Privacy Policy

1. The personal information we collect

Account holders. Your username, email address, a salted hash of your password (never the password itself), your interface language, your credit balance and credit history, and which version of the Terms of Service you accepted and when.

Sessions you host. The session's title, settings and glossary; the transcript of what is said, its translations and summaries; follow-up questions and their answers; the name and length of an uploaded recording; and counts of how many attendees, viewers and projector screens were connected each minute and how many read each caption language. The counts contain no names, email addresses or device details.

People whose speech is captured. When a host runs a session or uploads a recording, we receive the audio of what is said, which may include the voices and words of people other than the host, and the transcript made from it. We do not use voices to identify people. If a host asks for speaker labels on an uploaded recording, short clips of that recording are used to tell its speakers apart within that recording; no voiceprint is kept. From an uploaded recording, the host's browser sends us its sound, as short audio parts it encodes itself, and the file's name, which the session's page shows so that an interrupted upload can be continued with the same file; the file itself and the picture of a video are never sent.

Attendees. If you ask for a session's summary by email, the email address and language you enter. Opening the link in the summary email creates an account for that address, without a password, which gives access to the session's page. Joining a session to read captions does not require an account or any personal details.

Reactions and polls. If a host uses them, the reactions attendees give to caption lines and their votes in the host's polls. They are recorded without names: the host sees only how many reactions each line received and how many votes each option received. For a poll, only its question, options and result are kept; who voted for what is not.

Translation ratings and feedback. From the end of a session until 30 days after it, the people who read its captions on an attendee's page, those who received its summary by email, and signed-in people with access to it, including its host, can rate its translations from 1 to 5 and add a comment of up to 1,000 characters. We store the rating and any comment with the session, together with the caption language the person was reading (when known), the translation providers and models that served it, where the rating was given (an attendee's page, a summary email, the session's page or the speaker console), whether it came from the host, the interface language, and when it was given and last changed. So that each page, email address and account rates a session only once (the same person may therefore rate from more than one of them), we store a keyed hash of the page's random identifier, of the email address or of the account, never the identifier, the address or the account itself; for a rating given from a summary email we also store a keyed hash of the address that is the same in every session, so that its ratings can be found if that address is erased. A signed-in person's rating is linked to their account only if they choose to attach it. Hosts see how many ratings have been given, for each caption language and overall, and an average only once at least 5 ratings have been given; their own rating is shown apart and not counted, and they never see comments. Comments are read only by authorised administrators of HoloTalk, who see who wrote one only when its author attached their account or when it came from the session's host, whose rating is marked as such. Ratings and comments are not sent to any artificial intelligence provider. Please do not include personal information in a comment; if a comment contains it, it is handled like the rest of the comment (only administrators read it, and it is deleted as section 7 states), and you can ask us to delete it (section 11).

Feedback about HoloTalk. Anyone can send us a message about HoloTalk from its Feedback link. We store the kind of message (a problem, an idea, translation or other), the message (up to 2,000 characters), the page it was sent from (its address without the part after a question mark or #, and with join codes and sign-in links left out), the interface language, the type of device and browser (worked out from the browser's description, which is not kept), the version of HoloTalk and when it was sent. If you are not signed in, you may give an email address, which we use only to reply to you; if you are signed in, your account is linked to the message only if you choose to let us see it. We do not store your IP address with it. Messages are read only by authorised administrators of HoloTalk, who mark them as read or done; administrators are emailed how many messages of each kind arrived, never their text. Messages are not sent to any artificial intelligence provider. Please do not include personal information you do not want us to have.

Invitations. The email addresses a host invites to a private session, and the addresses an administrator invites to create an account or sends a gift card to, with who sent them and when.

Referrals and gift cards. Which account's invite code an account registered with, its own invite code and whether a reward was given; which accounts redeemed a gift card. We store only a fingerprint of each gift card code, not the code.

Purchases. What you bought, the amount and when, and Stripe's references for the payment, your plan and your customer record. Your card details are entered on Stripe's payment page and never reach us.

Technical information. Your IP address (to limit repeated attempts and protect accounts); for each device you are signed in on, the browser's description (its user agent), when you signed in there and when that sign-in was last used; cookies and similar identifiers described in section 8; and service logs.

Communications. What you send us when you contact us, and our replies.

Sensitive information. We do not ask for sensitive information, such as health information or information about a person's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or religious beliefs. It may nevertheless be contained in what is said in a session, in an uploaded recording or in a document imported for a glossary. We handle it only to provide HoloTalk as the host has asked.

