Privacy Policy

Earwig is run by Harry Winteringham (sole trader, trading as HW Studio), based in the United Kingdom. For UK GDPR purposes, Harry Winteringham is the data controller.

Email: privacy@earwig.io

• Email address — for login and account identification
• Google account (optional sign-in) — if you choose to sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile identifier from Google to create and identify your account. We do not receive your Google password.
• Apple account (optional sign-in) — if you choose Sign in with Apple, Apple provides your name and email address to create and identify your account. If you choose Apple's "Hide My Email", we instead receive a private relay address that forwards to your real inbox — that relay address is your account email, and we never see your real address. We do not receive your Apple password.
• Session data — transcript text during live sessions, fact-check results, and the markers, notes and labels you log while shooting. Transcript text is encrypted with AES-256-GCM, using a separate key for each user, before it is written to the database, so a copy of the database on its own shows only scrambled text. The secret those keys come from is kept in our hosting provider’s protected settings, apart from the database. Earwig decrypts it within the app to show it back to you, to run any AI features you switch on, and — where you contact us for support — to help with your account.
• Audio recordings — when you record a shoot or session, the audio is captured and stored on our infrastructure (Cloudflare R2) tied to that session. We use it to produce the transcript and to let you play the recording back. You can delete it at any time, and you can switch on automatic deletion (see Data retention).
• Transcripts — the transcript we generate is stored with your session as text together with word-level timings and, where available, speaker labels.
• Recording and sync data — a small amount of technical timing information we store so your transcript lines up with your footage. This is timing data, not a separate recording.
• Video and subtitle files — if you use features that upload footage or generate subtitles, the video and subtitle (caption) files are stored on our infrastructure (Cloudflare R2) tied to your session so you can play them back, sync them and export them. If you only log markers on-device and never upload footage, no video is stored on our servers. Video and subtitle files are subject to the same retention controls as your audio (see Data retention).
• Marking choices — the choices you make while marking, used to improve your suggestions. These stay tied to your account and are deleted with your account.
• Your marker buttons. The names you give your marker buttons, and which buttons you use, are stored with your account so they appear on your markers and in your exports, including in Earwig Sync. They are deleted with your account.
• Usage analytics — which features you use and session duration, recorded as product-analytics events to improve Earwig. You can turn this off at any time in the app under Settings → “Help improve Earwig”: while it is off we stop recording these events for your account and stop sending them to our analytics processor (PostHog). Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the product.
• Earwig Sync desktop apps and the Sync web app — when you sign in to the Earwig Sync app for DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro, or open the Sync web app at earwig.io, we record that with the time, and for the desktop app which editor it is, the app version and the operating system it reports. When you build timelines from the desktop app we record the build (which editor, how many timelines, and the marker timecodes it used) so we can support you and see which features are used. We also count downloads of the desktop apps from earwig.io; a download is linked to your account only if you were signed in to earwig.io in that browser. These are product-analytics events: the “Help improve Earwig” switch in the app turns them off for your account, they are deleted with your account, and our legal basis is our legitimate interest in supporting users and improving the product.
• First-run onboarding — before you create an account, the app's guided first marker sends the sentence you speak to our server to generate its short AI note (processed by Anthropic, our AI provider). That demo transcript is summarised and discarded — it is not stored. To turn what you say into that sentence, the app uses Apple’s speech recognition, which may send the audio to Apple to process where your phone cannot do it on the device. Private mode never does this: it always stays on the phone. During onboarding we also record anonymous product-analytics events (which onboarding screens you saw, and the shoot types you pick on the "What do you film?" screen), tied to an anonymous device identifier (Apple's per-vendor ID) rather than your name or email. This identifier is not the advertising ID and is not used for advertising or cross-app tracking.
• Shoot types — the answers you give on the "What do you film?" screen (for example documentary, wedding, corporate), used to tailor the product and understand what our users film.
• Setup preferences. When you set up Earwig we ask which editing software you use and the language you record in. If you have an account, we store these with your account (alongside the shoot types above) so we can tailor the app to how you work and understand who uses Earwig. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running and improving the product. You can ask us to delete this at any time, and deleting your account removes it.
• Speaking a support message: if you dictate a message to us in the app, Apple’s speech recognition turns it into text on your phone where the phone supports that, and otherwise on Apple’s servers. Only the text is sent to us.
• Push notifications — if you allow notifications, we store your device's push token and whether notifications are currently enabled, so we can send you occasional service and product notifications (for example, a reminder or an update). The token is transmitted to Apple's Push Notification service (APNs) to deliver each notification. You can turn notifications off at any time in iOS Settings; we do not use them for advertising.

