Privacy Policy
Ethoseen LLC (“Ethoseen,” “we,” “us”), an Oregon limited liability company, publishes Sightline. This policy describes what personal information we collect, how we use it, and who we share it with. It applies to the Sightline desktop application, the iOS and watchOS companion apps, and the sightlinebehavior.com website. It is part of the Terms of Service.
1. Observation data and local AI
Sightline stores your observation data on your device. This includes records you enter, import, create, or record: students, sessions, observations, notes, audio recordings, dictation transcripts, exports, authored drafts, and AI-generated drafts (together, “Your Content”).
Observation storage and AI processing do not send Your Content to us. We operate no cloud storage or cloud synchronization service for Your Content and no database of student records. We have no remote access to the records held on your devices and cannot recover, export, or delete them for you.
All AI features run on your device. Text and audio used by those features are processed locally and are not transmitted to us or to any third-party AI service for processing.
Sightline uses your microphone for dictation only while you are recording. Dictation audio is written to temporary files only for transcription. These files are deleted when transcription finishes or fails. If a crash leaves temporary files behind, Sightline deletes them the next time it starts. Dictation audio is not saved with your observations. Transcription and optional AI cleanup run on your device. Audio is never uploaded, and transcripts stay on your device.
macOS or Windows requests microphone permission the first time you use dictation, and you can revoke it in System Settings on a Mac or Windows Settings.
Contacting support or submitting feedback is a separate choice. We receive what you send us through those channels, as described in Section 2. Please do not include student names, records, or other identifying information.
Sightline is a professional tool licensed to adults, not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Student observations stay on your devices through the observation and AI workflows; do not include children’s personal information in support or feedback.
The iPhone and Apple Watch apps have no accounts, vendor backend, or analytics. They transfer observations locally to the paired computer and clear transferred copies after receipt is confirmed. See the Companion supplement for local storage, voice notes, pairing, and deletion details.
2. Information collected, purposes, and recipients
The desktop app connects to the network for licensing, updates, model downloads, and feedback you submit. Analytics and crash reporting are optional. The table covers these services and our website forms. Cloudflare hosts the website and service endpoints. Service requests also include the request metadata the receiving server sees, such as an IP address.
| Activity | Information | Purpose and recipients |
|---|---|---|
| Purchases and subscriptions | Billing email, subscription tier, transaction records; card details go directly to Stripe | Stripe processes payments; Ethoseen administers subscriptions, receipts, and billing records |
| License activation and validation | License key, tier, billing email, machine fingerprint, activation history | Keygen manages licenses and activation limits; Ethoseen administers access |
| License usage review | License key, machine fingerprint, app version, first-activation date, cumulative count of successfully completed local text-model generations, counter integrity status, and device timestamp | Ethoseen calculates the device/server clock difference; Keygen stores the count, integrity status, and calculated difference as advisory operator-review signals. We do not store the raw device timestamp. These signals contain no prompts, outputs, or student data and do not change app access |
| Free trials | App version, request IP address, coarse country, request counts and timestamps, and a salted, one-way hash of a hardware identifier | Ethoseen issues and extends trials, checks regional eligibility, and limits abuse and repeated trials on the same device. Cloudflare hosts this service. The hash lets us recognize the same device across trial requests without receiving the original hardware identifier |
| Software updates | App version, platform, subscription tier; a license key, or an updater token and machine fingerprint | Ethoseen checks update eligibility and maintains aggregate installation and update-activity counters. Those aggregate counters do not retain device identifiers or per-device activity histories |
| Model downloads | File request, including IP address; license key for licensed models and machine fingerprint for trial downloads | Hugging Face distributes base models; Ethoseen delivers licensed model files and uses Keygen to validate download entitlements, including the machine fingerprint for trials |
| Support and in-app feedback | Message, optional email; in-app feedback also includes type, current screen, app version, platform, and submission timestamp | Ethoseen responds to requests. Cloudflare hosts the feedback service; Resend delivers the message and metadata by email; GitHub receives the message and metadata for issue tracking, with the optional contact email field omitted |
| Optional support diagnostics | App and operating-system information, license tier and status, Local AI state and performance, installed-model information, database counts and size, selected non-identifying settings, and filtered diagnostic logs | Only attached after you open the preview and choose to include them. Ethoseen receives them through Cloudflare and Resend to investigate the problem. GitHub receives only whether diagnostics were attached. The bundle excludes student names, notes, observation content, license keys, and app-log message text; log metadata can include event types and timestamps |
| Optional welcome survey | Answers, optional email, and request metadata including IP address | Tally (Tally BV) hosts the survey for Ethoseen to plan features and offer optional early-access invitations. Tally does not receive your device identifier |
| Optional usage analytics | Timestamped, allowlisted screen and feature events, random installation identifier, app version, subscription tier | PostHog helps Ethoseen understand feature usage. The persistent identifier associates events from the same installation; it is generated on the device and is separate from the hardware-derived trial identifier. Events exclude names, email addresses, license keys, notes, and observation content |
| Optional crash reporting | App version, event timestamps, stack traces, allowlisted error-class names, and limited technical error metadata such as command or component and severity | Sentry (US region) helps Ethoseen diagnose errors. Breadcrumbs, session replay, and request bodies are disabled |
| Service abuse prevention | Request metadata, including IP addresses or derived identifiers, request counts, and timestamps | Ethoseen and Cloudflare protect service availability. Feedback rate-limit records use derived IP identifiers and are cleared when older than seven days during subsequent accepted submissions |
| Website notification list | Email, signup page, submission date | Ethoseen uses the list to announce download availability. Cloudflare hosts the form and stores the list; Resend delivers messages with an unsubscribe link. Cloudflare Turnstile checks IP address and browser signals to block automated signups; Ethoseen does not retain those bot-check signals |
Licensing, updates, model downloads, analytics, and crash reports do not send Your Content. Feedback sends what you write and any diagnostics you choose to attach; it does not automatically attach observation records. Message text is included in both the support email and GitHub issue, so do not put identifying information in the message itself.