2. How we collect it

2.1We collect personal information directly from you when you register, use HoloTalk or contact us; from hosts, who capture speech in their sessions and give us the addresses of people they invite; from administrators of HoloTalk, who invite people or send gift cards; from Stripe, which tells us the outcome of payments; and automatically, through cookies, browser storage and logs, when you use HoloTalk.

2.2Hosts must tell the people whose speech will be captured that it will be transcribed, translated and may be summarised using artificial intelligence services, some of them outside Australia, and obtain any consent the law requires (Terms of Service, clause 14). If you take part in a session and have questions about how your information is handled, you may contact the host or us.

3. Why we collect, use and disclose it

3.1We collect, use and disclose personal information to:

1. (a)provide HoloTalk: show live captions and translations, transcribe uploaded recordings, write and email summaries, answer follow-up questions, propose glossary terms and show session reports to hosts;
2. (b)create and manage accounts, verify email addresses and sign people in;
3. (c)sell credits and plans, process payments, refunds and disputes, and keep the credit history;
4. (d)send the emails described in section 9;
5. (e)keep HoloTalk secure, prevent fraud and misuse, and enforce our terms;
6. (f)respond to questions, requests, complaints and feedback, and use feedback to improve HoloTalk; and
7. (g)comply with the law, including tax and record-keeping obligations.

3.2We use personal information for another purpose only if you have consented, if you would reasonably expect it and it is related to the purpose for which we collected it, or if the law requires or allows it.

3.3We do not sell personal information. We do not use your content to train artificial intelligence models. We do not send marketing emails unless you have agreed to receive them.

3.4We use translation ratings and feedback (section 1) only to measure and improve the quality of HoloTalk's translations, including choosing the translation providers and models it uses, and to show hosts how the translations of their sessions were rated.

4. Decisions made automatically

Some decisions that can affect you are made by our software without a person reviewing them first:

1. (a)whether an email address may be used to register, based on the address's domain, our administrators' rules and a public list of disposable email services;
2. (b)whether an account receives a signup bonus or referral reward, based on its email address and mailbox, other accounts registered with the same mailbox, and daily limits;
3. (c)whether a sign-in, registration or other request is refused for a period, based on the number of recent attempts from the same account, email address or network address; and
4. (d)whether a live session or other processing is paused, based on the account's credit balance and on limits that protect the service.

If you think one of these decisions is wrong, contact us and a person will review it.

5. Who we disclose it to

5.1Service providers. We use the following providers to provide HoloTalk. Each receives only what its task needs and processes it on our behalf.

Translation, summaries, follow-up answers and glossary proposals are sent to one of DeepSeek, Anthropic or OpenAI, depending on which is available and on our configuration, and to another of them if one fails. DeepSeek's privacy policy states that it stores the data it processes on servers in the People's Republic of China. Our database and the storage for uploaded audio were set up in Oceania, and live sessions are asked to run there. Cloudflare follows these location settings where it can but does not guarantee them, each request is handled at the Cloudflare data centre nearest the person making it, and emails travel through Cloudflare's global network, so data can be processed elsewhere in Cloudflare's network.

5.2People you share with. A session's summary is emailed to its host and, where the host allows it, to attendees who ask for it; people with access to a session can read its summary and transcript and ask follow-up questions. Invitation emails are sent to the addresses a host or administrator enters.

5.3Our administrators. Authorised administrators of HoloTalk can access accounts and session content when this is needed for support, to investigate misuse or to correct billing. Their actions are recorded.

5.4Others. We may disclose personal information where the law requires or authorises it, for example to a court, regulator or law enforcement agency, or to a person who takes over the operation of HoloTalk, who must handle it in accordance with this policy.

6. Disclosure outside Australia

6.1Because we use the providers in section 5.1, personal information is disclosed to recipients in the United States and the People's Republic of China, and may be processed in other countries where Cloudflare operates.

6.2We take reasonable steps to ensure these recipients handle personal information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, including by choosing providers whose terms for their business services limit how they may use the information we send, and by sending each provider only what its task needs.

6.3The laws of these countries may not protect personal information in the same way as the Australian Privacy Principles, and may allow authorities in those countries to require access to it.

7. How long we keep it

Our providers may keep data for limited periods under their own policies, for example to monitor for abuse.

