Privacy Policy

This policy explains what LectureCam collects when you use our apps and website, why, who it is shared with, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. We have tried to write it so it can actually be read.

Who we are

LectureCam ("we", "us") turns photographs of lecture boards into structured study notes, through our iPhone and iPad apps and our website at https://lecturecam.com (opens in a new tab). LectureCam is operated from Malaysia.

LectureCam is operated by Techtronics Company (registration no. KG11655), C21-3F Unit, 2nd Floor, Yoshi Square, Block C, Jalan Padungan, 93450 Kuching, Sarawak. Telephone: +082485022.

You can reach us about anything in this policy at support@lecturecam.com.

What we collect

Your account. Your email address and how you sign in: a password (kept only as a secure hash by our sign-in system), Google, Apple, or a passkey. A passkey's private half stays on your device; we store only the public half and the name you give it. If you turn on two-step verification, our sign-in system keeps the secret your authenticator app uses to make its codes. If you make backup codes, we keep them only as a secure hash. If you sign in with Google, Google also gives us your name, your Google account ID and the address of your profile picture; we use the name to greet you and do not use the picture. If you sign in with Apple, Apple gives us an identifier for your Apple ID, an email address — your own, or a private relay address that forwards to it if you chose to hide yours — and, the first time only, your name, which we use to greet you. We record when you agreed to our Terms of Service and this policy, which version, and from which app or browser. We also ask your date of birth once, the first time you sign in, to work out whether you are old enough: we keep only the fact that you passed and when — not your date of birth or your age.

What you create. The photos you take or import, the notes, summaries, equations and figures made from them, the text read from your photos, handwritten notebooks, and how you organise them into subjects, chapters and terms. A photo taken with another camera app can carry details inside the file, such as where it was taken; the apps save every imported photo afresh, without those details, before it is uploaded. Documents you import into a notebook, or share to LectureCam from another app — PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV, text and RTF files — are kept with that notebook, so you can open them on your other devices. A PDF is uploaded as it is, or as pictures of its pages. Any other file is turned into a PDF on your device first, and only that PDF or those pictures are uploaded, not the original file.

Your devices. For each device signed in to your account: an ID the app creates when it is installed, the device's model, its platform and app version, and when it was last used. The iPhone and iPad apps also create a random device identifier and keep it in the device's Keychain, where it stays if the app is deleted and reinstalled (it is not backed up or moved to another device); we store it only in scrambled (hashed) form and use it to limit how many accounts can be created on one device. (Earlier versions for Android and Windows, which we no longer offer, used the Android ID or the computer's machine ID for the same purpose.) We store your time zone with each lecture so that it is dated correctly.

Your internet address. Like every online service, our servers and hosting providers receive your IP address when your app or browser connects, and their short-term server logs include it. We use it to protect the service, for example to limit repeated requests, and to work out which country you are in so that prices are shown in your currency. For that, a shortened form of the address is sent to a country-lookup service; only a two-letter country code comes back. Our sign-in provider also records the IP address and the type of device or browser of each signed-in session, for security; that record is removed when the session ends or the account is deleted. We do not store your IP address anywhere else in our database.

How you use the service. How many snaps and notes you have used this month, how much storage you use, your settings, and a record of each note we generate (when, how long it took, which AI model, what it cost us and any error).

How the website and apps are used, without knowing who you are. We count how our website and our iPhone and iPad apps are used: the pages and screens opened, and actions such as pressing a download button, taking or importing photos, asking for a note or starting a purchase, together with the type of browser or device, its screen size, language and time zone, and the app version. Our servers also report when a note is made or fails and when a payment or subscription starts, renews or ends, without saying whose. We do this with a usage-counting service (see below). It sets no cookies and keeps no identifier on your device, it is never linked to your account, it never includes your photos, your notes or their text, and it does not record your screen. You can turn it off in the apps under Settings, then Help & Terms, and our website does not measure your visit when your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal. We do not use advertising or tracking tools, and the apps do not collect your precise location (GPS), your contacts or any audio.

Crash reports. When one of our apps hits an error, closes unexpectedly or stops responding, it sends a crash report to us and to our crash-reporting provider (see below): the app version; the iOS version, the device model, its language and time zone, and its state at that moment, such as free memory, storage and battery; which screens were open just before (without any note or account identifiers), the app's last network requests (the address each went to and its result, not what was sent), and a technical description of the error, such as where in the app's code it happened, with any phrase the error quotes and anything that looks like an email address, a long number or a password-like code removed. It is not linked to your account, never contains your photos, and is deleted within 90 days. The apps send no crash reports while "Share anonymous usage counts" is turned off.

Payments on our website. Payments on our website are handled by Stripe, our payment provider. Stripe receives your card details — we never see or store them — and any billing name, address and phone number you enter. We receive your plan, its status, currency and renewal date, the payments made, and a customer reference we can look up at Stripe. If you tell us why you cancelled, Stripe keeps that too.

Purchases in the iPhone and iPad apps. Plans and top-ups bought in the iPhone and iPad apps are paid through Apple's In-App Purchase. Apple takes the payment under its own privacy policy; we never see your card or Apple ID payment details. The purchase is recorded by our in-app purchase provider under your account ID, and we receive the plan or pack you bought, its status, trial, renewal and expiry dates, any refund, and Apple's transaction reference.

When you contact us. Emails you send us, and what you put in our Appeal form: your name, email address, country, a phone number if you choose to give one, your message and any files you attach.

Phone number. We do not ask for a phone number to use LectureCam today. If we later ask accounts to verify one to prevent abuse, we will update this policy first, including the name of the text-message provider.

Cookies and similar storage. Our website uses a small number of cookies and browser storage entries, all of them needed for signing in, paying or remembering a choice you made. None is used for advertising or tracking. See our Cookie Policy.

An email address and a way to sign in are required to have an account; without them we cannot provide the service. Everything else is either created by using the app or optional.

How we use it

• To run the service: turning your photos into notes, keeping your library in sync across your devices, and letting you export it.
• To keep your account secure, and to apply the number of devices your plan allows.
• To apply your plan's limits, take payment and manage your subscription.
• To prevent abuse of the free plan. If more accounts are created on one device than we allow, the newest one is suspended automatically; the screen says why and offers an appeal, which a person reviews.
• To keep the service safe: photos and titles are checked automatically for content that breaks our Terms of Service, and the result of the check is stored with the photo. A person reviews a decision when you appeal.
• To contact you about your account — sign-in codes and links, security notices, receipts, a reminder before a free trial ends, and replies to your messages — and to show the notifications you have turned on. We do not send marketing email. If that ever changes, we will ask you first, and every such email will have an unsubscribe link.
• To understand and improve how the service works, using usage figures rather than the content of your notes.

Where the law asks for a legal basis, these are ours:

• Providing the service — turning photos into notes, keeping your library in sync, exports, plans and payments: to perform our contract with you.
• Content checks, the device and account limits, security, rate limits and staff access: our legitimate interests in keeping the service safe and preventing abuse.
• Usage counts and crash reports: our legitimate interest in understanding and fixing the service. You can turn both off at any time, as described above.
• Tax and accounting records, and answering lawful requests: to meet our legal obligations.
• Marketing email (we send none today): only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object, and we will stop unless we have a compelling reason to continue.

AI processing

Making a note from your photos means sending the photos, the text read from them, the names of your subjects and chapters and, when you continue a lecture, the headings and summary of the note it continues to the AI provider that generates it — currently OpenAI, in the United States. The same provider checks photos and titles for prohibited content. We do not send your name, email address or account ID with them. The provider processes them only to return the result to us, and may keep them for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse, unless the law requires it to keep them longer. We do not sell your photos or notes, and neither we nor the provider use them to train AI models. Notebooks, and the files you import into them, are not sent to the AI provider. If we change AI provider, we will update this policy first.

