Privacy Policy

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1. Who we are

Bling ("Bling", "we", "us") makes a macOS desktop application that transcribes your footage and removes silences, filler words and bad takes, plus the website at blingai.org. This policy covers both.

For any privacy question, or to exercise any right described below, email liuwilliam12@gmail.com. We are the data controller for the information described here.

2. What stays on your computer

This is the part that matters most, so it comes first. The following never leaves your computer and is never transmitted to Bling:

• Your video files. You point Bling at a file on your disk. It is read from there and stays there. There is no upload path for video in the app at all.
• Your transcripts. The transcript is written to a project file on your disk. Nobody, including us, receives a copy.
• Your edits. Cuts, keeps, deletions, chapter marks, b-roll placements and every other timeline decision are stored in local project files.
• Your exports. MP4, MP3, SRT, VTT, CapCut kits, Premiere XML and Resolve EDL files are written straight to a folder you choose.

We have no upload endpoint for media and no copy of your footage to lose, hand over or breach. If you delete a project from your computer, it is gone, and there is nothing for us to delete on our side.

2.1 The one exception: cloud transcription

Turning speech into words is the one step Bling can send off your machine, and it is a setting you control. Cloud transcription is on by default, with or without an account, and you can switch it off on the studio page or in Settings.

• What is sent. Bling extracts the audio track of the file you are transcribing into a compact 16 kHz mono copy and sends that, and only that, to Deepgram. The video is not sent. The filename is not sent. Your email, your user ID and your project are not sent.
• Who receives it. Deepgram, a US speech-to-text provider (SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA-capable). See §5.
• What they do with it. They transcribe it and return words with timings. Every request Bling makes is marked as opted out of Deepgram's model improvement programme, which means the audio is used for that one request and is not retained and not used to train models. Deepgram does not store transcripts.
• What we keep. We record the number of minutes your account sent, so plan limits can be enforced and so we can pay the bill. We do not receive the audio, the transcript or any text from it.
• How to switch it off. Settings, then turn off Cloud transcription. Bling then transcribes on your own machine with the on-device engine, an optional download from Settings, and no audio and no video is uploaded. Your account, plan and billing still talk to our server, as described in §3.

Two smaller clarifications, so this promise is not broader than the truth. First, when you install the optional on-device engine, the app downloads it from our download server and its AI model weights from Hugging Face; those are downloads to you, and none of your content is sent in the requests. Second, if you use the optional stock footage picker, the words you type into its search box go to Pexels using an API key you supply. Both are covered in §5.

2.2 Anonymous usage events

Anonymous usage events from the desktop app (which steps were reached, app version, operating system, a random install id) are sent to our Supabase project and relayed to our team's Discord. They never include video, audio, transcripts or file names. Switch them off in Settings under Send anonymous usage data.

• What an event says. That a step happened, such as the app opening, a project being created, a transcription or an export finishing, or a sign-in prompt being shown, with a few counts and settings about it (how many files, the length in whole seconds, cloud or on this device, the export format). Plus the app version, the platform, the processor type and the operating system version.
• The install id. A random number the app creates the first time it runs and keeps on your computer. It is not derived from your hardware, your name or your network, and it is not shared with advertisers.
• If you are signed in. The events are linked to your account's user ID, and the Discord message shows your account email, the same way the new account notice in §5 does.
• What is never sent. Your video, your audio, your transcripts, the words you say, file names, folder paths, your computer's name or any hardware identifier.
• How to switch it off. Settings, then turn off Send anonymous usage data. The app stops sending events from that moment, on that computer.

3. What we collect

3.1 Account information

When you create an account we store your email address and an internal user ID. If you sign in with Google, we receive the basic profile Google returns for that sign-in (your email address, and your name if your Google account publishes one). If you sign in with a password, authentication is handled by our authentication provider, which stores a salted hash; we never see or store your password in readable form.

3.2 Billing information

If you buy Pro or Lifetime, checkout happens on Stripe. We never receive your card number, CVC or full billing address. Stripe collects those directly and we cannot see them.

What we do store, so the app knows what you are entitled to, is:

• your plan (trial, pro or lifetime) and its status;
• whether you have used your free trial, when it started and when it ends;
• your Stripe customer ID and, for Pro, your Stripe subscription ID;
• which price you bought, when the current period ends, and whether you have asked to cancel;
• the charge ID of a Lifetime purchase, so a refund or dispute can be matched to it;
• a log of the billing events Stripe has sent us, which is what support reads when something goes wrong with a payment.

