Privacy Policy.

Effective date: 2026-10-02

1. The short version

• Your audio is processed on your Mac and never uploaded.
• When you ask the AI something, your message, the recent conversation, the rack’s plugin names, settings and measurements, the name of the DAW track the rack is on and your computer’s language setting go to our server and to an AI provider.
• Conversations on our server expire 24 hours after their last use and are then deleted; server backups can keep a copy for up to 7 days before they rotate out.
• We e-mail you about your trial and credits. News comes only if you ask for it and confirm, and every news e-mail has an unsubscribe link at the bottom.
• We don’t sell your data and we don’t train AI models on it. This website sets Google Analytics cookies only if you accept them in the cookie bar; you can change your choice at any time.

2. Controller

The controller is Lukáš Kostka, a sole trader in the Czech Republic (details at the end of this page). For anything about your data, write to support@knobpilot.com.

3. What we process and why

AI requests

When you send a request in the plugin, it sends your message, the recent conversation, the name of the DAW track the rack is on (when your DAW shares it), your computer’s language setting (so the assistant can answer in your language), and the rack’s state: plugin names and formats, their settings, the list of effect plugins installed on your Mac (names, makers and types), and measurements of the audio passing through the rack (numbers for level, tone, dynamics and stereo width, not the audio). Our server passes this to an AI model and sends the answer and the plugin changes back. Please don’t put personal information in your messages or track names; the assistant doesn’t need any.

Our server keeps the conversation, with a short summary, so that the next request can follow on; the AI’s plan in it can repeat the track name. It expires 24 hours after it was last used and is deleted by an hourly cleanup. After each request we keep a run record: which model ran, the outcome, the names of the tools it used and any error they reported, the AI’s short plan and the plugin changes (plugin names and values), token counts and cost. Run records don’t store your messages, the replies or your language setting, although the AI’s plan can paraphrase your request and repeat the track name. They are deleted after 90 days. We use them to charge credits correctly, to answer support questions and to find and fix faults.

Legal basis: performance of our contract with you (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)); for run records used to find faults, our legitimate interest in a working, affordable service (Art. 6(1)(f)).

Trial, licence and devices

• A random installation ID created by the plugin, and a generic device name (“Knobpilot on macOS”).
• For the free trial, a one-way hash of your Mac’s hardware ID, so that each computer gets one trial. The hash can’t be turned back into the hardware ID, but it is still personal data.
• For a paid plan: your licence key (stored encrypted), your Polar customer and licence IDs, the activations on your computers, your subscription status, and sign-in tokens (stored only as hashes).
• Your credit balance and a record of the credits each request used.

Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)). The trial hash and limits: our legitimate interest in preventing trial abuse (Art. 6(1)(f)). We keep these while your account or trial is in use. Within 12 months after it ends, a daily cleanup deletes them:

• After the free trial ends: the trial account with its installation IDs and sign-ins, the hash of your Mac’s hardware ID and the trial’s credit records. After that, the same computer could start a trial again.
• After a paid plan ends (the subscription ended or the licence is no longer valid): your encrypted licence key, the licence ID, your computers’ activations, sign-in tokens and the subscription status. We keep your Polar customer ID with the credit packs you bought and the record of credits used: unused pack credits stay yours if you subscribe again, and these are billing records, kept as long as accounting law requires.

We keep part of the data longer only if we need it to settle a specific dispute, and only until it is settled.

Backups

To recover from a fault, our server’s storage is backed up daily at Railway; these backups are kept for up to 6 days, and a backup taken by hand before a risky change is deleted within 7 days. The account, billing, e-mail and run-record databases also have off-site copies in Cloudflare R2, kept for 7 days. So something we delete, such as a conversation after 24 hours or an account after it ends, can stay in a backup for up to 7 days until that backup rotates out. Backups are not used for anything else. If we ever restore a backup, we re-apply the deletions made since it was taken.

Service e-mails

When you start the free trial in the plugin, you give us an e-mail address. We use it, or for a paid plan the e-mail of your Polar customer account, to send e-mails about the service: three days before the trial ends, when about 20% of your credits are left and when they are used up. These e-mails contain no promotion. The e-mail address is stored on our server with the trial or plan and deleted within 12 months after the trial or plan ends; the record of which service e-mails we sent is deleted after 12 months at the latest. When we no longer need the address for anything (no newsletter consent or proof of it, and no other account uses it), we also delete it from Brevo, our e-mail provider. Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).

Newsletter

News, new versions, tips and occasional offers, including the e-mail that a new version is available, go only to people who asked for them: through the sign-up on this website, an unticked box when starting the trial in the plugin, or an unticked box at the Polar checkout. You confirm with a link we e-mail you first (double opt-in). As proof of your consent we record when and where you gave it, the wording you saw, a keyed one-way hash of your IP address and your browser’s user agent. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)).

