Last updated: October 22, 2026
This policy explains what External Software LLC ("we", "us") collects when you use Hark, our store at externalsoftware.com/store and this website, why we collect it, who processes it for us, and the choices you have. External Software is a small software company in Greenville, South Carolina, United States.
Hark records, transcribes and tells the speakers apart on your computer. Recordings, transcripts, your notes, screenshots and your settings are stored on your computer. We never receive your recordings or any audio. To split a transcript into speakers, Hark analyzes the voices in each recording on your computer and discards that analysis once the meeting is processed. Hark does not save voiceprints of the people you record and does not recognize them in later meetings; you name the speakers yourself. Email you choose to download into Hark goes directly from your email provider to your computer and stays there; it never passes through us.
"Recognize my voice" is optional. If you agree to it, Hark makes a voiceprint of your own voice and uses it only to label you in the transcripts of meetings you record on that computer. The voiceprint is encrypted and kept only on that computer. It is never uploaded, never synced and never shared, so we never receive or possess it. Hark deletes it after 6 months, when you choose Delete my voice, or when a different account signs in on that computer. Our full biometric data policy, with the consent text, is the Hark voice data policy.
When you agree, or withdraw, we keep a consent record as proof: your account email, the name you type as your signature, the date and time, the full text of the consent, the text of the sentence you read aloud (the words, not the recording), the IP address you agreed from and the approximate location it indicates (country, region and city), the name of the computer, the Hark version and the technical details your computer sends with the request (its "user agent"). If you withdraw, we record when, and the IP address you withdrew from. The record contains no voice data. We keep it for 6 years after the consent ends (when you withdraw or it expires), then delete it. You can see your consent records on your account page. We do not sell, lease or trade consent records, and we disclose them only where the law requires it or to show that consent was given.
So we can fix problems, Hark sends a crash report when it crashes or runs into an error. Reports are on unless you turn off "Send crash reports to External Software" in Preferences. A report says what went wrong and where in Hark's code: the kind of error and Hark's own message about it, the list of Hark functions that were running, the Hark and Java versions, and which operating system you use. Before a report leaves your computer, Hark removes file and folder names, email addresses and anything Hark was working on (such as meeting titles or names), and leaves out your account, your computer's name and your IP address. Reports never include recordings, transcripts, notes, screenshots or email. If Java itself crashed, Hark sends the next time it starts the part of Java's crash log that shows where the crash happened, then deletes that log. Reports go to Sentry, a service that collects error reports. Like any web service, Sentry sees the internet address a report comes from. Sentry deletes reports after at most 90 days.
Sync is optional and part of the subscription. It is end-to-end encrypted: Hark encrypts everything on your computer with a key that only your own computers have. When you turn sync on, Hark shows you a recovery key; a new computer joins either by being approved from one that already syncs or with the recovery key. We store the encrypted data and a copy of the key that only your recovery key can unlock, so we cannot read what you sync, and neither can anyone who got hold of our servers. Sync carries meeting transcripts (who said what and when), your notes, screenshots, final AI meeting notes and settings (preferences, note styles, themes and Names & terms). It never carries recordings or other audio, voice data or email. What we can see is how much you store and when your computers sync. Because we cannot decrypt it, if you lose every computer and the recovery key, the synced copy cannot be recovered.
Hark's AI features (live notes, meeting titles, proofreading, screenshot descriptions and final meeting notes) are part of the subscription. When you use them, Hark sends the text the feature needs (transcript text, never audio, and for some features your notes or screenshots) through our AI relay to Anthropic, whose Claude models write the results. The relay checks that your account has access, passes the request on and records only usage per account per month: the number of requests, token counts and cost. It does not store what you sent or what came back.
Anthropic processes these requests as our service provider under its commercial terms, which do not allow it to train its models on them. Anthropic keeps requests for a short time to detect misuse and then deletes them, as described in its privacy center. We never use your meetings to train AI, and we do not let anyone else do so.
You can connect Claude Desktop or Claude Code to Hark so Claude can read your meetings and email on your computer. That connection runs on your computer and uses your own Claude account, not ours. What Claude reads that way is covered by your own agreement with Anthropic and your Claude privacy settings, including whether your chats may be used to improve Claude's models. Check those settings if that matters to you.
We do not sign Business Associate Agreements, so do not use sync or AI features for health information protected by HIPAA, or for other data you are legally barred from sharing with a service provider. Recording and transcribing on your computer sends nothing to us.
You decide whom you record. Many places require everyone's consent before a conversation is recorded; see recording consent laws by state. Telling the people you record, and getting their consent where the law requires it, is your responsibility.
To run your External Software account, we keep:
We also count how many times each installer is downloaded (which version, for which operating system, and when), but not who downloaded it.
Payments are handled by Stripe. Your card details go straight to Stripe and never reach us; we keep only the Stripe customer and subscription references needed to match payments to your account. Stripe's use of your information is covered by the Stripe privacy policy.
We use this information to provide Hark and your subscription, send you sign-in codes and receipts, answer your questions, prevent fraud and abuse, and meet our legal and tax obligations. We email you about your account; we do not send you marketing email unless you ask for it.
Like most websites, ours receives the technical details your browser sends (IP address, browser type and the page you asked for). Cloudflare, which hosts the site, uses these to deliver pages and block attacks.
To understand how people find and use the site, we use:
The store pages and the Hark app use neither of these. The cookies policy lists the cookies the site uses. The site does not respond to browsers' "Do Not Track" signals; since we do not sell or share personal information for advertising, there is nothing for such a signal to switch off.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for targeted ("cross-context behavioral") advertising, as those terms are used in the California Consumer Privacy Act and similar state laws. We have not done so in the past 12 months. We do not sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. If that ever changes, we will update this policy first and give you a way to opt out.
We use these companies to run our services. Each may use your information only to provide its service to us.
We may also disclose information when the law requires it (for example, a valid court order), to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or to a buyer if External Software is sold or merged, in which case this policy keeps applying to the information you gave us.
Hark encrypts passwords and keys on your computer using your computer's own protected storage (Windows data protection, the macOS Keychain or the Linux keyring), and the voiceprint is only ever kept that way. Sync is end-to-end encrypted. Connections to us are encrypted, and we store sign-in codes and device tokens only in scrambled (hashed) form. No method is perfect, but we collect as little as we can so there is less to protect.
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
Email privacy@externalsoftware.com from the email address on your account, so we can confirm the request is yours. Someone you authorize can also ask for you. We answer within 45 days, free of charge, and we will never treat you differently for using these rights. Some things you can do yourself at any time: delete your voice in Hark, start sync over, and see your consent records on your account page. Everything on your computer is yours to delete.
California residents: in the past 12 months we collected identifiers (such as your email address, IP address and computer identifiers), commercial information (your subscription and purchases) and internet activity (how you use this website), from you and your devices, for the purposes described in this policy, and disclosed them only to the companies listed above. We do not collect or use sensitive personal information to infer things about you. Hark's voiceprint stays on your computer and is never collected by us.
Visitors from the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom: we process your information to provide the services you ask for (contract), with your consent (Recognize my voice), and for our legitimate interests in understanding and securing our website. Our services run in the United States. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.
Our services are for adults; our terms require you to be 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. For important changes, we will tell account holders by email or in Hark before they take effect.