Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

This policy explains how your data is handled when you use the Captions Cut iOS app (the “App”) and captionscut.com (the “Site”). The Site includes the editor that runs in your browser at captionscut.com/edit (the “web editor”).

Captions Cut is made by Uğur Altıntaş, an individual developer based in Türkiye (“we”, “us”), who is responsible for your data (the data controller under the GDPR and Turkish Law No. 6698, “KVKK”). This policy is also our information notice under Article 10 of the KVKK. Questions: privacy@captionscut.com.

2. What we use and why

Sign-in

Everyone starts as an anonymous user with a random ID, and that is all we know about you while you open, edit and style clips. To create captions or buy credits, you sign in with Apple or Google, so your credits, Pro subscription and projects belong to an account you can sign back in to, on the App, the web editor or another device. Signing in links that identity to your existing user ID.

From Apple or Google we receive your user ID with that provider and, if you choose to share them, your email address (Apple may give us a relay address instead of your real one) and your name. We use them only to show who is signed in and to find your account again. We don’t send marketing email, and we never post anything on your behalf.

If the identity you sign in with already belongs to another Captions Cut account, we ask whether you want to switch to it. If you agree, the credits of your anonymous account are moved to that account and the anonymous account is deleted.

Free credits, once per person

A new account gets free credits the first time it signs in. So that each person gets them only once, we keep a one-way fingerprint (a cryptographic hash) of the Apple or Google user ID that received them. It cannot be turned back into the ID and is used for nothing else. On iPhone we also use Apple’s DeviceCheck service to mark that the device has received them: Apple stores two yes-or-no values for the device on our behalf, and neither we nor Apple learn who you are from them. We keep the fingerprint after you delete your account, so that deleting and signing in again does not grant the credits twice.

The sound of your video, to make captions

Your videos stay on your device. When you ask for captions, the App sends only the sound of the video to our servers, where it is turned into text. The sound is deleted as soon as the captions are made, whether that succeeds or not. Please only use recordings you have the right to use.

Your captions

The transcript is saved in your project on your iPhone, or in your browser if you use the web editor. We keep a copy on our servers for up to 7 days, so we can help if something goes wrong and check that you were charged correctly.

The web editor

The editor at captionscut.com works the same way as the App. The video you choose stays in your browser, in storage on your own device, and is never uploaded. When you ask for captions, only the sound is sent to our servers, and it is deleted as soon as the captions are made. The captioned video is rendered inside your browser and downloaded to your device.

The editor keeps your projects and your sign-in session in your browser’s own storage (IndexedDB and localStorage). That is not a tracking cookie. You can clear it at any time in your browser’s settings, which also removes your projects.

To tell real browsers from bots, the editor pages use Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise through Firebase App Check. This loads a script from Google and sends Google technical details about your browser, such as your IP address and browser signals, under Google’s privacy policy. It runs only on the editor pages, never on the rest of the Site.

Purchases and credits

Apple handles all payments; we never see your card details. We keep a record of your purchases, subscription status and credit balance so the App and the web editor know what you’ve paid for. For now, credits and Pro are bought in the App; once you sign in, they appear on the Site too. Buying on the Site will come later, through a payment provider, and we’ll update this policy when it does.

How you use the App

To understand which features people use and where the App gets in the way, the App records how it is used: the screens you open, the buttons and features you use, and whether things like caption creation, exports and purchases succeed. It also captures recordings of the App’s screens during a session. Your videos, thumbnails, captions, transcripts, project names and anything you type are hidden in these recordings and never included in usage data.

This usage data is linked to a random ID for your device and to your user ID, together with your device model, iOS and App version, language and the approximate location (country and city) that your IP address suggests. It is not linked to your name or email, even if you sign in. If you’d rather we didn’t keep yours, email us and we’ll delete it.

Tracking, only if you allow it

When you first open the App, iOS asks whether the App may track you. If you allow it, your device’s advertising identifier is added to the usage data above so we can measure which of our ads brought people to the App. If you ask the App not to track, the identifier is never read. You can change your answer at any time in iOS Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking.

Keeping the service safe

To stop abuse, our servers check that requests come from the genuine App or, on the Site, from a real browser (see “The web editor” above). Like any online service, they also receive basic technical details such as your IP address, device model, browser and App version.

Emails you send us

If you email us, we use your email address and message only to answer you.

What never leaves your device

• Your videos and projects, including caption edits, styles and settings, whether on your iPhone or in your browser.
• Your Photos library. The App reads only the videos you pick, and saves exports there only with your permission.
• In the web editor, the files you pick. The browser reads them from your device and keeps them in its own storage.

3. What we don’t do

• No ads and no advertising tools.
• No tracking across other apps and websites unless you allow it, and never to show you ads.
• We never sell your data or share it for advertising.

4. Who helps us run the service

We use a small number of trusted service providers that process data only on our behalf and under our instructions: cloud hosting (our servers are in the EU), transcription, subscription management, product analytics, website hosting and email. The audio track is transcribed by ElevenLabs, a speech-to-text provider, which receives the audio file only to turn it into text. Payments in the App are handled by Apple under its own privacy policy; credit packs bought on the Site are sold by Polar, which acts as the merchant of record and handles the payment under its own privacy policy.

Sign-in, the transcription job and the audio upload run on Firebase, a Google service, on servers in the EU, for both the App and the web editor. On the editor pages only, Google also provides reCAPTCHA Enterprise, which receives technical details about your browser under Google’s privacy policy. When you sign in, Apple or Google handles the sign-in itself under its own privacy policy.

Some providers may process data outside the EU and Türkiye. When they do, the transfer is protected by the safeguards the law requires, such as standard contractual clauses. We may also disclose data if the law requires it.

5. Legal bases

We process data to provide the App and the web editor you asked for, including sign-in (contract, GDPR Art. 6(1)(b), KVKK Art. 5(2)(c)), to keep the service safe, prevent misuse of the free credits, fix problems and understand how the App is used so we can improve it (legitimate interests, GDPR Art. 6(1)(f), KVKK Art. 5(2)(f); you can object at any time by emailing us), to use the advertising identifier only with your permission (consent, GDPR Art. 6(1)(a), KVKK Art. 5(1), which you can withdraw in iOS Settings), and to keep the records the law requires (legal obligation, GDPR Art. 6(1)(c), KVKK Art. 5(2)(ç)).

6. How long we keep it

• The sound of your video: deleted as soon as the captions are made.
• Server copy of your captions: up to 7 days.
• Purchase and credit records: as long as needed to provide the service and for accounting and legal obligations.
• Sign-in details (your Apple or Google user ID, email address and name): until you delete your account.
• The fingerprint of the sign-in that received free credits, and the iPhone’s DeviceCheck mark: kept after you delete your account, to prevent the free credits being claimed twice.
• Usage data and screen recordings: as long as needed to understand how the App is used, then deleted.
• Emails: as long as needed to answer you.
• Your projects: on your iPhone until you delete them or the App; in your browser until you delete them or clear the Site’s data.

7. Your rights

You can ask us to access, correct, delete or export your data, or object to how we use it. You also have the rights listed in Article 11 of the KVKK.

If you are signed in, you can delete your account yourself: in the App under Settings > Account, or on the Site under Account. This deletes everything we hold about you on our servers for good: your caption history, your credit balance and purchase records, and your sign-in. The App or the browser you delete it from also removes that account’s projects from the device. Only the free-credit fingerprint described above is kept. An App Store subscription is managed by Apple and keeps renewing until you cancel it there.

For anything else, or if you never signed in, email privacy@captionscut.com. If we don’t know who you are, it helps to tell us roughly when you used the App, or the order ID from your Apple receipt, so we can find your records. We reply within 30 days.

To stop tracking, turn it off in iOS Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking. Deleting the App removes your projects from your iPhone; clearing the Site’s data in your browser removes your web editor projects. You can also complain to a data protection authority: in Türkiye, the Kişisel Verileri Koruma Kurumu; in the EU or UK, the authority where you live.

8. Children

The App is not meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their data. If you think a child has sent us personal data, email privacy@captionscut.com and we’ll delete it.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit, access to our servers is restricted, and we keep as little as we can for as short a time as we can. To report a security issue, email security@captionscut.com.

10. This website

captionscut.com uses two kinds of cookies. Functional: cc_member, a flag the editor sets once you sign in so the home page can send you straight to the app (it holds no personal data and is removed when you sign out), cc_consent, which remembers your cookie choice, and cc_lang, which remembers a language you choose in the language menu so the home page opens in it. Your browser’s own storage also remembers if you close the bar that offers a page in your language, and, for up to two hours, the language you started a checkout in, so you come back to it. These need no consent. To open the home page in your language, the Site reads the languages your browser asks for and, only to tell Brazilian from European Portuguese and Simplified from Traditional Chinese, the country your connection comes from as our hosting provider reports it; neither is stored. Analytics: the Site uses Google Analytics (through Firebase) to count visits and see which pages and features are used. By default it runs in Google’s consent mode with storage denied: no analytics cookies, no identifiers, aggregate counts only. If you choose “Allow cookies” in the cookie notice, Google Analytics may set its cookies so repeat visits are measured more accurately. IP addresses are anonymised and advertising features are off in both cases. You can change your mind by clearing the Site’s cookies, which brings the notice back.

Our hosting provider processes basic request data, such as your IP address, to deliver the Site and protect it from attacks. The editor pages (/edit and /account) also talk to our Firebase backend to sign you in and to transcribe your audio, load Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise to keep bots out, and keep your projects and sign-in session in your browser’s own storage. Section 2 has the details.

11. Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update it here and change the date at the top. For important changes we’ll also let you know in the App or on the Site.

12. Contact