3.3 Website measurement and advertising

Every page on this website loads the Google Ads tag, so we can tell which advertisements lead people to Bling. The tag is not present in the Mac app at all. Subject to your choices in Cookie settings (§6), it reports the following to Google:

• Visits and actions on the site. Page views, clicks on the download buttons, account sign-ups, starting a checkout, and a purchase, plus how far you scroll, which FAQ answers you open, whether you play the demo video, and clicks on links to other sites.
• Purchase details. The plan bought, its price and currency (the list price from your browser; the amount actually paid when our server reports it), and the Stripe checkout reference. Never your name, card details or billing address.
• Ad click identifiers. If you arrive by clicking a Google ad, the link carries an identifier (the gclid, gbraid or wbraid parameter) and possibly campaign tags (utm_ parameters). The tag stores these in cookies, and we also keep a copy in your browser's local storage (§6) so a purchase a few days later can be credited to the ad.
• A hashed email address (enhanced conversions). When you buy a plan, and when you confirm a new account, we can send Google a SHA-256 hash of your email address, after trimming it and converting it to lower case (for Gmail addresses, also removing dots and anything after a plus sign in the part before the @, as Google requires). Google uses the hash only to match the purchase or sign-up to a Google account that clicked one of our ads, so the ad can be credited. A hash is not your address in readable form, but it is still personal data, because Google can match it against addresses it already knows. We never send your email address in readable form.

We send purchase conversions in two ways: from your browser on the purchase confirmation page, and from our own server to Google through the Google Ads API. The server route exists because ad blockers and closed tabs stop many browser reports. For it, we keep one record per purchase in our database holding the Stripe checkout reference, the hashed email, the amount and currency, the billing country, the time, any ad click identifier from the visit, your browser's user agent string, the consent choice you made on the site, and whether the upload succeeded. We do not upload a purchase to Google if you declined advertising data in Cookie settings. If we have no record of your choice, we upload it only when your billing country is known and is outside the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. A hashed email is only sent from your browser when you have not declined it. We never send Google your IP address from our server.

If you decline advertising cookies, the tag still loads but does not set or read advertising cookies. Google may still receive a basic signal that a page was viewed or a conversion happened, without cookies and with ad click identifiers removed, which Google uses to estimate conversions in aggregate. This is how Google's Consent Mode works; see §6.

3.4 Service logs

Our backend keeps ordinary server logs for the requests it serves (sign-in, checkout, entitlement checks). These contain an IP address, a timestamp, the request path and an outcome. We use them for security, abuse prevention and debugging.

3.5 Transcription usage

When you transcribe with cloud transcription on, we record the length in minutes of the audio, the date, and your user ID, so that plan limits can be enforced and the provider bill can be reconciled. We do not record the filename, the audio, the transcript, or any word of what was said.

3.6 What we do not collect

The desktop app contains no third-party analytics SDK, no crash reporter and no session recorder. The only usage information it sends is the anonymous usage events in §2.2, which you can switch off in Settings under Send anonymous usage data. They record which steps were reached, never what you edit, what was said or which files you open. Beyond the minute count in §3.5 and those events, we hold nothing about your transcriptions. We do not build advertising profiles from your content, and we do not sell personal information for money. The website's advertising measurement is described in §3.3 and §6.

4. Why we use it

For visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, advertising cookies and advertising data are off until you choose to allow them in the cookie banner. Everywhere else they are on by default and you can switch them off at any time under Cookie settings (§6). Either way, your choice is remembered in your browser and applies to every page of the site.

5. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information for money. The one exception to "only our service providers see it" is advertising measurement with Google, described in §3.3 and §6, which you can switch off. We use the following providers, and nothing beyond what each one needs:

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to protect the rights and safety of our users. If Bling is ever acquired or merged, account and billing information may transfer as part of that transaction, and this policy will continue to apply to it until you are told otherwise.

6. Cookies and advertising

This website uses cookies and your browser's local storage for the Google Ads measurement described in §3.3, and to remember your cookie choice. The Mac app uses local storage on your own machine to keep you signed in and to remember your preferences; that is not shared with anyone.

6.1 Your choice, and how to change it

Every page has a Cookie settings link at the bottom. It opens a panel where you can allow or refuse advertising cookies, sharing data with Google for ad measurement, and ad personalisation, and change your mind at any time. Visitors who appear to be in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland also see a banner on their first visit; until you choose, and if you close the banner without choosing, advertising cookies and advertising data stay off.

