connection to open them.

If the folder you choose is inside iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a similar service, that service will sync your files according to its own terms. That is your setup, not Fluo's behaviour, but it is worth knowing.

The three network connections

1. Downloading the transcription model

The first time you transcribe, Fluo downloads a speech recognition model — roughly 1.5 GB — from Hugging Face, where it is publicly hosted. This is a plain file download. No information about you or your recordings is sent. Once the model is on your Mac, transcription works offline forever.

2. Transcription

Transcription runs on your Mac. Your audio is not uploaded, and does not need to be. This is the default and it is the setting we recommend.

Fluo also offers an optional cloud transcription provider for cases where on-device transcription is not practical, such as Intel Macs. If you deliberately switch to it in Settings, your audio file is uploaded to that provider for processing, using an API key you supply. Their terms and retention policy apply to that audio, not ours. Fluo will tell you this at the moment you switch; it never happens by default and never happens silently.

3. Analysis

When you ask a question about your material, Fluo sends the relevant transcript text — and, depending on your scope, the metadata attached to it such as participant names and session titles — to the Anthropic API, using an API key you create and control. Your audio and video files are never sent.

Because the request uses your key, it is governed by your agreement with Anthropic. As of this writing, Anthropic's commercial terms state that API inputs and outputs are not used to train their models. Their current policies are the authoritative source: anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

If you never enter an API key, Fluo never contacts Anthropic. Transcription, playback, highlighting and export all work without one.

Your API keys

API keys are stored in the macOS Keychain, protected by the system in the same way as your other passwords. They are used only to authenticate the requests described above and are sent only to the provider they belong to. They are never transmitted to the maker of this app or to any third party, and they are not included in exported files. Deleting a key in Settings removes it from the Keychain.

Recordings of other people

Fluo is a tool for research interviews, which means the material you put into it is usually about people who are not you. Handling that material lawfully — obtaining consent, honouring deletion requests, applying whatever retention rules your organisation or the GDPR imposes — is your responsibility as the researcher, not something an app can do for you.

What Fluo does is make it possible: your files stay under your control, on your machine, in a folder you can delete. Nothing is retained in a place you cannot reach.

Children

Fluo is a professional research tool. It is not directed at children and is not designed for use by them.

Changes to this policy

If Fluo ever sends different data to a different place, this page changes before that version ships, and the date at the top changes with it. Substantial changes will also be noted in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about what Fluo does with something specific: fluo@johanraes.be.