RecForge III Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-11-04

Publisher: Dje073 (see the legal notice). Contact: dje073@gmail.com. Address of this policy: https://www.recforge.ovh/iii/privacy-policy

RecForge III is an app to record, play, edit and transcribe audio. This policy says which data is processed, by whom, for how long, and how to refuse or delete it. It also covers this website, www.recforge.ovh (point 10).

1. What never leaves your device

• Your recordings. They stay on your device, in the "Recordings/RecForge" folder ("Music/RecForge" on Android 10 and 11), or in a folder you choose (an SD card, for example). Like any file in shared storage, they are visible to other apps you have allowed to access your audio files. They are not deleted on uninstall.
• Transcription. It is computed on your device. Neither the audio nor the transcribed text is sent to the publisher or to anyone else. The speech recognition model you choose (about 356 MB or 669 MB) is downloaded when you ask for it, from Google Play.
• Your markers, edit lists, tags and transcripts stay in the app's private database, on the device.
• No content — no audio, file name, transcribed text, or metadata you typed — is included in analytics, performance measurements or crash reports.

2. The data sent, why, and to whom

This data is sent encrypted. It is not used to identify you personally, and the publisher does not sell it.

The purchase server. To know whether a purchase is still valid — a subscription running or ended, a refunded purchase —, the app sends the publisher's server the purchase token Google Play gave it, with the product; the server answers from what Google Play told it. It also receives, directly from Google Play, the notices of sales, renewals, cancellations and refunds. When, after a lifetime purchase, you tap "Cancel my subscription now", the app sends it the subscription's token so that it asks Google Play to cancel it (end of the paid period, no refund).

• The server never keeps the token itself: it keeps a digest of it (SHA-256), with the product, the kind of purchase (one-time or subscription), its state, a subscription's end date, whether it was refunded with the right withdrawn and when, and the dates it was read at Google Play. It does not know your name, email address or Google account, and does not record your IP address in its database (the web server's logs: point 10).
• The publisher is told of each sale, renewal and refund by a private message (Telegram messaging) that contains only the product, the plan, the country, the price, the currency, the date and the Google Play order number: no token, no name, no address.
• Host: Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany. The purchase server's data stays in the European Union.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (providing the premium you paid for and managing your subscription); and the publisher's legitimate interest in preventing fraud, for purchases refunded with the right withdrawn (point 9).
• Retention and erasure: point 9.

Where it is processed. The data sent to Google and to the ad networks is processed by Google LLC and its subprocessors, notably in the United States, and by the ad networks named above, some of which are established outside the European Union. A copy of the analytics, performance and crash data is exported to the publisher's space at Google (BigQuery), in the United States. Google covers these transfers by the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, its UK Extension and the Swiss–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and otherwise by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. The ad networks named above cover theirs by standard contractual clauses, in their own terms: https://unity.com/legal/privacy-policy (Unity Ads and ironSource LevelPlay) and https://liftoff.ai/privacy-policy/ (Liftoff). The purchase server's data and this website's stay in Germany.

3. Your consent

In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app asks for your consent at first launch. Until you consent, or if you refuse, analytics only sends limited signals (Google consent mode): without the analytics identifier and without the advertising ID. These signals come with the Firebase installation identifier, a pseudonymous identifier specific to this installation of the app, which changes if you reinstall it. Ads are not personalised. You can change your choice at any time in Settings › Privacy. You can also reset or delete your advertising ID in Android settings (Google › Ads).

At launch, the app retrieves its configuration from Google (Firebase Remote Config), which sends a Firebase installation identifier. This exchange serves the operation of the app (turning a feature on or off remotely, without a new version); it is used neither for analytics nor for ads (except for the purchase-screen experiment described below, in which, in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, only people who have accepted analytics take part), and it takes place independently of your consent to ads and analytics. This configuration is also used to run an experiment on the purchase screen: depending on the installation, the purchase screen shows the one-time purchase alone, or the one-time purchase and the subscription. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, only people who have accepted analytics take part; everyone else always sees the usual screen.

