StarCAT

Privacy Policy

Last updated October 17, 2026

StarCAT is made by Northline Software LLC, 145 Pine Haven Shores, Suite 1000-A, Shelburne, VT 05482, USA. Questions go to [email protected].

The short version

• Your jobs, dictionaries and audio stay on your computer.
• They leave it only when you use a feature that sends them: a bug report, Team Editing, Send to Proofreader, or Spell Check from Google.
• We do not sell your information or use it for advertising.

The website

• Email signup. We keep your email, the date, and the page you signed up from. We use it to tell you about StarCAT. To be taken off, email [email protected].
• Hosting. The site and the signup list are hosted by Cloudflare, which sees your IP address like any web host.
• The site has no analytics and no ad trackers.

The StarCAT program

License. When you activate, and when StarCAT starts, it sends:

• your license number
• a scrambled ID for the computer, made from Windows' machine ID, so we never see the real one
• the computer's name
• the times StarCAT was opened

This lets us check the license. A free trial also sends the email you type in. We keep these license records for our accounts.

Updates. StarCAT asks download.starcatsteno.com for new versions.

Spell Check from Google. Off unless you turn it on. When on, a word you look up in Spell Check is sent to Google for spellings, and Google's privacy policy covers it.

Bug reports. Nothing is sent unless you click Send.

• A report holds your settings and a log of what you did in StarCAT. If you leave the job text on, it also holds the text of your recent jobs.
• It goes to our server at captionwire.com (the same company) and is stored under your license number for 90 days, then deleted. The description you type is emailed to support.
• Or you can save the report to your computer and email it yourself.

Team Editing. On the same network, your computers connect directly. Otherwise our relay passes your edits between you and your guests. It stores nothing. A session ends when the host leaves.

Send to Proofreader.

• Your job is locked with a 10-letter code on your computer before it is sent.
• Our server holds only the locked copy. It never sees the code, so it cannot read the job.
• The copy is deleted when you take the changes in, or after 30 days. No backup copies are kept.
• The proofreader's page loads nothing from other sites.

Your jobs

The jobs you write belong to you and your clients. When you send one through a feature above, we handle it only to carry out that feature.

Who else handles it

• Cloudflare hosts the website, the signup list, bug reports and our backups.
• Fly.io runs our servers: the relay in Virginia and the license server in New Jersey, USA.
• Resend sends our email.
• Google gets a word only when Spell Check from Google is on.

We share information with no one else, except when the law requires it, such as a court order. If the company is sold, this information goes with it under this policy.

Cookies

The site sets one cookie, only to keep the manual open after you follow a manual link. No tracking cookies.

Security

We protect what we hold with reasonable measures, but no system is perfectly secure.

Your information

• To get a copy of what we hold about you, or to have it deleted, email [email protected]. Deleted information can stay in our backups for up to 90 days.
• StarCAT is not meant for children under 13.
• If this policy changes, we will post the new version here with a new date.