We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and have not done either in the preceding twelve months.
We also use service records to comply with tax, accounting, and other legal obligations. We do not use personal information for advertising, profiling, or training machine-learning models. We may disclose it as required by law or to a successor in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Service hostnames for firewall allowlisting are listed on our security page.
3. Optional features and website privacy
PostHog analytics and Sentry crash reporting are disabled by default. You can choose them during setup and change either setting at any time in Settings. The application’s features do not depend on either choice. Analytics events are limited to approved properties, with an additional filter for values that look like credentials.
You can review optional support diagnostics before attaching them to feedback.
The website performs no cross-site tracking and sets no advertising or analytics cookies. We do not change our practices in response to Do Not Track headers.
4. Retention and deletion
We retain license and billing records for as long as your license exists, and afterward only as long as tax, accounting, and fraud-prevention obligations require.
Trial records are scheduled for deletion after 1,080 days from trial start to limit repeated trials within that period. Trial request IP addresses are scheduled to be cleared after 90 days. These periods apply to the trial ledger, not to separate license or billing records.
We retain support correspondence and feedback records while needed to resolve the matter, investigate related problems, and maintain support history. Attached diagnostics are received in support email; they are not placed in GitHub issues.
We retain notification-list addresses until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove yours, or until we retire the list, whichever comes first. Removing an address deletes it from both our own store and our email provider.
We delete survey answers and optional survey email addresses after 12 months, or sooner if you ask.
Sentry retains crash and error events for 30 days under our current Developer plan. Our current PostHog Free plan provides one year of queryable analytics history; that window does not automatically delete stored events. You can request deletion as described in Section 5.
5. Your rights and choices
- Analytics and crash reporting can be enabled or disabled at any time in Settings.
- Devices can be deactivated from within the application to release a license activation.
- Access, correction, and deletion: email support@sightlinebehavior.com to request a copy of the personal information we hold, including license, billing, and correspondence records, to correct it, or to delete it. We will confirm when the request is complete. We may retain what tax, accounting, and fraud-prevention obligations require.
- The notification list: every message we send includes an unsubscribe link, and you can email us at any time to have your address removed.
- Your local records are stored on your devices and you delete them there. We cannot access or delete those copies. Information you send us through support or feedback is covered by the requests above.
We do not charge for these requests and do not deny service or provide a different level of service to anyone who makes one. We honor requests from all users, regardless of which privacy law applies to them.
6. Security and exported files
Sightline encrypts its database and automatic backups with AES-256 under a key held in your operating system keychain. Passphrase-encrypted backup exports use the passphrase you choose. Ordinary document and raw-data exports are not encrypted by Sightline; their protection depends on the destination and your device’s security. Your operating system account and full-disk encryption, when enabled, protect local files. We recommend FileVault on macOS or BitLocker on Windows. Companion storage and its first-unlock limitation are described in the Companion supplement.
For the information we hold, we use established service providers, restrict internal access to what operating the business requires, and use encrypted transport for the connections described in Section 2. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.
7. International and regional notices
Ethoseen is located in the United States. Information you send to us is processed there. We use the US regions of PostHog and Sentry; Tally stores survey responses in the European Union. Other providers may process service information in the United States and other countries. These service transfers do not include Your Content through the observation and local AI workflows described in Section 1; support receives what you choose to send.
Individuals in the EU and UK
This section applies if you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom. It adds to the rights and disclosures elsewhere in this policy; it does not replace them.
Controller. Ethoseen LLC is the data controller for the personal information described in Section 2. You can reach us at the address in Section 9.
Legal bases for processing. We process your personal information on the following bases:
- Performance of a contract: validating licenses, enforcing activation limits, delivering software updates, checking model entitlements, processing payments, administering subscriptions, and responding to support requests.
- Legitimate interests: maintaining the hashed device identifier described in Section 2 to prevent repeated free trials on the same machine, and keeping our services secure. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests, as described below.
- Legal obligations: retaining records needed for tax, accounting, and other applicable legal requirements.
- Consent: notification-list signups, analytics, crash reports, optional feedback email, and survey responses. Withdraw consent at any time through the Settings toggles in Section 3 or by asking us to remove your email or survey responses.
International transfers. We are located in the United States and process your personal information there, as described above. The recipients and purposes are listed in Section 2. Transfer protections depend on the recipient and applicable law. Contact us for information about the safeguards that apply to your personal information and how to obtain a copy.
Your rights. In addition to the choices in Section 5, you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to have it erased, to receive it in a portable form, to restrict our processing of it, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise any of these rights, email support@sightlinebehavior.com using the mechanism described in Section 5; we will respond within one month. Withdrawing consent or objecting does not affect processing we carried out before you did so. We assess objections to retaining the trial identifier individually, including whether an applicable legal ground permits continued retention.
Automated decisions. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
Complaints. If you believe we have handled your personal information unlawfully, you can lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first.
California residents
Section 2 lists the categories of information, purposes, and recipients; Section 4 explains retention, and Section 5 explains requests and choices. Our no-sale and no-advertising-sharing practices in Section 2 apply here.
8. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. Changes that materially affect how personal information is handled follow the acceptance process in Section 19 of the Terms of Service. The full updated policy is presented in the app for acceptance before continued use. Updates apply from acceptance, no earlier than their stated effective date, and do not apply retroactively. We provide any additional notice or consent required by applicable law. The version number and effective date appear at the top of this document.
9. Contact
Ethoseen LLC 1538 E 25th Avenue Eugene, OR 97403 United States