Privacy Policy

What this covers

This policy covers the Bad Takes desktop app, the browser version at my.badtakes.io, the Bad Takes iOS app, this website (badtakes.io), and the account and licensing service behind them. It does not cover the voice packs you install — those are made by other people, distributed independently, and we never see them.

What never leaves your computer

The packs you load, the takes you record, and the scenes you build all live in a data folder on your own machine — never inside a pack, never uploaded automatically. That includes every per-line recording, any optional webcam clip recorded alongside a take, and every full playthrough saved under "Your takes." It leaves your computer only when you decide it should:

• You export a video, audio file, or vertical reel and choose to send or post it yourself.
• You share a scene you built as a .take file or a zip for someone else to install — which carries the scene itself, never your recordings.
• You start or join a Collab (see below), which is opt-in and off by default.

The files themselves stay put. While you're signed in, a scene's title and a few details about it are logged to your account — see Your account's activity log.

Using Bad Takes without an account

The browser version and the iOS app work without signing in: you can add a scene from a file, record your takes, watch the dub back, and export or share it. If you never sign in, we collect no email and nothing that identifies you, and your scenes, takes and dubs stay on your device. We do collect anonymous usage statistics from every install, guest or signed in — see In-app diagnostics below — and you can switch that off in Settings too. The app still fetches the Catalog's list of scenes, and any Catalog scene you can download without an account, from our scene host; those are ordinary file requests that carry no account and no identifier. An account is only needed for the rest of the Catalog and for Collabs, and everything below about your account applies once you sign in.

Your account

You sign in with an email — either a Google account or a one-time code we send you — so there's no password to create or leak. We store:

• Your email address and your plan (free, paid, or subscriber).
• A hashed identifier for each machine you're signed into — or, in the browser version and the iOS app, a random ID created on that device. Each one holds a seat of its own, and this identifier is how we tell them apart — not a fingerprint used to track you.
• If you claim one, your public handle — it appears in credits on videos you export, the same way a byline would.
• An approximate location (country, region, city) looked up from the network request each time you sign in or the app checks in. We don't keep the underlying network address, other than briefly in the counters that stop repeated sign-in attempts.
• Basic device info — operating system (in a browser or the iOS app, the description the browser gives of itself), CPU architecture, and app version — so we know which builds are still in use and can help if something breaks.

Your account's activity log

While you're signed in — on the desktop app, the browser version or the iOS app — we keep a log of what your account does with scenes, so we can see how Bad Takes is actually used and fix what isn't working. It records when you create, save, install or share a scene, record a take, or start a recording session, along with that scene's title, category, length and line counts, where it came from (such as the source video's title and site), what kind of file you shared, and which plan you were on at the time. It also notes each day the app checks in while you're signed in, with the app version and type of device.

This log is tied to your account, is used only to run and improve Bad Takes, and is never sold or used for advertising. It never includes a line's caption, a character's name, or any recording. Nothing is logged while you're signed out, and the "Anonymous diagnostics" setting below does not affect it.

Payments

Purchases on the desktop and the website are handled entirely by Polar, our merchant of record. The iOS app has no in-app purchases or subscriptions at present, and nothing bought on the desktop or the website unlocks anything in it, so no payment information passes through the app.

Collabs (opt-in)

Collab lets a few people record the same scene together. When you host or join one, the scene file and the takes you record — including any webcam clip you chose to record — are uploaded to private cloud storage so the other people in that room can download them; nobody outside the room can reach those files, and they're deleted when the room closes, or three days after a finished room wraps up. This is the only case where a recording of your voice or your camera leaves your machine without you explicitly exporting or sharing it yourself, and it only happens if you choose to use Collab.

If you host a public room from the desktop app or the browser version, its scene title is shown in a join list there so people looking for a room can find yours. A private room's title is never shown to anyone outside it. Either way, no caption, character name, or recording is ever shown in that list — only the scene title, and only for public rooms. The iOS app shows no public list: rooms there are joined with the code their host shares.

