This Privacy Policy explains how Joel Schat operating as Cut Valet ("we", "us", or "our") handles information in connection with the Cut Valet desktop application and the cutvalet.com website (the "Service").
Purchase information. When you buy Cut Valet, payment is processed by Lemon Squeezy, our Merchant of Record. Lemon Squeezy collects and processes your name, email, and billing/payment details to complete the transaction and issue your licence. We receive limited order information (such as your email and order details) to deliver your licence key, provide support, and handle refunds. We never receive or store your full card number. See Lemon Squeezy's privacy policy for how they process payment data.
Your media and projects. Cut Valet processes your footage, audio, transcripts, and project data locally on your device. This content is not sent to us and we cannot access it.
On-device AI. Transcription, tagging, search indexing and, by default, clip analysis run locally using open-source models on your machine. This processing does not leave your computer.
Optional cloud AI. Some optional features can send small pieces of text (for example, a transcript excerpt for a title or description) to a cloud AI provider you choose (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google or Perplexity). Separately, if you switch clip analysis from local to a cloud provider, Cut Valet sends sampled still frames from your clips, with timestamps, to that provider so it can describe them. Your original media files are never uploaded, and this only happens if you select a cloud analysis provider yourself. These calls use your own API key and only occur when you choose to use those features. Your use of a cloud provider is subject to that provider's own terms and privacy policy.
Optional YouTube / Google. If you choose to publish to YouTube, Cut Valet connects to your own Google account via Google's authorization (OAuth) to upload on your behalf. We do not receive your Google password, and we access only what is needed to perform the actions you request. Your use of YouTube is subject to Google's terms and privacy policy.
Diagnostics. Cut Valet keeps logs on your device to help with troubleshooting. These stay local unless you choose to send them to us. When you do send a diagnostics report, it includes technical details about your setup: operating system and build, your processor, memory and graphics card, DaVinci Resolve version, Python environment, your recent application logs, a copy of your app settings with all keys, tokens, passwords and credentials removed, and the email address on your licence so we can reply. Unlike the anonymous usage data described below, a diagnostics report is not anonymous, and the logs and settings in it can contain the file paths, file names and project names the app was working with, which is often exactly what makes a bug findable. Nothing is ever sent without you choosing to send it, and Cut Valet never sends a crash report silently: if a previous session crashed, it asks, and declining means it will not ask again for that crash. Reports you do send are delivered to a private developer channel hosted by Discord, where only we can read them.
Licence activation. When you activate or validate your licence key, Cut Valet contacts Lemon Squeezy to check the key and record how many devices it is active on.
Updates and downloads. Application downloads and update checks are served from GitHub, which will see your IP address as part of serving the file.
Cut Valet reports anonymous usage data to TelemetryDeck, an analytics service hosted in the European Union, so we can see which features are used and which builds are in the wild. TelemetryDeck is anonymous by design: it double-hashes identifiers and does not store IP addresses.
Each launch sends one signal, plus one more for each feature you used. Between them they carry:
It never includes your footage, filenames, file paths, transcripts, project names, prompts or any other text you type, your email address, username, hostname, licence key, API keys, or anything derived from your IP address. We cannot identify you from it, and we cannot connect it to your purchase.
We do not use it for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with anyone other than TelemetryDeck acting as our processor.
It is on by default, and you can turn it off. A notice explaining it appears once, the first time you launch Cut Valet, and offers Keep it on or Turn it off. Whichever you press is recorded as your choice, and the notice does not come back. You can change it at any time in Settings → General → Privacy, using the Share anonymous usage data checkbox. Turning it off stops all sending immediately, with no restart needed, and nothing counted while it was off is sent later.
To have your usage data deleted, open Settings → General → Privacy, press Copy next to Install ID, and email that ID to me@joelschat.com. That ID is the only thing linking the data to your install, and it cannot be looked up from our side, so we can only action a request that includes it.
Our website is a static informational site hosted by Netlify. It sets no cookies, runs no advertising or analytics scripts, and loads no third-party trackers. Standard server logs, including IP addresses, may be collected by our host for security and reliability. If you email us, we use your address only to reply and to send updates you have asked for.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for advertising.
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on the following legal bases. Performance of a contract, to deliver your licence, downloads and support. Legal obligation, to keep tax and transaction records. Legitimate interests, to keep the Service secure and to understand which features are used so we can improve them; you can object to the analytics at any time by turning them off in Settings → General → Privacy. Consent, where you opt in to updates by email.
We operate from Canada, and some of the providers listed above are in the United States or the European Union. Where information is transferred out of the UK or the European Economic Area, it is protected by an adequacy decision, or by Standard Contractual Clauses with the provider concerned. Canada holds a partial adequacy decision from the European Commission for commercial organisations.
Order records are retained for as long as Canadian tax law requires, currently six years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Support correspondence is kept for up to two years after the matter is closed. Anonymous usage analytics are retained by TelemetryDeck for up to two years. Diagnostics reports you send are deleted once the issue is resolved. We take reasonable measures to protect the information we handle; no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, to receive it in a portable format, and to withdraw consent you have given. These rights are consistent with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation, and other applicable laws.
To make a request, email me@joelschat.com. We will respond within 30 days. You will never be charged or treated differently for exercising these rights. If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area and you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to your national data protection authority. In Canada, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
California residents. You have the right to know what personal information we collect and why, to request deletion or correction, to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
The Service is not directed to children under the age of majority in their jurisdiction, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.
We may update this policy from time to time and will revise the "Last updated" date above when we do.
Questions or requests? Contact us at me@joelschat.com.