AI Apps Privacy Policy

At MacPaw, we care about the privacy of your data and are committed to protecting it. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect about you while you use our software products set forth in this AI Apps Terms of Service, why, what we do with that information, and how we handle that information. We’ll also explain what choices you have with respect to the information.

Definitions

Capitalized terms used in this Privacy Policy and not otherwise defined shall have the meanings provided below:

Data Processor - a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of MacPaw.

Personal Data - any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

Processing/Processed - any operation on Personal Data, whether automated or not.

Applicability Of This Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to MacPaw Way Ltd’s or our affiliates’ (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our” or “MacPaw”) desktop and mobile applications specifically mentioned in this AI Apps Terms of Service (collectively, the “Products”).

The main body of this Privacy Policy sets out the general terms applicable to the processing of personal data across our Products, including general information about how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and protect personal data.

Where we offer a specific Product, we will provide supplemental privacy policies and incorporate the links thereto in this Privacy Policy. Such supplemental privacy policies form part of this Privacy Policy and provide additional details relevant to the particular Product, including, where applicable, the categories of personal data processed, purposes of processing, lawful bases relied upon, categories of recipients, retention periods, and any other product-specific privacy information.

In the event of any inconsistency between this Privacy Policy and a supplemental privacy policy, the supplemental privacy policy shall prevail with respect to the relevant Product indicated in the supplemental privacy policy.

Information We Collect and Receive

We collect and receive information about you in various ways, depending on how you interact with our Products. The types of information we collect may vary depending on the specific Product you use and may include information you provide directly to us, information collected automatically through your use of the Product, and information obtained from third parties.

Use of Information and Legal Basis

We use personal data to provide, operate, maintain, improve, secure, and support our Products. Depending on the relevant Product and the nature of the interaction, we may use personal data to:

• provide and manage the Products;

• create and administer accounts (when created by you);

• process transactions and provide customer support;

• communicate with users;

• improve functionality, performance, and user experience;

• maintain security and prevent fraud or misuse;

• comply with legal and regulatory obligations;

• establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; and

• send marketing or promotional communications where permitted by law.

Depending on the specific Product and the processing activity, we may process personal data based on one or more applicable legal bases, including performance of a contract, compliance with legal obligations, legitimate interests, consent, and other legal bases permitted under applicable law.

Collection of Information from Children

MacPaw does not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under the age of 13. If we determine we have collected Personal Data from a child younger than 13 years of age, we will take reasonable measures to remove that information from our systems. If you are under the age of 13, please do not submit any Personal Data through the Products. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and to help enforce this Privacy Policy by instructing their children never to provide Personal Data through the Products without their permission.

How We Share And Disclose Information

We only disclose Personal Data to third parties when:

• We use service providers who assist us in meeting business operations needs, including hosting, delivering, and improving our Products. We may also use service providers for specific services and functions, including email communication, customer support services, and analytics. These service providers may only access, process, or store Personal Data pursuant to our instructions, according to the applicable data protection legislation and to perform their duties to us.

• We have your explicit consent to share your Personal Data (if required).

• We believe it is necessary to investigate potential violations of the terms, to enforce those terms, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, or potential threats against persons, property, or the systems on which we operate our Products.

• We determine that the access, preservation, or disclosure of your Personal Data is required by law to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of MacPaw and users of our Products, or to respond to lawful requests by public authorities, including national security or law enforcement requests.

• We need to do so in connection with a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, reorganization, sale of some or all of our assets or stock, public offering of securities, or steps in consideration of such activities (e.g., due diligence). In these cases some or all of your Personal Data may be shared with or transferred to another entity, subject to this Privacy Policy.

• We may disclose Non-Personal Data publicly and to third parties – for example, in public reports about word usage, to partners under agreement with us, or as part of progress reports we may provide to users.

MacPaw does not share your Personal Data/personally identifiable information with third parties for the purpose of enabling them to deliver their advertisements to you.

MacPaw does not sell or rent your Personal Data.

Data Storage and Transfer

Information submitted to MacPaw may be transferred to, processed, and stored in the Republic of Cyprus, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America and Ukraine. Data stored and processed by MacPaw may sometimes be moved between these zones (in a secure manner).

Where applicable, we may transfer personal data to countries outside the country in which it was collected, including to countries that may not provide the same level of data protection as your jurisdiction. In such cases, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with applicable data protection laws. These safeguards may include, where relevant, an adequacy decision issued by the European Commission, or appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses, approved transfer mechanisms, or other legally recognized safeguards. Where required by law, information about these safeguards and how to obtain a copy of them will be made available upon request.

Data Retention

We retain personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including to provide and operate the Products, comply with legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, and reporting obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Retention periods may vary depending on the type of personal data, the relevant Product, the nature of the relationship with the individual, and applicable legal requirements. When personal data is no longer required, we will delete, anonymize, or otherwise securely dispose of it in accordance with applicable law and our retention policies.

Safeguards

When you give us Personal Data, we take steps to make sure that it’s treated securely.

Once we receive your data, we protect it on our servers using a combination of technical, physical, and logical security safeguards. The security of the data stored locally in any of our Products installed on your computing device requires that you make use of the security features of your device. We recommend that you take the appropriate steps to secure all computing devices that you use in connection with Products.

MacPaw takes the security of your data very seriously and works to protect your data from loss, misuse and unauthorised access or disclosure.

All staff and officers who handle Personal Data are aware of this Privacy Policy and have been given training in how to correctly collect, process, store and delete data. MacPaw holds a log of when staff training was undertaken and updates it on an annual basis.

