Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Hunter Pollock, doing business as “Perch” (“Perch,” “we,” “us”), handles information in connection with the Perch™ desktop application (the “App”), Perch™ Studio, and the perchapp.org websites (together, the “Services”). We built Perch to be private by construction: the App composes what’s happening on your screen, and what’s on your screen is none of our business.

The short version: we collect anonymous usage statistics so we can improve the App, we never collect the content of what you see or play, we never sell data, and one switch in Settings turns all of it off.

1. What we collect

Anonymous usage telemetry (the App and Studio)

When telemetry is enabled (it is on by default), the App sends us anonymous events about how Perch is used:

• A random install identifier — a randomly generated code created on first launch. It is not derived from you, your hardware, or your Steam account, and it links to no identity. You can reset it at any time.
• Session information — when the App starts and stops, how long it ran, whether it shut down cleanly, and a periodic “still running” heartbeat.
• Environment — App version, operating system (Linux or Windows), display backend, screen-size class, and your country, which our server derives from the network connection at the moment of receipt and keeps only as a country code. Your IP address is not stored.
• Feature usage — which widgets appear in the notch and which appear together, which widgets you place on pages, panel expansions and page switches, which built-in and Workshop mods load (and whether a mod failed to load, as a coarse error category), the active theme, which settings keys change, and which buttons are pressed (as short action names like “playPause”).

What the App never collects

The following never leaves your machine as part of telemetry — not anonymized, not aggregated, not at all:

• Song titles, artists, album art, or anything about the media you play.
• Discord usernames, avatars, messages, call participants, or servers.
• The contents of notifications, notes, files, or any text you type.
• Voice audio. Perch’s voice features are processed entirely on your device; no recording or transcript is ever transmitted.
• File paths, IP addresses (see above), Steam identity, or hardware serial numbers.

Website

perchapp.org uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, a cookie-less, privacy-first measurement tool that does not track you across sites and does not use persistent identifiers. The websites set no advertising or tracking cookies.

Direct communication

If you email us, we receive what you send and your email address, and we use them only to respond.

2. What the App fetches from the network

Some features contact third-party services directly from your device to do their job. These requests are how the internet works — the service receives your IP address like any website you visit — but Perch adds no identity to them:

• Weather — forecasts from met.no (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute), plus a coarse location lookup to find your city.
• Media artwork — album art URLs provided by your media player.
• Discord features — Perch talks to your locally running Discord app over a local connection; your Discord data stays between your machine and Discord.
• Workshop mods you install may request network access; every mod’s network permissions are disclosed on its Workshop page before you subscribe, and Perch pins each mod to the specific hosts it declared.

3. How we use information

We use telemetry solely to operate and improve Perch: understanding which features and widgets are used, finding crashes and performance problems, seeing which platforms need attention, and (in aggregate) showing public statistics such as “most used mods.” We do not sell or rent any data, use it for advertising, or attempt to re-identify anyone from it.

4. Where it goes and how long it stays

Telemetry is received and stored on infrastructure provided by Cloudflare, Inc., acting as our processor. Raw events are retained for approximately 90 days, after which only daily aggregate statistics (counts and totals that describe no individual install) are retained indefinitely. The App is distributed by Valve Corporation through Steam; your purchase and Steam account are governed by Valve’s own privacy policy, and Valve does not share your identity with us.

5. Your controls

• The switch: Settings → Privacy → “Share anonymous usage stats.” Turning it off sends one final “telemetry off” event, deletes the pending queue and your install identifier from your machine, and stops all collection. Turning it back on generates a brand-new random identifier with no link to the old one.
• Reset: because the identifier is random and kept only on your machine, deleting it (via the toggle) permanently unlinks all previously collected events from your install.

Because telemetry is anonymous, we cannot locate “your” data to produce or delete it on request — we have no way of knowing which events are yours. This is by design: the strongest data-subject right is data that was never personal to begin with.

6. Children

The Services are not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

7. Changes

We will post any changes to this policy on this page with a new effective date. Material changes will be noted in the App’s release notes.

8. Contact

Questions about this policy: legal@perchapp.org.