Privacy policy.
The current policy is: nothing is collected.
The short version
Silo Scan collects no data. None.
No analytics. No telemetry. No account. No personal data. No usage metrics. No error beacons. No advertising IDs. No fingerprinting. No crash reports. No data about you, your device, or your content is collected by Silo Systems or transmitted by Silo Scan. What the app keeps stays in its own container on your Mac: your documents, their search index, your settings, and a small record of when the app was installed, when you filed a document or discarded a pending scan, when a save failed, and when Apple's rating prompt was requested. That record only decides when that prompt, described below, may appear.
Everything Silo Scan does runs on the Mac where you use it, using Apple's Vision framework, which is already part of macOS. There is no cloud component, no remote service, and no Silo Scan account.
What we don't have, and therefore never see
Because Silo Scan has no server-side component, none of the following exists anywhere in our infrastructure (which consists of: nothing): your name, email, phone, or address; your IP address, device identifier, or any hardware fingerprint; your content and anything derived from it; session timing, feature usage, or behavioural data; crash reports. The app does not phone home, ever.
It has no network access at all
This is stronger than a promise not to transmit. Silo Scan ships with two sandbox entitlements and neither is a networking entitlement:
com.apple.security.app-sandbox— required for Mac App Store distribution.com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write— read the files you import and write the copies you export, both through the standard macOS panels.
Without com.apple.security.network.client the App Sandbox refuses outbound connections, and without com.apple.security.network.server it cannot listen for inbound ones. There is no bundled runtime, no loopback service, and no model download — text recognition uses the Vision framework already present in macOS.
Outbound traffic you initiate
There is none from the app. Two things can touch the network on your behalf, and in both the connection is made by macOS or your browser, never by Silo Scan:
- The App Store. When Apple ships an update, the App Store delivers it. After you have filed at least two documents and the app has been installed for at least a week, Silo Scan may also ask macOS to show Apple's standard rating prompt, at most three times a year. macOS draws that prompt and the app is never told what you chose. A rating you choose to submit goes to Apple, not to us. That traffic is between your Mac and Apple.
- Links you click. A link opens in your default browser, which is a separate application.
Permissions we request, and why
- Files you choose. The open panel reads the images and PDFs you import; the save panel writes the copies you export. The app reaches nothing else on disk.
Silo Scan requests no camera, microphone, location, contacts, or automation access. System permission controls remain in effect at all times.
On-device data you create
Your documents and their search index live inside the app sandbox at ~/Library/Containers/com.silosystems.siloscan/Data/Library/Application Support/SiloScan/— the PDFs as ordinary files, the index as a local SQLite database. Files you import are read only for that import, and exports go to the folder you pick in the save panel. They are yours; we have no access to them. Removing the app bundle may leave sandbox data in place, so delete documents in the app first if you want them gone. Exports you have already saved elsewhere remain until you delete them.
Third-party components
Silo Scan uses the system frameworks, local model assets, or open-source components listed below. None receive any data about you from Silo Scan:
Silo Scan uses Apple system frameworks only: Vision for text recognition and document detection, Core Image for straightening the page, PDFKit and Core Graphics for writing the PDF, the copy of SQLite that ships with macOS for the local search index, and StoreKit to show Apple's rating prompt. There are no third-party SDKs, no analytics libraries, no crash reporters, and no bundled or downloaded models.
Children's privacy
Silo Scan is rated 4+. Because no personal data is collected from any user, no special treatment is required for users under 13. Same policy applies regardless of age: nothing collected.
Changes
If we ever materially change how Silo Scan handles data, we will publish an updated version of this page, announce the change prominently in the release notes, and require explicit consent in-app before any new collection begins. The current policy is: nothing is collected.
Contact
Questions about this policy: admin@ohmslaw.net
For non-private inquiries you can also open an issue at github.com/flowmar47/silo-scan/issues.