Privacy Policy

Scope of this policy

This policy applies to three things: the Caelia desktop application, the askcaelia.com website, and the licence service the application contacts to check that your key is valid.

It does not apply to the AI provider you connect Caelia to, or to any other website or service the app opens because you asked it to. Those are governed by their own policies. Section 5 explains why that distinction matters more here than it does for most software.

Who we are

Ask Caelia is the company; Caelia is the program it makes. For the purposes of data protection law, Ask Caelia is the controller of the information described in this policy. Our contact details are in section 18.

What stays on your computer

The following never leaves your machine, and we hold no copy of any of it:

• Your files, and anything Caelia reads out of them.
• Your conversation history, and the memory the app builds about you and your work.
• Your AI provider keys, kept in your own user folder.
• Your notes and vault, which are ordinary Markdown files on your disk.
• Your settings, your chosen personality and your voice preferences.
• Your WhatsApp session, if you link one.
• The raw serial numbers your computer reports. They are hashed on your machine and the originals are never transmitted. Section 4 explains this.

We cannot read any of it, we cannot request it, and there is no feature in the app that uploads it to us. If you want it gone, delete it yourself: clear the memory, remove the provider keys, or uninstall.

What we collect

There are exactly three occasions on which information reaches us.

When you buy a licence

You give us your name and your e-mail address at checkout, and we record what you paid, when, by which method, and the transaction reference you sent us. The e-mail address is what your key is sent to; the name is what the message is addressed to. We take no card details at any point, because there is no card processor involved.

When the app checks your licence

Caelia contacts the licence service when you activate, and periodically afterwards, to confirm your key is still valid. That exchange carries:

• Your licence key. We store only a hash of it, never the key itself, which is also why we cannot re-send a lost key and have to issue a new one instead.
• A one-way code for your computer. Three hardware identifiers are combined with a fixed salt and hashed with SHA-256 on your machine, and only the resulting hashes are sent. The originals do not leave your PC and the hashes cannot be reversed into them. This is what stops one key being used on more computers than you paid for.
• Your Windows edition and version, and your processor architecture. So we can answer a support question without asking you to look it up.
• Which version of Caelia you are running.
• Your Windows account name. This is the one item here that names a person rather than a machine, and it is collected on purpose. A licence bought for two computers and seen on two computers looks identical to a licence being shared with a friend; the account name is what tells those two apart, and it is the difference between us writing to ask you about it and us simply suspending the key. It is not your password, it is not read from anywhere else on your PC, and it plays no part in any decision the software or the server makes. An empty value activates exactly the same. It is your personal data, which is why it is named here rather than buried.
• When each computer last checked in.

That exchange does not carry your files, your conversations, your provider keys, your computer's name, its raw serial numbers, or your network addresses.

We also keep a record of activation attempts that were refused. A single refusal is usually a customer changing computer; a stream of them from many machines is a key being passed around, and that record is the only evidence we would have.

When you contact us

If you write to us by e-mail, WhatsApp or Telegram, we keep that conversation so we can help you and so we have a record of what was agreed. Nothing more.

Your AI provider

Caelia does not contain an AI model. It connects to one that you supply, using your own account with Gemini, OpenRouter, ChatGPT, Google Vertex AI or Caelia Cloud.

To answer you, the app sends your request and whatever context that request needs to that provider. Depending on what you asked for, that may include the text you typed, your speech, a screenshot, or an extract from a document. This is unavoidable, because the provider is what does the reasoning.

We are not part of that exchange and we receive no copy of it. What your provider keeps, for how long, and whether they train on it is governed by their privacy policy, so it is worth reading the one belonging to whichever provider you choose. Several of them offer settings that limit retention or training, and those settings apply to your Caelia usage exactly as they do to any other client.

Microphone, camera and screen

The microphone is active while you are speaking to Caelia, or while wake-word listening is switched on, and you control whether it is switched on. The camera is used for gesture control and only when you enable it. Screen capture happens when you ask for a screenshot or share your screen with the assistant.

None of these runs as a background recorder. Where a request needs the audio or the image interpreted, it goes to your AI provider as described in section 5. None of it comes to us and none of it is stored by us.

Updates

Caelia checks our update server for a newer version and downloads it when one exists. That is an ordinary file download and carries nothing about you beyond what any download request carries. There is no report of when you opened the app, what you did in it, or which features you used.

How we use what we collect

• To issue your licence key and deliver it to you.
• To confirm your key is valid, and to hold you to the number of computers you paid for.
• To move an activation when you change machine, and to honour transfers.
• To answer your support messages and fix problems you report.
• To detect and act on a key being shared or forged.
• To keep the records of sale that we are required to keep.

