Privacy Policy

Redactly is developed and published by Piyush Shiyani (“we”, “us”). Where this policy describes information we receive, Piyush Shiyani is the data controller for it.

You can reach us at any time at redactlyapp.official@gmail.com.

This policy applies to two things:

• The Redactly app — the iPhone application distributed through the Apple App Store.
• This website — the pages published at this domain.

It does not cover the App Store itself, or any service you choose to send an exported video to. Those are governed by their own policies.

Redactly never uploads, transmits or receives your videos or anything derived from them. Specifically, the app does not:

• Upload your videos, images, audio or any part of them to us or to anyone else.
• Send frames, detection results, recognised text, region coordinates, timecodes or file names off your device.
• Require, offer or operate any account, login, email sign-up or user profile.
• Show advertising, or access your device's advertising identifier.
• Track you across other companies' apps and websites.
• Read your contacts, calendar, location, health data or messages.

Redaction itself works with the device in airplane mode. A network connection is used only for the limited purposes described in sections 05 to 07 — diagnostics, notifications and purchases — and none of them carries your media.

All processing happens locally on your iPhone, using Apple’s on-device frameworks for video decoding, image analysis and rendering. This covers every stage:

• Decoding the video you selected.
• Detecting faces, on-screen text regions and license plate regions.
• Tracking a region across frames when motion tracking is enabled.
• Rendering blur, pixelate or block redactions.
• Encoding the redacted output file.

No stage of this involves a network request, a remote model, or a server operated by us or by a third party.

Files stored on your device

To let you leave the app and come back to work in progress, Redactly saves project data — such as your list of regions, their timings and your redaction settings — together with intermediate working files, inside the app’s own private storage container on your device. These files are protected by iOS app sandboxing and by your device’s encryption. They never leave the device, and deleting the app removes them.

Your original is never altered

Redactly does not modify, move or delete the video you selected. When you export, it writes a new, separate redacted copy.

To find bugs and understand which features are used, Redactly uses two services from Google’s Firebase platform. Google processes this data on our behalf under Google’s privacy terms for Firebase.

Firebase Crashlytics — crash reports

If the app crashes or hits an error, a report is sent containing the technical details of the failure (where in the code it happened), your device model, iOS version, the Redactly version and build, and which step of the app was running. Each installation is identified by a random ID that is not linked to your name, email or Apple Account.

Firebase Analytics — usage statistics

The app records a small, fixed set of events — for example that a video was imported, a scan finished or an export succeeded or failed — together with coarse, bucketed values such as “clip length 1–5 minutes” or “1–5 regions”. Firebase also records standard usage information: a random app-instance ID, device model, iOS version, app version, approximate country derived from your IP address, and session and engagement times. Firebase may also record that an in-app purchase occurred and which plan, price and currency it was.

None of this ever includes your videos, frames, thumbnails, file names, project titles, recognised text, license plate text or the position of anything in a frame. Every value that describes your work is deliberately coarse, so it cannot be used to identify a particular video.

We use this information only to fix problems and improve Redactly. We do not use it for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not combine it with information from other sources to identify you.

Redactly can send notifications through Apple’s push service and Firebase Cloud Messaging. To make this possible, the app registers a device token — a random identifier for this installation — with Firebase. Notifications are shown only if you allow them when iOS asks, and you can turn them off at any time in Settings → Notifications → Redactly. The token is not linked to your name, email or Apple Account.

Redactly Pro subscriptions and the Lifetime purchase are sold and processed entirely by Apple through your Apple Account. We never receive your name, email address, card number or any other payment details. Apple’s handling of your purchase is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy.

To decide whether Pro is unlocked, the app reads Apple’s digitally signed record of your purchases on your device — which plan you own and whether it is active. It also reads which version of Redactly you first downloaded, so that people who installed it while it was entirely free keep Pro at no cost. These checks happen on your device; the app does not send them to us.

Apple provides us with sales and subscription reports through App Store Connect. These are aggregated or use Apple’s own anonymous identifiers and do not identify you personally.

iOS asks your permission before granting each of the following. All are optional, all are requested only at the moment they are needed, and each is used solely for the purpose described. Declining one limits the related feature and nothing else.

Camera

Only if you choose to record a new video inside the app. The recording is written to the app’s storage on your device so you can redact it. It is not uploaded.