The site uses Google's Consent Mode, which passes your choice to the Google tag. When you refuse, the tag does not set or read advertising cookies, removes ad click identifiers from what it sends, and may send the cookieless signals described in §3.3. So that an ad click can still be credited without cookies, the tag may carry the ad click identifier from page to page on this site in the page address (Google calls this URL passthrough); it is not stored on your device.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal and you have not made a choice of your own, we treat it as a refusal of advertising cookies, advertising data and ad personalisation, and we clear any stored ad click identifiers. The signal is read before the Google Ads tag is configured, so it applies from your first page view. A choice you make yourself in Cookie settings takes priority over the signal.

6.2 What is stored in your browser

You can also block or clear cookies and site data in your browser at any time. Doing so does not affect the Mac app or your ability to use Bling. You can control personalised ads from Google across the web at myadcenter.google.com.

7. How long we keep it

• Account information: until you delete your account.
• Billing records: retained after account deletion, in a reduced form, for as long as tax, accounting and dispute rules require (generally up to seven years). This is what lets us explain or process a refund for someone whose account is already gone.
• Service logs: a short rolling window, typically not more than 90 days.
• Purchase records for ad measurement (§3.3): the hashed email, ad click identifiers and user agent are erased 90 days after the purchase. What remains (amount, currency, time and upload status) is kept as history, alongside the billing records above.
• Ad click identifiers in your browser: 90 days, see §6.
• Transcription minute counts: kept for the current and previous billing period so a limit can be enforced and a bill checked, then aggregated away. The audio itself is never in our hands to keep.

8. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• access the personal information we hold about you;
• correct it if it is wrong;
• delete it (see §9);
• receive a copy in a portable format;
• object to or restrict certain processing;
• withdraw consent you previously gave, without affecting what was done beforehand (for advertising cookies and data, use Cookie settings, see §6);
• opt out of targeted advertising and of the sharing of personal data for advertising;
• not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights.

To exercise any of them, email liuwilliam12@gmail.com from the address on your account. We will respond within 30 days. If you are in the UK or EEA and you are unhappy with our answer, you may complain to your local data protection authority.

Your privacy choices (California and other US states). We do not sell personal information for money. However, the Google Ads measurement on this website (§3.3) sends identifiers, site activity and a hashed email address to Google, and California law (the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA) and similar state laws may treat that as "selling" or "sharing" personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. You can opt out at any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page: turning off ad personalisation and sharing data with Google stops it for that browser. A Global Privacy Control signal is treated as the same opt-out (§6.1). You can also email us to opt out, and we will stop uploading your purchases to Google Ads. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. The categories we collect, the purposes, and the recipients are the ones listed in §3, §4 and §5.

9. Deleting your account

You can delete your account from inside the app, under Account settings. It takes effect immediately: your sign-in record and profile are removed and you can no longer sign in. As noted in §7, a reduced billing record is kept for the legally required period, holding your plan history and Stripe identifiers so that refunds and disputes remain traceable.

Deleting your account does not touch your projects, footage or exports, because those are on your computer and always were. Remove them the way you remove any other file. Deleting the account also ends cloud transcription for it; there is no audio held anywhere to delete, because none was retained.

If you have an active Pro subscription, cancel it before deleting your account, or email us and we will make sure it is cancelled.

10. Security

Traffic to our services is encrypted in transit with TLS. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Access to production data is limited to those who need it. Payment details are handled entirely by Stripe, a PCI Service Provider Level 1, and never touch our systems.

The strongest security property Bling has is structural rather than procedural: your video is not on a server we operate, so there is no repository of customer video to breach. The audio sent for cloud transcription is held by Deepgram only for the length of the request and is transmitted over TLS with a short-lived token that is minted per job and expires within the hour. No system is perfectly secure, but the standing pile of customer footage that is normally the risk simply does not exist here.

11. International transfers

Our providers are based in the United States and may process the information in §3 there and in other countries. Where we transfer personal information out of the UK or EEA, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or another approved safeguard.

12. Children

Bling is not directed at children. You must be at least 13 years old to use it, and at least 16 if you are in the EEA or UK. We do not knowingly collect information from children below those ages. If you believe a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use Bling after that means you accept the updated policy.

14. Contact

Questions, requests or complaints: liuwilliam12@gmail.com. A real person reads it, and we aim to answer within a few days.