Privacy Policy
This policy explains the small amount of personal data that does exist around OnDeck — almost all of it a consequence of taking payment and answering support email — and what happens to it.
1. The application
The OnDeck desktop application:
- does not collect usage statistics, crash reports, or analytics of any kind;
- does not require an account, sign-in, or online activation;
- does not upload, scan, index, or transmit your media, projects, or exports;
- opens no network connections. Its media engine is built with networking compiled out entirely, and license verification happens on your own machine.
Files the application writes stay in your own user profile: settings and your license file live in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\OnDeck on Windows and
~/Library/Application Support/OnDeck on macOS. Projects and exports go wherever you choose to
save them.
The application can open your browser or email client — for example the Help menu, or the bug-report link. In those cases your browser or mail app makes the connection, using whatever settings you have configured; OnDeck simply hands the address to your operating system.
2. Your email address in your license file
Your license file contains the email address you used at purchase, and the application displays it. You can see it yourself under Help ▸ About, which will read "Licensed to" followed by your name and address.
This is deliberate, and we want you to understand exactly what it does and does not mean:
- Why it is there: it is what makes a copy attributable to a person. It is the reason we can sell OnDeck without an activation server, a login, or a check-in — the license identifies itself rather than calling us to ask.
- Where it goes: nowhere. The address sits in a file on your computer and is read by the application on your computer. It is not transmitted, and we do not learn when or whether you run OnDeck.
- What it is not embedded in: your work. Your email address is not written into images, PDFs, project files, or any other document OnDeck exports. Files you send to a client contain nothing identifying you beyond what you put there yourself.
If your license file is shared with someone else, your email address goes with it. Please treat it as personal to you.
3. When you buy OnDeck
Purchases are handled by Paddle.com Market Limited, which acts as the merchant of record. Paddle collects the information needed to take payment and meet tax obligations — typically your name, email address, billing country, and payment details.
We never see or store your payment details. Card and banking information is handled entirely by Paddle and their payment processors. From Paddle we receive your name, email address, country, and order details, which we use to issue your license and provide support.
Paddle is an independent data controller for the data it collects. See Paddle's privacy policy.
4. When you contact us
If you email hello@ctrlcolab.com, we keep the message and your address so we can reply and keep track of the conversation. If you send us a diagnostic report from the application's Bug Report feature, it contains technical details about your system and the media you had open; you can review the contents before sending, and file paths can be redacted from it in Preferences.
5. This website
ctrlcolab.com runs no analytics, advertising, or tracking scripts, and sets no tracking cookies. Our hosting provider (Vercel) keeps standard server request logs, which include IP addresses, for security and operational purposes.
These pages load fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to Google's servers when you view them. That request is subject to Google's own privacy policy.
6. What we keep, and for how long
| Data | Why | Kept for |
|---|---|---|
| Name, email, country, order details | Issuing your license, support, reissuing a lost license | As long as your license is valid, plus any period required for tax and accounting records |
| Support email correspondence | Answering you, and keeping context for follow-ups | Up to 3 years after the conversation ends |
| Payment details | Taking payment | Held by Paddle, never by us |
| Anything about your use of the application | — | Never collected |
7. Sharing
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only with the providers needed to run the business — our payment provider (Paddle), our email provider, and our hosting provider — and where we are legally required to.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export the personal data we hold about you, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to a data-protection authority. This includes rights under the EU/UK GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
Email hello@ctrlcolab.com and we will action it. There is very little to retrieve, which is the point. Note that deleting your purchase record means we can no longer reissue your license if you lose it — your existing license file will keep working regardless, because it needs nothing from us.
9. Children
OnDeck is a professional tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16.
10. Changes
If we change this policy we will update the effective date above. Material changes will be noted on this page. A change to this policy can never retroactively make the application collect something — that would require a software update, and it would be in the release notes.
11. Who we are, and how to reach us
The data controller for the personal data described in this policy is CTRL Colab LLC, the developer and seller of OnDeck.
Privacy questions and requests: hello@ctrlcolab.com