Privacy

Last updated: August 30, 2026.

Draft, pending review. This page summarizes the full privacy and data handling document that ships inside the application. Where the two differ, the document in the application is the one that describes the code. Remove this notice once both have been reviewed together.

The short version

Speech recognition runs on your own GPU. Your audio is processed in memory and discarded. Polyvox does not write your microphone or system audio to disk, does not upload it, and has no user accounts to attach it to.

Polyvox is local-first, which is not the same as network-silent. The paths that carry anything off your machine are listed below, and every one of them is either something you switched on or something you can switch off.

What never leaves your device

Raw audio, unless you deliberately turn on voice clip sharing (below).
Voice profiles and any biometric template, in every configuration.
Pictures of your screen or of what your headset is showing you.
Your transcripts. There is no cloud sync.
Your location. Your region is worked out on-device only, to pick the right consent rules and default engines.

Polyvox has no user accounts and does not track users. We do not sell or share your data.

What does leave your device, and when

Translation text

When you use translation, the transcribed text is sent to the translation service you chose. Never audio. Each service has its own terms and privacy policy, listed in the application before you enable it. If you would rather nothing left your machine at all, Polyvox includes on-device translation engines.

Translation through our service (subscribers)

If you subscribe and use the Polyvox translation engine, the text to be translated goes to a server we run, which forwards it to a translation provider and returns the result. We do not store the text or the translation. Your machine code is sent so we can check your plan and count usage. Every other engine in Polyvox still goes directly from your machine to the provider you chose.

Licensing

On a first launch that finds no license, Polyvox asks our licensing service to issue one, sending your machine code and the version of Polyvox, and nothing else. No name, no email, no audio, no transcript.

If you have a paid plan, Polyvox re-checks it about once a week by sending those same two values, and pressing Activate sends the same check immediately. A free install sends this once, on first launch, and not again.

Diagnostics (on by default, switchable off)

Polyvox can upload derived, anonymized records about how well recognition performed: scores, acoustic measurements, and hashes of transcripts rather than the transcripts themselves. Records carry a random install ID that rotates every 30 days, and no account. Switch it off under Settings, Privacy.

Bug reports (only when you press send)

A bug report carries the description you wrote, a bundle of scrubbed logs, and a contact handle if you choose to type one. That optional handle is the only place Polyvox will carry your name off the device. It is never pre-filled, and leaving it blank does not stop the report being accepted.

Voice clip sharing (off by default)

If you turn on "Share recordings of my voice", Polyvox uploads short recordings of your own microphone only, encrypted on your PC before they leave. Game and desktop audio is never included, so other people are never uploaded at any setting. Clips wait on your PC for 15 minutes and are listed so you can remove any of them first. They are kept 12 months, then deleted. This feature is not offered in Illinois, and turning it off deletes anything still waiting.

Ordinary fetches

Polyvox checks for updates, for a small endpoint manifest, and for the supporters list. These are plain downloads. Nothing is uploaded: no audio, no transcript, no identifiers.

Other people's voices

Polyvox can transcribe the audio your PC is playing, which may include other people speaking. That processing happens entirely on your machine and those recordings are never uploaded under any setting. Please be aware of the recording and consent laws where you and the people you are talking to live.

Payments

Payments are handled by our payment provider on their own hosted checkout. Card numbers and wallet credentials never pass through Polyvox and we never see them. We receive the fact that a payment succeeded and the machine code you supplied so we can attach the subscription to your install.

Your controls

Diagnostics can be switched off under Settings, Privacy.
Voice clip sharing is off unless you turn it on, and can be turned off again.
You can ask for uploaded clips or a bug report to be deleted. Email us.
Choosing an on-device translation engine keeps text off the network entirely.

Contact

HGM LLC, 8 The Green, Suite B, Dover, DE 19901, United States.
terry61295@gmail.com
+1 440-985-8238