Your Rights

You have the following rights in respect to your Personal Data, including the right to access, correct, or delete Personal Data we process through your use of the Product.

You can:

• Have your Personal Data corrected or deleted. You may ask us to correct information you think is inaccurate or completely delete all information that we hold about you by emailing: [email protected]
• Access your Personal Data report by submitting a request at [email protected] . This report will include Personal Data we have about you, provided to you in a structured, commonly used, and portable format.
• Object to us processing your Personal Data. It is your right to lodge an objection to the processing of your personal data by emailing: [email protected] if you feel the “ground relating to your particular situation” applies. The only reasons we will be able to deny your request is if we can show compelling legitimate grounds for the processing, which override your interest, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claims.
• Ask us to stop using your Personal Data, including when we use your Personal Data to send you marketing emails. We only send marketing communications to you with your prior consent, and you may withdraw your consent at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link found within MacPaw emails and changing your contact preferences. Please note you will continue to receive transactional messages related to our Product, even if you unsubscribe from marketing emails.
• Complain to a regulator. If you’re based in the European Economic Area (EEA) and think that we haven’t complied with data protection laws, you have a right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
• Request to know more details about the categories or specific pieces of Personal Data we collect (including how we use and disclose this information), to delete their Personal Data, to opt out of any “sales” that may be occurring, and to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

Data Protection Officer

To communicate with our Data Protection Officer, please email [email protected].

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may need to update this Privacy Policy to keep pace with changes in our Products, our business, and laws applicable to us and you. We will, however, always maintain our commitment to respect your privacy. We will notify you of any material changes that impact your rights under this Privacy Policy by email (to your most recently provided email address) or post any other revisions to this Privacy Policy, along with their effective date, in an easy-to-find area of the sites, so we recommend that you periodically check back here to stay informed of any changes. Please note that your continued use of MacPaw’s the Products after any change means that you agree with, and consent to be bound by, the new Privacy Policy. If you disagree with any changes in this Privacy Policy and do not wish your information to be subject to it, you will need to stop using the Products.

Contact us

You may contact us with any questions relating to this Privacy Policy by e-mailing: [email protected].

Supplemental Privacy Policy Applicable to Vexel

This supplemental privacy policy applies to the processing of personal information by Vexel and should be read in conjunction with the main body of the AI Apps Privacy Policy.

Vexel is a native macOS text-to-speech desktop application. Users can type or paste text, select a voice and language model, and the app generates synthesized speech audio.

Information We Collect and Receive

Please note that Vexel requires no user account, no login, and no email address. The categories of Personal Data processed by MacPaw includes:

Input text. When you initiate speech synthesis, the text you have typed or pasted is used to generate the audio output. This text is required to deliver the core feature of the product. Depending on what you type, input text may incidentally contain personal data; however, we do not require or encourage you to enter personal data, and the text is transmitted with an anonymous session identifier only - no account, name, or device identity is attached.

Anonymous session identifier. A randomly generated UUID is created per session and transmitted alongside each generation request. This identifier is not linked to any individual, account, or device identifier. It is used solely to associate requests within a single session for the purposes of delivering the service.

Voice and sampling parameters. Your selected voice identifier and any customised synthesis parameters (temperature, top-k, top-p, penalties, seed) are transmitted as part of each generation request. These are purely technical configuration values.

Additionally, the following data is stored exclusively on your device and is never transmitted to MacPaw’s servers:

Generation history. The record includes the input text, voice selection, synthesis parameters, a reference to the generated audio file, duration, and timestamp.

Generated audio files. Synthesised audio is saved locally as WAV files. No audio is retained server-side.

Project and session metadata. Project names, session titles, creation dates, and icon symbols are stored locally. If you name a project or session after a person, that name may constitute personal data; it is never transmitted.

Voice preference per model. Your selected default voice is saved on your device.

Product Usage Data. Aggregated information collected about how you interact with Product. This data helps developers, product managers, and businesses understand usage patterns, optimize features, identify issues, and improve the overall user experience. It also helps to understand your behavior, improve UX and performance of the Product(s).

Technical & Diagnostic Data. Information automatically collected about your device and the Product's operation (e.g. app version, OS version, device model and architecture, available memory and disk space, locale/timezone, and an anonymous device identifier), as well as crash diagnostics (e.g. stack traces, exception details, and recent in-app events leading up to a crash).

Use of Information and Legal Basis

How We Share And Disclose Information

Cloud Processing: requests are transmitted to the applicable AI model provider solely for the purpose of fulfilling Your request. MacPaw can see the AI model used for each request, but does not view or store the content of Your messages or inputs. Data is processed by the applicable AI model provider and is not stored by MacPaw beyond what is necessary for service operation.

On-device AI processing: Certain functionality may be performed directly on your device. For example, Apple’s macOS built-in `NaturalLanguage` framework is used to detect the language of the user's input and auto-select the matching TTS model. In such cases, no data is transmitted to external servers for this specific processing.

The following service providers process data specifically in connection with Vexel. All providers act as Data Processors and are bound by contractual obligations consistent with the applicable data protection laws:

Data Retention

We retain your personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this supplemental notice (or as required by law). In general:

• Input text: up to 30 days.
• Anonymous session UUID: up to 30 days.
• Voice and sampling parameters: up to 30 days.
• Generation history: retained locally on your device until you delete it.
• Generated audio files: retained locally on your device and deleted automatically when the associated generation record is deleted.
• Project and session metadata: retained locally on your device until you delete the project or session.
• Voice preference per model: until you uninstall the application.