Your recording is used in two ways:

• Live transcription. During a session your audio is streamed to Speechmatics (a UK-based provider, ICO registered ZA137980) for real-time speech-to-text. Speechmatics processes the streamed audio in real time; under our signed data processing agreement with them, anything they hold is retained for no longer than 7 days, used only to provide the transcription service, and never used to train AI models. Where we instead use Soniox for live transcription (see Third-party services), your audio is processed within the EU under an equivalent agreement, with zero retention by default and no use for AI training.
• Storage for transcription, sync and playback. Earwig also stores a copy of the session recording on our infrastructure (Cloudflare R2) tied to your session. We keep it so we can generate the transcript, keep the audio in sync with your footage, and let you play the recording back. This is separate from Speechmatics: Speechmatics holds nothing beyond the 7-day window above, but Earwig keeps its copy until you delete it or it is automatically deleted under your retention setting.

Stored recordings are held on Cloudflare R2 and are tied to your authenticated account. They are not part of any public or browsable index. You can delete a recording at any time by deleting the session, and you can enable automatic deletion after 30 days (see Data retention).

Private mode. When you switch on Private mode, the shoot stays on your phone. The words are transcribed on your phone as they are said. The audio is not sent to us or to any transcription provider, and no recording of it is kept. Your markers, notes and transcript are saved on your phone only, and no AI features run on a private shoot.

What we still record. While Private mode is on, the app sends us no product-analytics events, apart from a single note that Private mode was switched on or off, so we can count how many people use it. That note contains nothing from your shoot.

Uploading is your choice. Nothing from a private shoot reaches our servers unless you choose to save it to your account. If you do, we receive its markers, notes and transcript, never its audio, and from then on they are stored and protected like any other session described in this policy.

No signal. If Earwig cannot reach our servers when you start a shoot, it keeps that shoot's markers and transcript on your phone, with the words transcribed on the phone, until you upload it. It uploads only when you ask it to, or if you have switched on automatic upload.

Deleting. Discarding a private shoot deletes it from your phone. A shoot that has not been uploaded exists only on your phone, so we cannot recover it if it is deleted or the phone is lost.

• Transcript text is sent to Anthropic (Claude AI) for fact-checking, research and follow-up suggestions, and to write marker summaries and session titles
• Brief and Automarker. If you give Earwig a brief, or rules for what to listen out for, your brief and the live transcript are sent to Anthropic so Brief and Automarker can place those markers for you while you film
• Photographed or spoken briefs. If you photograph or dictate your brief or questions, the text is read on your phone and then sent to Anthropic to sort it into a brief and questions. The photo itself is not uploaded
• B-roll shot names in Earwig Sync. When Earwig Sync matches your footage to a shoot with B-roll markers, it sends one still frame per B-roll marker, with a short piece of the transcript around it, to Anthropic to name the shot. The rest of your footage stays on your computer
• None of these AI features run on a Private mode shoot
• AI-generated results (fact-checks, research articles) are stored with your session
• Under Anthropic's standard API terms, submitted text can be retained for up to 30 days for safety review, then deleted. Anthropic does not use API data to train AI models. A Data Processing Addendum incorporating Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum covers international data transfers

When you record interviews or conversations, your audio, transcripts, markers and quotes may contain special category personal data about the people you record. Under UK GDPR (Article 9) this covers data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, health, and data concerning a person's sex life or sexual orientation. This data carries the highest level of protection.

Your role and ours. For the content you record, you are the data controller for the people you record, and Earwig acts as your processor. We process that content only on your instructions, to transcribe it, keep it in sync with your footage, store it for you, and, where you enable AI features, produce the outputs you ask for. We do not use it for any other purpose, and we do not use it to train AI models.

Your responsibility. You are responsible for having a lawful basis for your recording and, where it captures special category data, for meeting an Article 9 condition. In practice that usually means the explicit consent of the person you are recording, or reliance on the special purposes (journalism) exemption under the Data Protection Act 2018 where it genuinely applies. You are responsible for telling the people you record that you are using Earwig and for obtaining any consent the law requires.

How we help you protect it. Transcripts are encrypted at rest with a unique key per user, international transfers to our processors are covered by a Data Processing Addendum incorporating Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, and you can use Earwig's consent-gated workflow, which holds transcripts on your device until you confirm consent before anything is sent to our servers. You can delete any session, and all of its content, at any time, and if you have a concern about a specific recording you can contact us at privacy@earwig.io.

When you share a session using a Live Share PIN, real-time transcript content becomes visible to the people you share it with. You are responsible for ensuring that the people you share sessions with are authorised to receive that content.

