Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Fae Software Limited ("Fae", "we", "us", or "our") operates the website usefae.com. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your information when you visit our website, contact us, or buy and use our software, such as Bench.

2. Information We Collect

We collect very little information. Specifically:

• Contact details you send us: If you email us or book an introductory call, we receive whatever you choose to include, typically your name, email address, and a description of your project.
• Basic analytics: We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused analytics tool that does not use cookies and does not collect personal data. It tracks aggregate page views and referral sources only.
• Purchases: If you buy software from us, Stripe tells us your name, email address, what you bought, when, the amount and currency, and its own references for the order. We keep these as your purchase record.
• License checks: When an app such as Bench activates or checks its license, it sends us the license key or a certificate, the app version, and a one-way hash of the Mac’s hardware identifier (the identifier itself never leaves your Mac). For each Mac a license is activated on, we keep that hash, when it was activated, when it last checked in, and the app version. The license records hold no IP addresses, Mac names or history of how you use the app.
• Web server logs: Like most websites, our web server logs each request it receives: the page or address asked for, the time, the IP address it came from, and the browser’s or app’s user agent. We keep these logs briefly, for security and troubleshooting. To slow down abuse, some forms and the license service also count recent requests from each IP address, for a short time. The logs cover every request to usefae.com, including license checks, the form that sends a lost license key again, and the update checks described below.
• Update checks: Bench checks usefae.com for new versions (it reads usefae.com/bench/appcast.xml). These are ordinary web requests that carry no license or usage data; they appear only in the web server logs.

Payment details go to Stripe and Link, never to us: Fae does not see or store your card number. The free trial of Bench needs no account and sends us no license or usage data; like any copy of Bench, it checks for updates.

We do not operate a marketing mailing list, and we do not run advertising or cross-site tracking of any kind.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information you send us to:

• Respond to your inquiry
• Schedule and prepare for a call you requested
• Carry out any engagement you subsequently enter into with us
• Send you your license key and messages about your purchase, such as a refund
• Validate licenses, and spot keys that are shared or abused by counting the Macs each one is used on
• Answer support questions, handle refunds, and keep the sales records the law requires
• Keep the website and the license service secure, and fix problems with them

That's it. We do not sell, rent, or share your information with third parties for their marketing purposes, and we will not add you to a mailing list.

4. Third-Party Services

We use a third-party scheduling provider to handle call bookings, and standard email infrastructure to receive and reply to messages. Information you provide through those services is held by them under their own privacy policies and data protection obligations, for the sole purpose of arranging and conducting our correspondence with you.

Stripe processes payments for our software. You check out on a page run by Stripe, and your order is sold through Link, Stripe’s checkout and payment service. Stripe and Link collect your payment details, billing details and anything else checkout asks for, and handle your receipt and any sales tax, under their own privacy policies (stripe.com/privacy and link.com/privacy). Postmark sends the emails that carry license keys. Our website, its database and its logs run on servers rented from a hosting provider.

5. Cookies

Our website does not use tracking cookies. Plausible Analytics is cookieless by design. Your browser may store standard technical cookies required for the website to function, such as a session cookie, but we do not use any cookies for advertising or tracking purposes. Stripe’s checkout page sets its own cookies under Stripe’s policy.

6. Your Rights

If you want us to delete the correspondence and contact details we hold for you, email us at hello@usefae.com and we will remove them promptly, subject to any records we are required to retain for legal or accounting purposes.

We keep a license, its purchase record and the record of the Macs it is activated on for as long as the license exists, and sales records for as long as tax law requires. Deleting a license record also turns off its key, so ask for that only once you no longer need the key.

Under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA), you have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal information. To exercise these rights, contact us at the email address below.

7. If You’re in the EU or UK

If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the GDPR or the UK GDPR applies to the information we hold about you, and gives you these details and rights:

• Who is responsible: Fae Software Limited is the controller of your information. You can reach us at the address below.
• Why we may use it: We use your purchase and license records to deliver what you bought and check your license (our contract with you). We use web server logs, and the count of Macs on each key, to prevent fraud and keep our services secure (our legitimate interests). We use what you send us by email to answer you, because you asked.
• How long we keep it: License and purchase records for as long as the license exists, plus whatever tax and accounting law requires for sales records. Web server logs briefly. Correspondence until you ask us to delete it, unless we have to keep it.
• Where it goes: Fae is based in Canada. Your information is also handled by the service providers named above, such as Stripe, Postmark and our hosting provider, which may store it in other countries under their own safeguards.
• Your rights: You can ask to see, correct, delete or take a copy of your information, and object to or ask us to limit how we use it. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live, such as the ICO in the UK.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your information from unauthorized access or disclosure. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure.

9. Children's Privacy

This website is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this page.

11. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at: