Privacy

The short version

• This website uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and counts page views without identifying you.
• The Spectate app has no accounts, no telemetry and no crash reporting. Its one request outside the room is a check for updates.
• What happens in the room stays on the local network and on the Pro’s Mac. I never receive a frame, a photo or a name.

This website

spectate-app.com is served by Cloudflare. Like any host, Cloudflare keeps the standard logs a web request produces (your IP address, browser and the page you asked for) for the time and purposes set out in Cloudflare’s privacy policy. I do not add tracking of my own.

Each page loads a small beacon from Cloudflare Web Analytics that counts visits. It uses no cookies, stores nothing in your browser and does not fingerprint you, which is why there is no cookie banner. What I see is a count of visits per page, not who made them.

If you email me, your message stays in my mailbox and I use it to reply to you. I keep no mailing list and I do not pass your address to anyone.

The app on the Pro’s Mac

Spectate has no accounts, no sign-in, no telemetry, no crash reporting and no analytics. It does not know who you are.

It makes one request outside the room: once a day and when it launches, and never while you are sharing, it asks the update feed whether a new version exists. That request carries the app’s name and version, plus the details any web request carries, and Cloudflare, which serves the feed for me, sees the Mac’s IP address in its edge logs. Nothing else goes out, and nothing installs until the Pro clicks Install.

macOS asks for two permissions. Screen Recording lets Spectate capture the display, window or app the Pro chose; those frames go to the browsers in the room and nowhere else. Local Network lets it publish its <name>.local address so people can type it. Neither sends anything to me.

On the Mac itself, Spectate remembers the source you picked and your upload settings, and reads the optional config file described on the help page. Both stay on that Mac.

In the room

People on the same network open the app’s address in a browser and the Pro’s screen is sent to that browser and nowhere else. There is no password on the stream: anyone on that network who has the address can watch, so keep the Mac on networks you control. The menu shows how many people are watching; Spectate does not store a list of them.

When the Pro turns uploads on, participants type a name and drop photos. The photos land in a folder on the Pro’s Mac and the typed name becomes part of the file name. I never receive the photos or the names. What the workshop company then does with participants’ photos is between the company and its participants, and the company is responsible for it.

Branded editions

An edition built for a workshop company carries that company’s name, logo, colours and address inside the app. It holds nothing about the company’s people and reports nothing back to me. It checks its own update feed the same way the standard app does, and that is the only difference in what leaves the Mac.

Changes to this page

If Spectate or this site starts doing something new with data, this page changes and so does the date at the bottom. The date is the record.

Contact

Konrad Michels, konrad@tonalphoto.com. Ask me anything about this page and I will answer in plain words.