Live Share sessions are not stored separately — they mirror the content of your active session. When your session ends, the Live Share connection closes. Recipients of a Live Share session do not retain a copy on our servers unless they have their own Earwig account and explicitly save the session.

Sharing a session with your editor. You can also share a session with another Earwig account (for example your editor) by inviting them by email, or with a share link and its PIN. Anyone you invite, or who opens the full link with its PIN and signs in, gains ongoing access to that session's markers, transcript and session audio through their own Earwig account and the Earwig Sync app, until you remove them. You can see who has access, remove anyone, and reset the link and PIN from the session's Share panel. As with Live Share, you are responsible for ensuring the people you share with are authorised to receive the content, including anything said by interviewees. If you need help removing access, contact privacy@earwig.io.

If you enter one of our competitions by sharing content you have made or logged with Earwig, we collect the video or files you send us and the contact details you provide (such as your name and email or social handle).

We use this only to run the competition — reviewing entries, and choosing and contacting winners — and, where you have given us permission, to feature your entry with credit in our marketing. The legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by emailing privacy@earwig.io.

We keep entries for as long as we need them to run the competition, and, if you have agreed to marketing use, for as long as we feature them or until you ask us to stop. You can ask us to delete your entry at any time.

When you use Earwig's question preparation feature (/questions), the following data is processed:

• Question sets — stored in memory during your session (not persisted to our servers in v1)
• Session goal — if provided, sent to Anthropic alongside your questions for AI analysis
• Question status — answered, flagged, or skipped status tracked during your session
• Pickup reports — generated by Anthropic based on your question outcomes and goal

Your question sets and session goals are sent to Anthropic (our AI provider) to generate question suggestions and pickup report analysis. Anthropic does not use API data to train AI models.

• Streamed audio at Speechmatics — retained by Speechmatics for no longer than 7 days under our signed data processing agreement, and used only to provide the service
• Stored audio recordings (Cloudflare R2) — retained until you delete the session or your account. If you enable footage auto-delete, recordings and associated media are automatically deleted after your chosen retention period (30 days by default). Deleting your account removes them.
• Video and subtitle files (Cloudflare R2) — retained on the same basis as your audio recordings, including your footage auto-delete setting
• Transcripts, word timings and speaker labels — retained until you delete the session or your account. Deleting your account (in-app or on request) removes them immediately
• Recording and sync data — the technical timing information used to align your transcript with your footage; retained with the session it belongs to and deleted with it
• Question sets — retained in memory during session only (v1). Not persisted to database
• Pickup reports — retained in memory during session only (v1)
• Live Share session data — not stored separately. Exists only during the active session
• Private shoots on your phone. Kept on your phone until you delete them. We hold nothing from a private shoot unless you upload it
• Account email — retained until you close your account or ask us to remove it, except as below
• Marketing opt-outs — if you unsubscribe from our emails, turn off a kind of email, or tell us not to send you marketing, we keep your email address, with when and how you told us, on a list of people not to send marketing (or that kind of email) to. That includes an address entered on a sign-in screen with the "Don't email me news and offers" box ticked, whether or not the login code was used. We keep it for good, including after you delete your account, so that we never send you marketing again
• Mailing-list sign-ups — if you join a mailing list on our website, we keep your address with the wording of the form, the page, and when you submitted it and confirmed it, until you unsubscribe (then as above). A sign-up nobody confirms is never used for news or offers, and the request to confirm it is deleted after 30 days. The page behind that email's link also has a button to stop these requests for good: we then keep the address only so that we never ask it again or send it news or offers. If you asked for a Friend of Earwig code on the Follow Earwig page, we also keep your address with that code, so it can be redeemed and your account can show you as a Friend, until you ask us to remove it
• Codes and links you ask for — when we email you an offer code or a download link you asked for on our website or in the app, we keep a note that we sent it to your address for 30 days, so the same address is not sent it over and over. We also keep the address you entered in our list of contacts, with the form it came from, and an offer code stays recorded against the address it was given to, so it is never given out twice. Neither puts you on a mailing list. Both are kept until you ask us to remove them
• The Android list — if you ask us to tell you when Earwig is on Android, we keep your address for that one email, and once it has gone a note that we sent it, so it never goes twice. Both are kept until you ask us to remove them. If any request not to email you is on record for the address, we send it no email about Android at all
• Consent records — retained for audit purposes as required by law
• Server logs — 30-day rolling deletion

We never sell your data.

