Last updated: April 30, 2026
Privacy First: StarWhisper is designed with privacy at its core. By default, all voice processing happens locally on your device. Your voice data never leaves your computer unless you explicitly choose to use cloud transcription.
At StarWhisper, we believe your voice data belongs to you. We've built our application with privacy-first principles:
StarWhisper operates in two distinct modes:
Local Mode (Default)
Cloud Mode (Optional - Requires Explicit Consent)
Important: We never collect, store, or analyze voice patterns, voiceprints, or any biometric data. Your voice is used solely for real-time transcription.
If you create an account (optional), we collect:
Account creation is optional. You can use StarWhisper's core features without an account.
By default, StarWhisper collects usage statistics to help us improve the application and prevent fraud. This includes:
What we NEVER collect:
Anonymity scope: If you use StarWhisper without a Pro subscription, usage events are anonymous and use only a randomly-generated install identifier that cannot be linked to your identity. If you have a Pro subscription, usage events also include your Firebase user identifier so that we can verify legitimate account activity and defend against fraudulent chargebacks. The Firebase user identifier is internal to our systems and is not shared with third parties beyond our payment processor (Stripe) and authentication provider (Firebase). You can disable usage statistics at any time in the application Settings; doing so does not affect your Pro entitlement.
We use Stripe Radar (Stripe's machine-learning fraud detection) and our own internal logs to detect and prevent payment fraud, including unauthorized card use and chargeback abuse. For this purpose, we may correlate the following data: Stripe customer ID, Firebase user identifier, card fingerprint (a one-way hash), billing email, billing country, and your in-app usage events (login times, feature use counts). We retain this correlated data for as long as necessary to dispute or defend against chargebacks, generally up to two years from the date of the most recent transaction. Our lawful basis for this processing under GDPR is our legitimate interest in preventing fraud (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). If a customer initiates a fraudulent chargeback, we may add their email address and card fingerprint to a block list to prevent re-purchase.
StarWhisper writes diagnostic logs to your local machine at %APPDATA%\StarWhisper\logs\. These logs help diagnose issues like crashes, microphone problems, and model failures. They include event timestamps, error messages, model and hardware info, and audio duration.
Transcript content is NOT written to these logs by default. A short transcript preview (up to 200 characters) is only written when the developer-only debug flag STARWHISPER_DEBUG_TRANSCRIPTS=1 is explicitly set as an environment variable, which is OFF in production builds. We disclose this so that:
The log files never leave your device unless you choose to share them. We do not auto-upload logs.
When you download StarWhisper from our website, we collect:
This information helps us understand where our users come from and optimize our website. IP addresses are not linked to your identity or usage of the application.
All application data is stored locally on your device:
Your local data is stored in your user profile folder and is never automatically uploaded to any server.
StarWhisper integrates with the following third-party services:
| Service | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI Whisper API | Cloud transcription (optional) | Audio data (only when cloud mode enabled) |
| Firebase Authentication | Account management | Email, authentication tokens |
| Stripe | Payment processing | Payment details (handled directly by Stripe) |
| Google Ads & Microsoft Advertising | Marketing, analytics, and remarketing (Customer Match) | Hashed (SHA-256, one-way) email address; website activity cookies |
We may use service providers, including Google and Microsoft, for marketing and analytics purposes. This includes sharing a one-way hashed version of your email address with these providers so that we can show relevant advertisements to existing users (remarketing / Customer Match). The hashed email cannot be reversed into your actual email address by these providers.
Each third-party service has its own privacy policy:
Our website uses the following analytics services:
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use our website. This includes:
We use conversion tracking from Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising to measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns. These services may set cookies to:
When you first visit our website, you will be asked to consent to cookies. You can:
Depending on your location, you may have the following rights:
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@starwhisper.ai.
If you use cloud transcription or create an account, your data may be processed in the United States by our service providers (OpenAI, Firebase). These transfers are conducted in compliance with applicable data protection laws.
We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your data:
StarWhisper is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us.
Application updates are optional and can be downloaded manually. We do not auto-update or require an internet connection for the core application to function.
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. For significant changes, we may notify you via email or in-app notification.
If you have questions about this privacy policy or our data practices:
In plain language: StarWhisper processes your voice locally by default. We don't collect your transcriptions, we don't store your audio, and we don't create voiceprints. If you choose cloud transcription, your audio goes to OpenAI and is deleted after processing. We collect usage statistics (which you can disable in Settings) to improve the app and prevent payment fraud — for free users these are fully anonymous, for Pro subscribers they're linked to your account for fraud prevention. That's it.