Microphone

Only if you record a video in the app — recording video captures sound along with it. The audio stays on your device. Redactly does not analyse, transcribe or alter audio.

Adding to your photo library

Only when you choose “Save to Photos”, so the redacted copy can be written to your library. Redactly requests add-only access; it does not ask for permission to read or browse your photo library.

Choosing a video

When you import from Photos, iOS presents its own system picker. Only the single item you pick is handed to Redactly — the app never sees the rest of your library. Importing from Files works the same way through the system document picker.

Notifications

Only if you choose to allow them. Declining means Redactly sends you no notifications; everything else works the same. See section 06.

When you export, you choose the destination. Saving to Photos keeps the file on your device. Using “Share” hands the file to the standard iOS share sheet, where you select the destination yourself — for example AirDrop, Files, Mail or another app.

Once you send a file to another app or service, that file is governed by that recipient’s privacy policy, not this one. We have no visibility into, or control over, what you share or where.

If you email us at redactlyapp.official@gmail.com, we receive what you send: your email address, the content of your message, and anything you choose to attach. The app can pre-fill a support message with your Redactly version and build number to help us diagnose an issue; it never attaches your video, your project data or any file without you doing it yourself.

We use this only to answer you. We do not use support correspondence for marketing, we do not sell it, and we do not add you to any mailing list. Our support mailbox is hosted by Google (Gmail), which processes the message in the course of delivering it.

We keep support correspondence only for as long as it is useful for handling your request and any follow-up, and you may ask us to delete it at any time.

Redactly may occasionally ask whether you would like to rate the app. That prompt is presented by Apple’s own system rating component. If you leave a rating or review, it goes to Apple, not to us — we never see who wrote what, and the app does not learn whether you responded.

Separately, Apple collects information about App Store downloads and app usage under Apple’s Privacy Policy. Apple may make aggregated, anonymised statistics — such as download counts and crash reports — available to us through App Store Connect. This data is not provided in a form that identifies individual users, and you can control it in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements on your device.

This site is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics or tracking scripts, embeds no third-party advertising or social widgets, and has no comment system, contact form or newsletter sign-up. There is nothing here that profiles you.

The site is hosted on Firebase Hosting, a Google service. As with any web host, Google’s servers record standard technical request data — such as your IP address, the page requested, the time, and your browser’s user-agent string — in order to serve the page and to protect the service from abuse. We use this only in aggregate, if at all, and it is handled under Google’s privacy terms for Firebase.

Links to the App Store take you to Apple, whose own privacy policy then applies.

Redactly is not directed at children under 13. It contains no advertising, no social features and no user-generated content shared with others, and it never uploads anyone’s videos. The only information that leaves the device is the technical diagnostics, notification token and Apple purchase records described in sections 05 to 07, none of which identifies a person by name. If you believe a child has contacted us by email, write to us and we will delete that correspondence.

Privacy laws such as the GDPR (EU/UK), the CCPA/CPRA (California) and similar regimes give you rights over personal data a company holds about you — including access, correction, deletion, portability and objection.

We hold no account, name or email address for Redactly users. The diagnostics described in section 05 are tied only to random installation identifiers, which we cannot link to you; they are kept for a limited period under Firebase’s retention settings and then deleted. Deleting the app stops all collection, and reinstalling it creates new identifiers. If you have emailed us, you may ask us to send you a copy of that correspondence or to delete it, and we will do so.

We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are used under California law, and we have never done so. To exercise any right, or to ask a question about this policy, write to redactlyapp.official@gmail.com. If you are in the EU or UK, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

Because your media never leaves your iPhone, the usual risks of interception in transit and breach of a media server do not apply to your videos — for them there is no transit and no server. The limited diagnostics in section 05 are sent to Google over encrypted connections.

On the device, Redactly’s files sit inside the app’s sandbox and are protected by iOS file protection and by your device’s encryption. Keeping iOS up to date and using a passcode or Face ID materially strengthens that protection.

If we change this policy, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and publish the revised version here. If a future version of Redactly ever changes what leaves your device — and in particular if it would ever involve your videos, which would be a departure from the app’s founding principle — we will say so plainly and prominently, both here and in the app, before that version ships.

Questions about this policy, or about how Redactly handles anything at all:

Piyush Shiyani
redactlyapp.official@gmail.com