• Access your data
• Delete your account and all associated data — instantly, in the app (Marker → profile → Delete account), or by emailing us. This removes your stored audio recordings, video and subtitle files, transcripts and sessions.
• Delete individual sessions, which removes their audio, video, subtitle files and transcript
• Turn on footage auto-delete so recordings and media are removed automatically after your chosen retention period
• Export your transcripts and fact-check results

To exercise any of these rights, contact privacy@earwig.io

Earwig uses a little browser storage. The session cookie and your app preferences are strictly necessary to run the service, so they need no consent. Product analytics are optional: on the website we ask first, and load them only if you choose Accept. To change your choice, use Cookie settings.

• Session cookie (sid): required for signing in. HttpOnly, SameSite=Lax, served over HTTPS.
• Browser local storage: saves your preferences inside the app (recording mode, whisper voice, transcription language, AI feature toggles, prepped questions, recent screen state) and your analytics choice (earwig_analytics_consent). All keys start earwig_. Clearing your browser storage resets them.
• Stripe during checkout: if you upgrade on the web, Stripe sets its own cookies on its checkout page to process the payment. They are essential to the payment and live on Stripe’s domain, not Earwig’s.
• Calendly on the book a call page: the booking calendar is provided by Calendly, which may set its own cookies when the calendar loads.
• Product analytics (PostHog, EU hosted), only if you accept: counts which pages and features are used so we can improve Earwig. It keeps its identifiers in memory, so it sets no cookies. When you are signed in, events are linked to your Earwig account ID. It does not record your screen or capture what you type, and it is never used for advertising or cross-site tracking. We do not sell this data.
• No advertising cookies. No cross-site tracking.

Under UK and EU GDPR, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — processing your email, session data, audio recordings, video and subtitle files, transcripts and the associated timing/sync data is necessary to provide the recording, transcription, sync and playback features you signed up for
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) — usage analytics to improve the service and ensure security, balanced against your privacy rights
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — AI-powered features (fact-checking, research, questions) are optional and can be disabled at any time from your settings
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) for marketing emails — we send news, new features and offers about Earwig's own products to people who join a mailing list on our website (the newsletter, Follow Earwig or early access) and then confirm by pressing the button behind the link in the email we send to check the address (at most three such emails in 30 days, and none once you press the button on that page to stop them). We keep a record of when you joined, when you confirmed and what the form said. Accounts and mailing-list entries from before 10 October 2026 get no marketing emails unless you join a list again. You can withdraw your consent at any time with the unsubscribe link in any marketing email

Your right to object to marketing. You can object to marketing at any time and we will stop. Use the unsubscribe link in any email from us with news or offers, or write to privacy@earwig.io. Unsubscribing does not stop login codes or receipts.

You have the right to: access your data, rectify inaccuracies, erase your data, restrict processing, data portability, and object to processing. To exercise any right, email privacy@earwig.io. We will respond within one month.

If you believe your data rights have been violated, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:

• Right to know — you can request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you
• Right to delete — you can request deletion of your personal information
• Right to opt out of sale — we do not sell your personal information to third parties
• Right to non-discrimination — we will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights

Categories of data collected: identifiers (email address, Google profile identifier where you sign in with Google, an Apple identifier or private relay address where you use Sign in with Apple, an anonymous per-vendor device identifier used for product analytics, and a device push token if you enable notifications); audio and visual information (session audio recordings, and uploaded video and generated subtitle files); internet or other electronic activity (session data, markers, usage analytics, onboarding shoot-type answers, recording timing/sync data); professional information (transcript content). We collect this data to provide the Earwig service. We do not sell or share (as those terms are defined under California law) your personal information. Third-party processors (Speechmatics, Soniox, Anthropic, Google, Cloudflare, Apple, Render, GitHub, PostHog) receive data only as needed to deliver service functionality.

To make a CCPA request, email privacy@earwig.io. We will verify your identity and respond within 45 days.

Your data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside the UK/EEA. Where this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place:

• Speechmatics — UK-based (Cambridge), processes data within UK/EU infrastructure
• Anthropic — US-based, covered by a Data Processing Addendum with Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs)
• Cloudflare (R2) — stores your audio, video and subtitle files on Cloudflare's global network; data may be processed in the United States and other regions. International transfers are covered by Standard Contractual Clauses.
• Google — US-based, used only for optional sign-in; transfers covered by Standard Contractual Clauses
• Render — hosting infrastructure in EU/US regions
• GitHub — US-based, runs our scheduled jobs and nightly database backup
• Resend — US-based, used to send login, account and marketing emails

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, please contact us first at privacy@earwig.io.

To make a complaint to us, email privacy@earwig.io. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it.

If you remain unhappy after raising a complaint with us, you can complain to the ICO:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113
ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint