Privacy policy

Version: 1.14
Effective: 2026-10-08

Langbyrde is a desktop app for keeping a small corporation's books on your own computer. It is made by Vyshynskyi Consulting Inc., Toronto, Ontario ("we", "us"). This policy says what personal information we handle, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and how to reach us. It covers the app, our licence service and our crash-report service. The website has its own notice (see "Where this policy applies").

The short version

Your books stay on your computer, in one file per company, with your documents in a folder you choose. We do not run a server that holds your books, and there is no account to create.
We handle very little about you: what we need to sell you a licence, activate it, and answer your e-mail. A crash report is added only if you choose to send one.
The app connects only to the addresses listed below, plus any AI provider address you add yourself, and only when you press a button or turn the connection on.
The app has no telemetry, no usage analytics and no third-party tracking software.
AI is optional and uses your own provider. We do not receive what you send it.
We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.

Who is responsible

Vyshynskyi Consulting Inc. is responsible for the personal information described in this policy. Our privacy officer is accountable for how we handle it and answers questions and requests about it. Write to privacy@langbyrde.app.

Where your data lives

Your books: one database file per company, in the app's own data folder on your computer. Using the app does not send its contents to us or to anyone else.
Your documents (statements, receipts, the invoices you issue): a folder you pick, such as a folder on your computer, OneDrive or iCloud Drive. If you choose a cloud drive, that provider holds those files under your own account with them. Langbyrde does not delete a file there unless you ask it to. A file it replaces is set aside in a folder beside it, not removed.
Secrets (encryption keys, your licence, your app-lock check value): your operating system's own protected store. They are not written to a log, a crash report or an export. The only file that holds your keys is a recovery kit you choose to print or save.
Suggestions from the on-device model are worked out on your computer. The model comes with the app and what it learns from your corrections stays on your computer.

Everything the app can connect to

Langbyrde connects only to these addresses, plus any AI provider address you add yourself:

Our licence service (licence.langbyrde.app): when you press Activate.
Our releases address (releases.langbyrde.app): when you press Check now in Settings → Updates, and when you press Install to download a new version.
The Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve, for exchange rates: fetched when the app needs a rate, only while "Fetch daily exchange rates" is on and not in the Offline setting. You can type or import rates instead.
Our crash-report service (crash.langbyrde.app): only if you turned on crash reports and press Send after seeing the report.
Your own AI provider, only after you set one up.

The app refuses every other address. Settings → Privacy & network → Network activity shows the most recent call of each kind and whether it was allowed. In the Offline network setting, nothing runs in the background. Your operating system may make connections of its own (for example to check the app's signature when you first open it); those are not made by Langbyrde. When the list changes, this policy changes in the same release.

AI providers

AI features are off until you set up a provider yourself, with your own key. When you use one:

Text requests are built from a version of your data with identifying details removed, such as account numbers and tax numbers.
A receipt image is sent as it is, only to read that receipt, and only if your provider settings allow images. The image may show details printed on the receipt.
What the provider returns is a suggestion that a person reviews and accepts; it is not recorded on its own.

What you send to your provider is between you and that provider, under its own terms and privacy policy. We do not receive it.

Crash reports

Crash reports are off by default (Settings → Security). When they are on and Langbyrde crashes, you see the whole report before anything is sent, and only your click sends it. A report holds the app's version, your operating system's type and version, and a technical description of the error, which can include the last lines of the app's own log. Before it leaves your computer, the report is cleaned of anything that looks like a bank, card or tax number, an e-mail address or a key. Our service refuses a report that still contains one. We use reports only to find and fix faults. A report is stored without your IP address and is deleted 90 days after it arrives.

What we collect, and why

When you buy: your name, e-mail address and payment details, to sell you a licence and send you its key. Paddle, our reseller, collects them (see "Who handles your data").
When you activate: your licence key, a device fingerprint and the device name you type, to activate the licence on that computer and keep to the two-computer limit.
When you ask for a licence portal sign-in link: your e-mail address, to send you the link.
When you write to us: what you write and your e-mail address, to answer you.
When you send a crash report: the report, to find and fix the fault.

We do not use this information for any other purpose without asking you first. We do not send you marketing e-mail unless you have agreed to receive it.

What the licence server receives, keeps and shows

Our licence service never receives your books or your documents.

When you activate, your computer sends four things: your licence key; a device fingerprint (a one-way, salted code worked out on your computer from its own identifiers, which are not sent); the device name you type; and technical values the app uses later to prove that a computer has been removed from your licence. Pick a device name you would not mind someone with your licence key seeing.

What the service stores:

The licence: product, version, number of seats, status, when it was issued, Paddle's reference for the sale, and a one-way code of the licence key (never the key itself).
Your e-mail address, only as a one-way code, so the service can find your licence when you ask for a portal link. The address itself is not stored.
For each computer: its fingerprint, the device name you typed, and when it was activated or removed.
Records of portal sign-in links, as one-way codes. A link stops working after 24 hours.
Records of actions taken on the licence, such as a removed computer or a cancelled licence, with the date.

What passes through without being stored: your e-mail address and name at purchase, used once to send you your licence key; the address you give to ask for a portal link; and your IP address, which the service uses only to limit repeated requests.

Who can see it:

If a licence is full, the person trying to activate sees the names and activation dates of the computers already on it. Anyone holding your key can trigger that.
The licence portal, opened from a sign-in link e-mailed to the address the licence was sold to, shows the computers on that one seat and lets you free one.
We can look up a licence to give support. Lookups show licences, seats, device names and dates, and each lookup is recorded.

After you activate, the app does not contact the licence service again about that licence: there is no expiry, renewal or re-check. The licence service and the portal set no cookies and carry no analytics.

Who handles your data

We use these service providers. None of them receives your books or your documents.

Paddle, our reseller and merchant of record: sells you the licence, takes your payment and handles sales tax and refunds. It receives your name, e-mail address, billing details and payment details, under its own privacy policy.
Our cloud hosting provider: runs our licence service, its backups and our crash-report service.
Our e-mail delivery service: sends the licence-key e-mail and portal sign-in links. It receives your e-mail address and that message. Its open and click tracking is turned off.
Our content-delivery provider: delivers our website and the update information the app fetches when you press Check now. Like any web host, it sees your IP address and the request.

Each provider may use the information only to provide its service to us. Ask us and we will name them.

Information outside Canada

Our licence service and its backups are hosted in Canada, as we have set it up. Some of our providers are outside Canada or may process information outside Canada: Paddle, our e-mail delivery service (in the United States), our content-delivery provider (servers around the world) and, where it applies, the provider that hosts our crash-report service. Information processed in another country is subject to that country's laws and may be accessed by its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities.

How long we keep it

Licence records are kept for as long as the licence exists. A licence does not expire, and these records are what let you free a computer or move a seat later.
The licence service's activity logs, and our hosting provider's records of requests to it, are kept for 30 days, as we have set it up. Backups of the licence service are deleted 90 days after they are made.
Crash reports are deleted 90 days after they arrive.
E-mail you send us is kept only as long as we need it to answer you and to keep the business records the law requires.

You can ask us to delete your licence records. Before we do, we will tell you what that means for your licence. We keep only what the law requires us to keep.

How we protect it

On your computer: sensitive details in your books (such as bank account and tax numbers) are encrypted, the keys stay in your operating system's protected store, and you can also encrypt the whole company file and set an app passcode. Keeping your computer and your recovery kit safe is in your hands, because we hold no copy of your books or your keys.
On our services: connections are encrypted, e-mail addresses and licence keys are stored only as one-way codes, and access is limited to the people who run the service.

The security and privacy overview explains these protections in plain words.

Your choices and rights

Access and correction. You can ask what personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. Because we store e-mail addresses only as one-way codes, we will ask for the e-mail address you bought with, or your licence key, to find your records.
Withdrawing consent. You can turn off crash reports, daily exchange rates and AI providers at any time. You can ask us to stop using your licence records; we will then no longer be able to help you manage that licence, though a licence already activated keeps working.
Your books are on your computer, so you can read, correct, export or delete them yourself at any time.
Payment details are held by Paddle; ask Paddle about them.

Write to privacy@langbyrde.app. We answer within 30 days. If we need longer, we tell you within those 30 days and say why, as Canadian privacy law allows. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

If something goes wrong

If a breach of our safeguards involves your personal information and creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will tell you and report it to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as soon as we can, as Canadian privacy law requires, and we keep a record of every such breach. If you think something is wrong, write to privacy@langbyrde.app.

Where this policy applies

This policy covers the desktop app, our licence service (including the licence portal) and our crash-report service. It does not cover services you set up yourself, such as your AI provider or your own cloud drive: their own policies apply once your data reaches them.

The website at langbyrde.app has its own notice, "Website privacy and cookies" (https://langbyrde.app/legal/website). It explains that the website sets no cookies and loads nothing from anyone else until you agree, and may measure visits with Google Analytics only if you accept. That is about the website alone; the app has no telemetry.

Disclaimers on computed figures

This policy is about your data, not about the figures the app works out. The notes beside those figures (HST owing, a filing due date, an AI suggestion and others) are in the app's Disclaimers help topic. Nothing here changes them.

Changes to this policy

This policy has a version number at the top. A change to what personal information we handle, why, where it is kept or which addresses the app can reach is a new version, published with the release that makes the change. The copy in the app and the copy on the website are the same text.

Version history

1.14 — 2026-10-08 — Split the list of licence records into shorter lines. No change to what is collected, kept or shared.
1.13 — 2026-10-08 — Corrected against the app: AI provider addresses you add yourself, the Install button's download, when exchange rates are fetched, what Network activity shows, the recovery kit as the one file that holds your keys, and how the device fingerprint is made; removed "trial extension" from the actions recorded on a licence. Shorter sentences. No change to what is collected, kept or shared.
1.12 — 2026-10-08 — Added who is responsible, what we collect and why, information outside Canada, how long we keep it, your rights and how we answer, and what we do if something goes wrong; described service providers by their role; shortened the technical detail. No change to what is collected, kept or shared.
1.0 to 1.11 — 2026-09-28 to 2026-10-08 — First publication and corrections that described the licence service, the licence portal, the releases address and the website notice more accurately. Earlier versions are available on request.

Contact

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@langbyrde.app. Licence questions: support@langbyrde.app.