Automated decisions

Two things are decided by software before a person looks: whether a photo or a title breaks our Terms of Service (the content check described above), and suspending an account created beyond the limit on one device. The content check uses an AI moderation model (from our AI provider) that scores each photo and title for categories such as sexual content, content that sexualises minors, violence, self-harm and hate. Above our threshold, that photo, note, subject or chapter is blocked and not processed further; your account is not suspended because of it. Neither is used to decide anything else about you, and we do not profile you. If either affects you, you can appeal from the screen that tells you, or with the Appeal form, and a person will review the decision.

People in your photos and notes

Your photos can show other people, or material that belongs to someone else, such as your lecturer's slides. You are responsible for having their permission where the law or your institution requires it. Do not photograph documents that hold other people's personal information — such as identity cards, records or exam scripts — unless you are entitled to. We handle that information only as this policy describes, to provide the service to you.

Who we share it with

We share information only with the service providers that help us run LectureCam, and only for that purpose. Our service providers handle it on our behalf, under their data-processing terms: each may use it only to provide its service to us, and must protect it at least as well as this policy does. Stripe, Apple and Google also use some information as independent controllers under their own privacy policies — for example, Stripe to prevent fraud. We name the providers you deal with directly and the AI provider that receives your photos; the others are described by what they do and where they are. To learn the name of any provider below, write to support@lecturecam.com and we will tell you.

• Our database, file storage and sign-in provider (Singapore). It holds everything in your account: your sign-in details, photos, notes and settings.
• OpenAI — generating notes and checking content (United States). It receives your photos, the text read from them, the names of your subjects and chapters, and the headings and summary of a note you continue — not your name, email address or account ID, and not your notebooks.
• Stripe — payments, receipts and billing records (Malaysia, the United States and the other countries where Stripe operates). It receives your email address, the plan or top-up you buy, and the card and billing details you enter.
• Apple — purchases made in the iPhone and iPad apps, and Sign in with Apple (worldwide). An identifier for your account is attached to each purchase (through our in-app purchase provider), so the purchase can only be used by your account; Apple tells us what was bought, and when it renews, is refunded or ends. Apple handles the payment itself: we never see your card or Apple ID payment details. If you sign in with Apple, Apple learns that you signed in to LectureCam, and when you delete your account we ask Apple to end that sign-in.
• Our in-app purchase provider — records and checks purchases made in the iPhone and iPad apps (United States). It receives your account ID (a random code, not your name or email address), the purchases Apple reports for that Apple ID, and technical details its software sends from your device, such as the app version, operating system, store country and IP address. It tells us what was bought and when it renews, is refunded or ends. When your account is deleted for good, we ask it to delete its record of you.
• Our hosting provider — hosting for our website and servers, and our support mailbox. It receives your IP address and the requests your app or browser sends, and the emails you send to our support address.
• Our email delivery provider — delivers our account emails, such as sign-up confirmations and password resets, so it receives your email address and those emails.
• Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google: it learns that you signed in to LectureCam.
• A country lookup service — the country lookup described above; it receives only a shortened IP address.

Apple knows that you downloaded our app from the App Store, and handles that under its own privacy policy.

A small number of our own staff can open an account's details, notes and photos when that is needed to answer a request from you, investigate abuse or a security problem, or meet a legal duty. That access is limited to administrators, who sign in with a second factor, and the changes they make are logged.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect people from harm, or as part of a merger or sale of the business, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not show you third-party advertising.

Where it is processed

LectureCam is operated from Malaysia. Your account and your content are stored in Singapore, and the providers above process information in the United States and other countries. For people in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, we rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (with the UK addendum) in our providers' terms, or on a provider's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. For people in Malaysia, information is transferred as section 129 of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 allows: where it is necessary to perform our contract with you, and with the consent you give when you agree to this policy. Write to support@lecturecam.com for a copy of the safeguards.

