Privacy policy.

The short version: your recordings and transcripts are processed on your own computer and never sent to us or anyone else. What does leave your browser relates to hosting, advertising and, if enabled, analytics; in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, advertising and analytics cookies are set only with your consent.

Who we are

FreeTranscribe (free-transcribe.com) is an independent website run from the Netherlands. You can reach us at [email protected].

Your files and transcripts

When you choose an audio or video file, it is read by the browser on your device. Decoding and speech recognition run locally, using a model downloaded into your browser cache. No part of the file, its name, its metadata or the resulting transcript is transmitted to our servers or to any third party. The site has no upload endpoint. We could not read your recording even if we wanted to.

The transcript exists only in the browser tab until you copy or download it. Closing the tab discards it. The tool stores one small preference in your browser's session storage (whether you accepted the slower processing mode), which is cleared when the browser closes.

Microphone

The microphone mode asks the browser for microphone access when you press the button, and only then. What you say is transcribed on your device as you speak. A copy of the audio is held in the tab's memory so you can play it back and export it afterwards; it is discarded when you start a new file or close the tab, and it is never transmitted.

Model files

The first time you transcribe, your browser downloads the speech model and stores it in its cache so later visits are faster. That download is an ordinary web request: the host it is fetched from sees your IP address and the file requested, as any web server does. At present the model files are served from the Hugging Face Hub; if we move them to our own content delivery network this page will be updated. You can remove the cached model at any time by clearing site data in your browser.

Advertising

The site carries advertising served by Google AdSense on pages with substantial content. Advertising is not shown on this page, the terms page, the contact page, error pages, or when the transcriber cannot run in your browser. Where ads are shown, Google and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads, to measure them and, where you have consented, to personalise them based on your visits to this and other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies is described at policies.google.com/technologies/ads. How Google uses information from sites that use its services is explained at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can opt out of personalised advertising at google.com/settings/ads or at aboutads.info/choices.

Third-party vendors and ad networks may also serve ads on this site through Google's advertising network. Google publishes the list of ad technology providers it works with at support.google.com/admanager/answer/9012903; each provider's site explains its own cookie use and how to opt out of personalised advertising there.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, a Google-certified consent dialog asks for your consent before any advertising cookies are set. You can change your choice at any time with the "Privacy settings" link in the footer, which appears on pages where the consent dialog is available.

If advertising is paused or removed, the advertising script is not loaded and none of the above applies; this page is updated when that changes.

Analytics

Analytics are not currently enabled on this site. If we enable them, they will be limited to counting visits and completed transcriptions, with IP addresses anonymised and no file names or transcript content ever recorded, and this page will be updated first.

What we do not collect

• No account, no email address, no name, unless you write to us.
• No audio, video, file names or transcripts.
• No server-side logs of what you transcribe, because there is no server-side transcription.

Server logs

Our hosting provider (Cloudflare) keeps standard request logs (IP address, user agent, requested URL, time) for security and abuse prevention. These are retained for a short period and are not combined with any other data.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Your rights

Because we do not hold personal data about you beyond what is described above, most requests under the GDPR or similar laws will be answered by pointing you to your browser settings and to Google's controls. If you believe we hold data about you, email us and we will respond within 30 days.

Changes

We will update this page when the site changes. The date at the top tells you when it was last revised.