Privacy

Phonotheca sits on both sides of a distinction that matters if you record other people.

For your own account we are the data controller. We decide why your name, email address, and usage records exist, and this notice covers them.

For the recordings you upload we are a data processor and you are the controller. The people in your interviews are your research participants, not our users. We act only on your instructions, we do not decide what your recordings are for, and you are responsible for the lawful basis, the consent, and the participant information sheet that let you record them in the first place. If your institution needs this in writing, ask us for a data processing agreement.

• Account data. Your name, email address, and a hash of your password. We never store the password itself.
• Content. The audio files you upload, the transcripts produced from them, and the projects, tags, speaker names, and edits you create.
• Usage records. The duration in seconds of each transcription, kept as a ledger so your plan's hours can be metered. This ledger survives deleting an interview, which is what stops delete-and-reupload from resetting an allowance.
• Session data. A session token and the IP address and user agent attached to it, so you can stay signed in.

We do not run analytics, advertising, or third-party trackers, so there is no cookie banner to dismiss. The only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in.

Everything is resident in the European Union. Application servers run in Frankfurt, the database is in Frankfurt, uploaded audio is stored in Frankfurt, and transcription runs on an EU endpoint. Nothing in the normal operation of the service moves your recordings outside the EU.

These are our sub-processors and what each one receives.

• AssemblyAI, for transcription. Receives the audio of an interview and returns the transcript. The transcript is deleted from AssemblyAI as soon as it lands in your workspace. Processing runs on their EU endpoint.
• Vercel, for hosting and file storage. Runs the application and stores uploaded audio, both pinned to the EU (fra1).
• Neon, for the database. Holds accounts, transcripts, tags, and usage records, in eu-central-1.
• Brevo, for transactional email. Receives your email address in order to send the sign-up confirmation link. It never receives recordings or transcripts.
• Creem, as merchant of record for payments. Receives your billing details and is the seller on your invoice. It never receives recordings or transcripts.

Your audio reaches exactly one of these beyond our own infrastructure, and that is AssemblyAI. Nobody else receives it.

Phonotheca does not train any model on your recordings, transcripts, or tags, and does not sell or share them. We build no models and derive no dataset from customer content. Audio sent for transcription runs against a zero-retention endpoint and is deleted by the transcription service once the transcript lands.

• Performing our contract with you, which covers your account, your content, and the metering that makes a plan work.
• Our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and preventing abuse of the free tier.
• Legal obligation, for the tax and accounting records attached to a payment.

Content stays until you delete it. Deleting an interview or a project removes its audio and its transcript immediately. Deleting your account removes your content and your account data.

Two things outlive an interview. Usage records are content-free, holding a duration and dates and never audio or text, so an allowance cannot be reset by deleting and re-uploading. They are deleted with your account. Payment records are kept as long as tax law requires, which is normally handled by Creem as the merchant of record.

Under the GDPR you can ask for a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, take it elsewhere, restrict how we use it, or object to a particular use. Export is built into the product, so a project can be taken out at any time without asking us. Markdown and CSV carry the tagged quotes with their citations, and a REFI-QDA archive carries the full transcripts and tags.

Write to support@phonotheca.com and we will answer within one month. If you are not satisfied you can complain to your national data protection authority.

If personal data is exposed we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours of becoming aware, and we will tell you directly when the risk to you is high. Because you are the controller for your participants, we will give you what you need to make your own notification.

Phonotheca is operated by Adesia S.R.L., Via Napoli 23, 65121 Pescara PE, Italy, VAT IT02467940686, which is the data controller for the account data described above. Questions about this notice, and any request to exercise the rights in it, go to support@phonotheca.com.