That is the complete list. We do not profile you, we do not use any of it for advertising, we do not build a mailing list out of it, and we do not sell it. If we ever want to send you something other than your key and support replies, we will ask you first.

This website, cookies and analytics

This site is static pages. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and carries no advertising or tracking scripts. There is no Google Analytics, no advertising pixel, no session recorder and no chat widget. We do not know how many of you read this page.

One third-party request does happen: the typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts, so your browser fetches them from Google and Google therefore sees that request in the ordinary way any web request is seen. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and abuse purposes.

If this ever changes and we add a measurement tool, we will update this section and add a cookie notice before switching it on. We will not do it quietly.

Legal bases for processing

If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the law asks us to name the ground on which we handle your information. Ours are:

• Performance of a contract. Issuing your key, activating your computers and answering your support requests. We cannot sell you a licence without this.
• Legitimate interests. Checking that a key is not being shared beyond the computers it was sold for, recording refused activations, and keeping our service secure. Our interest is in not having the product simply copied; the information used is limited to what section 4 lists, which is why we hash the hardware identifiers rather than store them.
• Legal obligation. Keeping records of sales for as long as tax and accounting rules require.
• Consent. For the microphone, the camera and screen capture, which you switch on and can switch off at any time.

Who we share information with

We do not sell, rent or trade your information, and we do not share it for anybody else's marketing. It leaves us in only three situations:

• The service providers in section 12, and only so far as they need it to host our site, run our server or deliver our e-mail.
• A payment dispute. If you open one, we will give the payment provider the delivery and activation records for that order, because that is the evidence the dispute turns on.
• The law. Where we are legally required to disclose something, or need to in order to defend a legal claim.

If the business is ever sold or transferred, your information may pass to the buyer, who would remain bound by this policy. We would tell you before that happened.

Service providers we rely on

The list is short, and it is the whole list:

• Netlify hosts this website.
• Hetzner hosts the virtual server that runs our licence service and its database.
• Our mail provider at mail.askcaelia.com sends your licence key and carries our support e-mail.
• Google Fonts serves the typefaces on this site.

There is no analytics company, no advertising network, no customer-relationship platform and no remote-access tool in that list, because we do not use any.

International transfers

Our server and our providers are located outside Pakistan, and if you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom your information will be handled outside that region. Where such a transfer needs a legal safeguard, we rely on the standard contractual clauses our providers offer.

Your AI provider may process your requests in yet another country. That is set by their terms and their infrastructure, not by ours, and it is worth checking if it matters to you.

How long we keep it

• Your licence and purchase record: for as long as the licence exists, and afterwards for as long as tax and accounting rules require. A licence does not expire, so this is effectively for as long as you own it.
• Activation records, including your Windows account name: for as long as the licence is active. Clearing a computer from your licence removes its activation.
• Refused activations and forged-token records: kept as an anti-abuse record while the licence exists.
• Support conversations: kept while they are useful to you and to us.

A licence deleted from our panel is marked as deleted rather than erased immediately, so that a key somebody is still using cannot vanish without a trace. Ask us and we will erase it properly, subject to the records we are obliged to keep.

Security

The licence service is reached over HTTPS only. Your key is stored as a hash, never in the clear. Hardware identifiers are hashed with a salt before they are sent. The administration panel is behind a token, and an administrator's session is held in the browser only for as long as that tab is open.

We keep to what is reasonable for a small company. We will not tell you a system is unbreakable, because none is. If a breach ever affected your information, we would tell you and the relevant authority within the time the law allows, and we would say plainly what happened.

Your rights

Whatever country you are in, you can ask us to:

• Tell you what we hold about you, and give you a copy.
• Correct it if it is wrong.
• Delete it. Bear in mind that deleting your purchase record may leave us unable to verify your licence or move it to a new computer later.
• Restrict or object to the way we use it.
• Take it elsewhere in a portable form.
• Withdraw consent for the microphone, camera or screen capture.

Write to support@askcaelia.com and we will answer within thirty days. We may need to confirm you are the person the licence belongs to before we hand over a copy of anything, which usually means writing from the address the licence was issued to.

Everything on your own machine you can delete yourself, without asking us, and we cannot delete it for you.

Children

Caelia is not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect information about anyone under sixteen. If you believe a child has given us information, tell us and we will remove it.

Changes, contact and complaints

If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top of the page. If a change means we start collecting something new, we will say so plainly rather than quietly amend a paragraph.

For anything on this page, write to support@askcaelia.com or use the contact page. You can also reach us on WhatsApp or Telegram, though a privacy request is better in writing so there is a record of it.

Please come to us first if you are unhappy about something. If we cannot put it right, and you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.