Privacy Policy

Vida processes recordings and transcripts on your Mac. Vida has no account, sign-in, advertising identifier, analytics SDK, or application server, and Vida does not receive your recordings, audio, transcripts, glossary, or settings.

Transcription requires speech-model files. When you ask Vida to download them, the app contacts Hugging Face and its storage/CDN providers. Those services can see and retain ordinary request metadata. This policy explains that network flow and the conservative disclosure Vida makes in Apple's App Privacy label.

What Vida stores on your Mac

Recordings are written to the folder you choose. Vida suggests one the first time you record and never moves your files somewhere else.

Transcripts are written alongside the recording they belong to.

Your settings, themes, glossary entries and transcription queue are kept in Vida's folder inside your Mac's Application Support directory, together with the speech models Vida downloads when you use transcription.

Deleting things

Deleting a recording from inside Vida moves it, and any transcript belonging to it, to the Trash, so you can still recover them.

Deleting only a transcript — leaving its recording in place — removes that transcript permanently rather than moving it to the Trash. Vida says so before you confirm. The recording is untouched and can be transcribed again.

Removing the Vida application itself does not delete anything you have made. Your recordings and transcripts stay in the folder you chose, and Vida's settings and downloaded models remain in Application Support until you remove that folder yourself. Hugging Face and Apple may separately retain the limited request or transaction metadata described below under their own policies.

Model downloads and App Privacy

The first time a transcription model is needed, Vida requests public model metadata and files from huggingface.co and storage/CDN hosts under the hf.co domain. The repositories are argmaxinc/whisperkit-coreml and argmaxinc/speakerkit-coreml.

Vida deliberately supplies an empty Hugging Face token. It does not send a Hugging Face account, Apple Account, advertising identifier, stable device identifier, recording, audio, transcript, glossary, or setting. If you never download a transcription model, Vida does not initiate this network flow.

Hugging Face's published privacy policy says it automatically records service use and session information, IP address and location, and device/client details such as type, model, version and operating system. It says this information may be retained to deliver, operate, analyze, improve and secure its services and for legal or other legitimate interests. The model endpoints do not publish a shorter, request-only retention commitment.

Because Apple's definition treats data retained by an external service used by the app as collection, Vida discloses these conservative App Privacy categories:

• Coarse Location — the service may derive location from the IP address.
• Product Interaction — the service sees model metadata and files requested.
• Other Data Types — the service may record device/client information.

The categories are marked linked to the user because the public policy does not promise that they are de-identified before retention. The disclosed uses are App Functionality, Analytics, and Other Purposes. They are not used for tracking by Vida, and Vida does not receive the provider's logs.

Hugging Face controls this processing. Its current policy and privacy contact are available at huggingface.co/privacy. If the host later gives Vida a binding endpoint-specific non-retention commitment, the disclosure will be reviewed and narrowed only with supporting evidence.

App Store purchases

If you buy Vida Pro, the transaction is handled by Apple's App Store. Vida does not receive your payment card, Apple Account, or name. Vida uses StoreKit to check whether the app has a verified Vida Pro entitlement. Apple's processing is governed by Apple's privacy policy and is not used by Vida for tracking.

Content that stays on your Mac

Your recordings, their audio, your transcripts, glossary entries, and their contents are not uploaded to Vida, Hugging Face, or any other service; they are not used to train models. Speech recognition and speaker identification run on your Mac after the required model files are present.

Permissions Vida asks for

Screen Recording, so Vida can capture your screen. Without it Vida cannot record.

Microphone, so Vida can record your voice. This is optional for each recording.

Camera, only if you turn on the camera overlay. Vida never opens the camera otherwise, including after a restart.

Each permission is requested by macOS, granted by you, and can be withdrawn at any time in System Settings, under Privacy & Security.

Children

Vida is not directed at children. The local-content and model-download practices described in this policy apply to every user.

Recording responsibly

Recording laws vary by country and region, and some require the consent of everyone being recorded. Vida gives you the tool; complying with the law where you are is your responsibility. See Legal, in Settings under About.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the updated policy ships with the version of Vida it applies to. The public copy and the copy bundled in Vida are maintained from the same source.

Contact

Questions about privacy in Vida: vida@amodabath.com