You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every newsletter e-mail or by writing to us; that doesn’t affect service e-mails. We don’t track whether you open our e-mails or click their links.

Sign-ups that are not confirmed are deleted after 30 days. After you unsubscribe we keep the consent record for 3 years as proof, then delete it, and delete the address from Brevo too unless we still need it for service e-mails. An address that bounces permanently or reports our e-mail as spam gets no further e-mail of any kind: we keep a one-way hash of it for that, and its newsletter record ends as if you had unsubscribed.

Network and security data

Our server sees your IP address with each request. We use it to limit abuse, such as trials and sign-in attempts from one network. For the daily trial limit we store only the network part of the address (for example 203.0.113.0/24) with a count, and delete it after a few days. Server logs and error reports record technical events without message contents and are kept for up to 30 days. The installer is downloaded from Cloudflare R2 storage (download.knobpilot.com), which logs each download request (IP address, time, file). Legal basis: legitimate interest in security (Art. 6(1)(f)).

Support email

If you write to us, we use your email and what you send to answer, and keep the conversation for up to 2 years after it ends. The support mailbox is hosted by Zoho Corporation (see the table below). Legal basis: contract or legitimate interest in answering you.

Payments

Polar sells the plan and credit packs as merchant of record. It collects your name, email, billing address and payment details at checkout and processes them as an independent controller under its own privacy policy. We receive from Polar your customer ID, email, what you bought and whether your subscription is active. We never see your card details.

On your Mac

Some things never leave your computer: the audio, the plugin files and knowledge cards, and a sign-in token saved in a file only your user account can read. The recent conversation is saved in your DAW project, so sharing a project also shares that conversation. The plugin keeps a local log file for troubleshooting; it reaches us only if you send it to support.

This website

Without your consent the website sets no cookies and loads no third-party scripts or fonts; it has no advertising. If you sign in to your account on the website, a sign-in token is kept in this browser tab’s session storage, not in a cookie; your licence key is not saved. The hosting provider keeps standard access logs (IP address, time, page) for security, for the limited period set in Cloudflare’s terms.

If you accept analytics in the cookie bar, the website loads Google Analytics 4. It records the pages you view, how you arrived (the referring site and campaign tags such as utm_source), your browser, device, approximate location (city and country, derived from your IP address) and a few actions: starting a checkout, scrolling to the end of a page, following a link to another site, downloading a file, and starting or sending a form (never what you type into it). The page address goes without its query, except campaign tags. Google Analytics does not log or store IP addresses for visitors in the EU. Google signals and advertising features are off, so the data is not linked to your Google account or used for ads. We keep it for 14 months. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time under “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page; withdrawing deletes the cookies below and stops the measurement from the next page on.

Cookies, set only after you accept:

• _ga: tells visits from the same browser apart with a random ID; expires after 2 years.
• _ga_XHEQYZC35G: keeps the current visit together; expires after 2 years.

Your choice itself is saved in this browser’s local storage as kp-consent, not in a cookie, so the bar doesn’t ask again on every page.

4. Who else processes your data

We don’t sell or rent personal data and don’t share it for advertising. We don’t use your messages, measurements or projects to train AI models ourselves. Our AI Gateway requests require providers that have agreed with Vercel not to use prompts for model training; this restriction also applies to fallback routing. If no eligible provider is available, the request fails. During the beta, we do not guarantee zero data retention by the providers processing AI requests. Prompts and responses may be retained under the applicable provider agreements, including for security and abuse prevention. Retention rules and exceptions vary by provider; we do not promise a single deletion period for all providers. Vercel describes its gateway policy and provider agreements in its data retention documentation.

5. Transfers outside the EU

Apart from Brevo, which host their data in the EU, the providers above are in the USA or, for Google Analytics, may pass data to Google LLC there. Transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and otherwise on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses in the provider’s data processing agreement. You can ask us for a copy of these safeguards at the address above.

6. Your rights

You can ask for access to your data, a copy in a portable format, correction, deletion or restriction, and you can object to processing based on our legitimate interests. Write to support@knobpilot.com; we answer within one month. To find your data we may ask for your Polar order email or your installation ID. Never send us your full licence key.

You can also complain to the Czech data protection authority, Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů (uoou.gov.cz), or to the authority where you live or work.

Providing data is voluntary, but the AI service can’t work without the request data and a trial or licence. We make no decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

7. Age

Knobpilot is meant for people aged 16 and over.

8. Changes

If we change how we process data, we update this page and its effective date first. Anything that needs your consent, such as collecting more than described here, will ask for it before it starts.

Who we are

Also read: Terms · Privacy · Refunds · AI disclosure