Advertising and tracking (iOS app)

The iOS app shows no ads and does not track you. At present it contains no advertising, analytics or in-app purchase software from any other company, never reads your device's advertising identifier, and never asks for permission to track you. It does run our own first-party anonymous diagnostics — see In-app diagnostics — but nothing from that is shared with a data broker, nothing follows you across other apps or websites, and no advertising identifier is read, so it doesn't meet Apple's definition of tracking and needs no permission prompt. The desktop app and my.badtakes.io never show ads either. If a future version of the iOS app adds ads or an in-app subscription, this policy will say so, and name who serves them and what they receive, before that version is released.

In-app diagnostics

The browser version and the iOS app have an "Anonymous diagnostics" toggle in Settings, on by default, for guests and accounts alike; the desktop app sends the same diagnostics, and its Settings switch, missing from the current release, is being restored. It reports which features get used — for example, that a scene was created, or a video was exported — and simple numbers, like a score percentage, so we can see how Bad Takes is actually used and fix what isn't working. It's tied to a random ID generated on your device the first time you use it — not the seat ID your account uses to tell your devices apart, and not derived from your account or your device — plus an approximate location (country, region, city) looked up from the network address each report arrives from; we don't keep the address itself, other than briefly in the counter that stops floods. While you're signed in, each report also carries your account's licence so we can see what one account did; signed out, nothing links a report to you. That ID is replaced when you sign in and again when you sign out, so reports made as a guest are never joined to an account afterward. It never includes what a line's caption said, a character's name, a title you typed, a file path, a URL, or your email address — those are explicitly excluded before anything is sent. When you install a community scene pack, the pack's own declared title and where it came from are reported, because that describes the pack, not you. None of it is sold or shared outside Bad Takes. Turn it off in Settings whenever you like — off means nothing is sent, and everything else in the app keeps working exactly the same either way. This is separate from the activity log above, which only runs while you're signed in and isn't affected by this toggle.

This website (badtakes.io)

This site uses Google Analytics to see aggregate traffic — pages viewed, referrers, rough location, and device type — using cookies set by Google. We don't use it for ad retargeting, and we don't sell what it collects.

Email

Sign-in codes and purchase receipts are sent through Resend, our email provider. When you create an account, your email is added to our marketing list. Every marketing email carries an unsubscribe link that takes effect immediately, and once you unsubscribe, signing in again — on any device — doesn't add you back.

Who we share data with

We don't sell your data to anyone. A handful of services help us run the product, each holding only what it needs to do its job:

• Supabase — our database, sign-in, and file storage.
• Polar — payment processing, as described above.
• Cloudflare — temporary storage for Collab files, and hosting the Catalog's scenes.
• Resend — delivering sign-in codes, receipts, and marketing email unless you've unsubscribed.
• ipwho.is — turns the network address of a sign-in or check-in into an approximate location; we keep only the result.
• Google — the optional "sign in with Google" button, and site traffic analytics.
• GitHub — hosts the app installers you download; it doesn't see anything tied to your account.

How long we keep things

Account and license data stays for as long as your account exists. Collab files are deleted when the room closes, or three days after a finished room wraps up. Exporting a video or vertical reel from the browser version or the iOS app works on the same principle: your recorded takes, any webcam clip, the mixed audio, and the line text and timestamps are uploaded to private cloud storage so the render can be built, then deleted automatically within a day. That's the working copy the render needs to do its job, not a library of your recordings. The scene you are dubbing is handled separately: the first export of a scene uploads it, and it is then kept for up to ninety days under a name derived from its own contents, so that nobody — you included — has to upload that scene again. It holds no recording of yours: your takes are never part of it. Diagnostics events are kept to understand feature usage over time — never tied to anything you said or recorded, since that information was never sent to us in the first place. The activity log is kept for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, its entries stay only as counts, with your email and every scene title and detail removed.

Your choices

• Turn off anonymous diagnostics in Settings, any time (browser and iOS today; the desktop app's switch is being restored).
• Sign out to stop the activity log, or delete your account to strip your email and scene titles from it.
• Unsubscribe from any marketing email with the link in every send.
• Ask us to see, correct, or delete what we hold on your account — email us and we'll take care of it by hand.

Children

Bad Takes isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll update the date at the top. For a material change, we'll try to let you know by email if we have one for you.

Contact

Questions, requests, or anything else: [email protected].