How long we keep it

• Your account and content: for as long as your account is open.
• Notes you delete: they go to the trash and can be recovered for 30 days, after which the notes and their photos are permanently removed.
• Notebooks you delete: they stay in Recently deleted until you restore them or choose Delete forever, and are removed with your account.
• When you delete your account: it is closed straight away — you are signed out everywhere and can no longer sign in — and any subscription bought on our website is cancelled. Your notes, photos, notebooks, exports, devices, usage records and sign-in details are kept for 30 days in case you change your mind: write to support@lecturecam.com within that time and we can restore the account. After 30 days they are deleted for good, and copies in backups are overwritten within 30 days after that. A subscription bought in the iPhone or iPad app is billed by Apple, and only you can cancel it, in your Apple ID's subscription settings.
• What we keep after that, and why: the scrambled device identifier, for up to 24 months, so that deleting an account does not reset the limit on accounts per device; messages you sent us through the Appeal form or by email, for up to 24 months after the matter is closed, in case of a dispute; and records of payments: Stripe and Apple keep them under their own legal duties, and we keep the sales records our accounts need, without your notes or photos, for as long as tax and accounting law requires (seven years in Malaysia).
• Records of what our staff do in the administration console are kept for 90 days.
• Usage counts cannot be linked to you, and our usage-counting provider keeps them for up to 7 years.
• Crash reports from the apps are kept for 30 days by us, and for up to 90 days by our crash-reporting provider.
• Coupon codes that were refused are recorded with only the account and the time, to stop codes being found by guessing, and kept for one day.

Security

Information is encrypted in transit, the database and file storage are encrypted at rest by our provider, secrets such as access tokens are encrypted again on top of that, and the database itself restricts each account to its own data. No service is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password or a passkey and tell us at once if you think your account has been compromised. If a breach affects your personal information, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your choices and rights

• See and change your email address and password in the app, under Profile, then Edit profile. To correct anything else we hold about you, write to us.
• Take your notes with you using the export options.
• Delete individual notes at any time. To delete your whole account, open Settings, then Help & Terms, and tap Delete account. The steps are also at the delete-account page, and you can ask us to do it by writing to support@lecturecam.com from the address on your account.
• Turn off notifications with the Alerts switch on your profile, or in your device's settings.
• Ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to stop or limit a use of it, or to withdraw a consent you gave. Write to support@lecturecam.com from the email address on your account. We reply within 21 days, and sooner where the law requires.

If you live in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or another place with a data protection law, you also have the rights that law gives you, including to object to how we use your information, to receive it in a portable form, and to complain to your data protection authority. If you live in California, you have the right to know what we collect, to have it deleted or corrected, and not to be treated differently for asking; we do not sell or share personal information as California law defines those words.

If you live in Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act gives you the right to access and correct your personal information and to withdraw a consent, and you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. If you live in Australia, the Australian Privacy Principles give you the right to access and correct your personal information, and you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

If you are in Malaysia, the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 gives you the right to access and correct your personal data, to have it sent to another organisation where that is technically feasible, to limit how it is processed, to stop processing that is likely to cause you damage or distress, to stop its use for direct marketing, to withdraw your consent, and to complain to the Personal Data Protection Commissioner.

A Bahasa Malaysia version of this notice is available on request: write to support@lecturecam.com.

Children

LectureCam is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. We ask your date of birth the first time you sign in, and work your age out from it. When that is under 13 we delete the account straight away, with everything in it, apart from the scrambled device identifier described above, which is kept for up to 24 months so that the limit on accounts per device still works. The device or browser it was entered on remembers for a day that this happened, so that the question is not simply asked again; that note holds a time and, until the deletion has finished, the account's ID — no name, email, date of birth or age. If you are under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, you may use LectureCam only with the permission of a parent or guardian, who agrees to our Terms of Service and this policy on your behalf. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, or you are a parent or guardian who wants a child's account removed, write to support@lecturecam.com and we will delete it.

Links to other websites

Our apps and website link to other sites, such as Stripe's payment pages and the app stores. This policy does not cover them; their own privacy policies do.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. If you keep using LectureCam after that, the new version applies to you.

Contact

Questions, requests or complaints: support@lecturecam.com.