8. Cookies and browser storage

8.1We use the following cookies, all of which are needed for HoloTalk to work:

8.2Your theme and your caption settings on a device, such as text size, caption languages and microphone, are kept in your browser's local storage and are not sent to us. When you ask for a summary by email, the browser keeps a shortened form of the address, such as m•••@example.com, for 7 days so the page can show that the request was made. On an attendee's page, the browser also keeps a random identifier for each session, in its local storage under live.rid: followed by the session's join code. It is created on that device, says nothing about you or the device, and is sent when the page connects, so that a reaction or a vote counts only once. The session keeps it only while it runs and deletes it once the session has ended (normally within minutes, at the latest when the session is deleted); it is not stored in our database or in session reports, except as a keyed hash kept with a translation rating you choose to give (section 1), so that one device gives one rating per session. If you send feedback from an attendee page, a keyed hash of the identifier is also kept in a counter that limits repeated messages, which is deleted within 2 days. Like other technical data, it can also appear in our hosting provider's service logs, which are kept for 7 days. In the browser, the identifier and the reactions you gave stay until you clear this site's data. When it joins a session that has not ended, before it starts or while it runs, the attendee page also receives a rating ticket and keeps it in local storage under live.feedbackTicket: followed by the session's join code. It is signed by our server and holds the session, a keyed hash of the page's random identifier (not the identifier itself), the caption language and when it was issued, and it lets that device rate the session's translations (section 1). The rating period closes 30 days after the session ended; the page deletes the ticket when it is opened after that, and if the page is not opened again, the ticket stays until you clear this site's data. A rating link in a summary email carries a ticket of the same kind in the link itself, with keyed hashes of the recipient's email address instead of the page's identifier; it is not kept in the browser.

8.3If the speaker's connection drops or slows, the speaker's browser keeps the audio not yet sent, up to 5 minutes of it, and sends it when the connection returns; while it waits, it also writes that audio to the browser's storage (IndexedDB) on the device, so that closing or crashing the page does not lose it. Audio the live session did not receive in time, such as during a longer outage, and audio that speech recognition could not process live are kept there too and sent to us after the session to be transcribed. Unlike the settings above, this audio is sent to us; section 7 says when it is deleted from the device.

8.4We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not use analytics cookies. If you block cookies, you will not be able to sign in.

9. Emails we send

9.1We send emails that are needed to provide HoloTalk: email verification codes and links, sign-in links, invitations to create an account, invitations to private sessions sent at a host's request, reminders of sessions a host has scheduled, session summaries, confirmations of summary requests, notices that credits were added, gift cards, and notices about changes to our terms or prices. Stripe may also email you a receipt for a payment.

9.2These emails contain only information about your account, your sessions or your purchases, and they are sent only when they relate to something you did or asked for: a summary email, for example, is sent for a session you hosted or whose summary you asked for. You cannot opt out of them while you have an account.

9.3We will send marketing emails only to people who have agreed to receive them, and each will include a way to unsubscribe that takes effect within 5 business days.

10. How we protect it

10.1We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These include: encrypted connections (HTTPS) for all traffic; passwords stored only as salted and peppered PBKDF2 hashes; sign-in links that expire, most of them after one use; access to accounts and content limited to authorised administrators, with their actions recorded; limits on repeated attempts; and the deletion schedules in section 7.

10.2When personal information is no longer needed for any purpose for which we may use it, and we are not required by law to keep it, we delete or de-identify it.

10.3If we become aware of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm to the people whose information is involved, we will assess it promptly, and in any case within 30 days, and notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as soon as practicable.

11. Access, correction and deletion

11.1You can change your username, password and interface language on the Account page. A host can delete any of their sessions at any time. On the Account page you can also see the devices you are signed in on, with each one's type of device and browser, when you signed in there, when it was last used and which of your sessions are open on it, and sign any of them out.

11.2You can ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, by contacting us (section 14). We may need to verify your identity first. We do not charge for a request, and we aim to respond within 30 days.

11.3If we refuse a request, we will tell you why in writing and how to complain, unless it would be unreasonable to do so. Some information, such as payment records, must be kept by law even if you ask us to delete it (section 7).

11.4To delete your account, contact us. You must first cancel any active plan. When an account is deleted, its sessions and their content are deleted, except records we must keep by law.

12. Children

HoloTalk is not directed at children. People under 18 may use it only with the permission and supervision of a parent or guardian. Hosts are responsible for the consent of the participants in their sessions, including any children.

13. Complaints

13.1If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first (section 14). We will acknowledge your complaint within 2 business days and aim to respond within 30 days.

13.2If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: www.oaic.gov.au, phone 1300 363 992.

14. Contact

15. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the way we handle personal information changes. We publish the updated policy with the date it takes effect, and we tell account holders by email about changes that materially affect them.