4. Your controls in the app — Settings › Privacy

• Consent: reopen the form and change your choice.
• Crash reports: on by default; a switch turns them off. A crash that happens while they are off is never sent, even if you turn them back on later.
• Performance measurements have no switch of their own. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, they are sent only if you have accepted analytics (point 3): without that, no performance measurement is sent.
• "Delete my analytics data": replaces this installation's analytics identifier with a new one, and erases the analytics data still on the device. It does not erase data already sent to Google (for that, write to dje073@gmail.com, point 9), nor the Firebase installation identifier, nor Android's advertising ID (which you reset in Android settings, Google › Ads).
• "Delete my purchase data on the server": asks the purchase server to erase what it keeps about the purchases the app knows on this phone, within the limits of point 9. Your premium is not withdrawn.

5. Premium and ads

The free version shows banners and full-screen ads, notably when the app opens. A rewarded video, which you choose to watch, gives extra transcription time. Premium comes as a one-time purchase or a subscription, monthly or yearly, both processed by Google Play; the subscription renews until you cancel it in Google Play (Settings › Premium › "Manage subscription" takes you there); after a lifetime purchase, the app also offers "Cancel my subscription now". Premium removes ads — no advertising data is then sent — and unlocks the advanced features. The "Remove ads" purchase removes the ads shown unasked, but the rewarded video is still offered: for this purchase, the advertising service therefore stays active, under the conditions of point 3. Analytics, performance measurements and crash reports apply the same way with or without premium.

6. Permissions

• Microphone: to record, only when you start a recording or a preview.
• Audio files: to show and play your library.
• Notifications: to show a recording, playback or processing in progress.
• Foreground services and keeping the device awake: so that a recording, playback, conversion or transcription continues with the screen off.
• Audio settings: to choose the input (microphone, headset, Bluetooth, USB).
• Internet and network state: for analytics, performance, crash reports, ads and purchases. Recording, editing and transcribing work offline.
• Advertising ID: for ads, under the conditions of point 3.

The cover image goes through Android's photo picker, which only gives access to the chosen image.

7. Sharing and export

A recording or a transcript leaves the device only if you share or export it, to the destination you choose.

8. Android backup

If Android backup is on, Android may back up to your Google account the app's settings (including text typed for new recordings' metadata, such as an artist name) and the chosen cover image. This backup is done by Android, encrypted, and the publisher has no access to it. Your recordings, markers and transcripts are not included.

9. Retention and deletion

• Analytics data: 14 months.
• Crash reports: 90 days.
• Performance measurements: 30 days for events associated with the IP address, 60 days for the rest.
• Firebase installation identifier: kept by Google until it is deleted; write to dje073@gmail.com to ask for it.
• Copies exported to the publisher's space (point 2): 60 days.
• Purchase digests kept by the purchase server: 400 days after they were last read at Google Play. The digest of a purchase refunded with the right withdrawn is kept as long as the app is sold: it is what stops that right from coming back.
• Notices received from Google Play by the purchase server (their identifier, kind and date, no token): 30 days.
• The web server's access logs (point 10): 14 days.

To delete them: the "Delete my analytics data" button (point 4); the "Delete my purchase data on the server" button (point 4); uninstalling, which erases all the app's data on the device; or a request to dje073@gmail.com. Recordings in shared storage remain after uninstall; they can be deleted in the app or with a file manager. Step by step: Delete your data.

The limits of erasing purchase data. The server erases the digests of the purchases the app names to it, except that of a purchase refunded with the right withdrawn, which holds only the digest, the product and the date. And if Google Play later sends a notice about the same purchase — for example the renewal of a subscription still running —, the server creates a row for it again. Erasing does not cancel a subscription: for that, see point 5.

10. This website, www.recforge.ovh

This website sets no cookie and loads nothing from third parties: no font, no script, no analytics. The language you choose on the site is remembered by your browser (its local storage), on your device; it is not sent. The web server (Apache and Tomcat) keeps access logs that record, for each page requested, the visitor's IP address, the date and time, the page's address, the server's response and its size, and, on the Apache side, the page the visitor came from and the name of their browser; they are erased after 14 days. They serve the security and proper operation of the site (the publisher's legitimate interest). The website and the purchase server are hosted by Hetzner Online GmbH, in Germany.

11. Audience

RecForge III is intended for people aged 13 and over.

12. Changes and contact

This policy will be updated before any version that changes the above, and its date changed. Contact: dje073@gmail.com.