But it may be enough for local authorities to find your location using a data request. Real IP addresses are stored for a day and then they become hash. In the “For law enforcement” section, the policy states “Data required for law enforcement, lawsuits and government inquiries (if any).” This is ambiguous and up to interpretation. But it will collect things like your IP address, OS version, OS name, CPU details, error codes and crash reports. While Audacity is nothing more than a desktop application, developers will make it call home with various data retrieved from users’ computers.Īudacity does not have accounts or profiles, so it does not know your name, email address or other personal information. The parent company is a multinational company, and it has tried to start a data collection mechanism in the software. The new privacy policy states that the app will collect limited personal information to improve the application, and notes that the company may share your personal data with law enforcement and sell it to potential buyers. On July 2, Muse Group quietly updated Audacity’s privacy policy with new terms copied directly from Muse Group’s own privacy policy. In May 2021, Audacity was acquired by the Muse group, and this is where the story begins.
– If you did have some concerns about these new TOS though, well, perhaps this will alleviate some of that for you.Audacity is an open source audio editor popular with podcasters and musicians.
With the lack of many better alternatives currently available, for free at least, although this statement from Audacity will likely not soothe some of the more troubled consumers, by and large, we suspect that this will continue to remain an exceptionally popular piece of software. Put simply, the only information that would potentially be shared with ‘WSM’ would be within the remits of engagement in updates and/or error reports with any personal data that was collected to retain solely within ‘Muse’ themselves.
As such, while clearly sounding a bit concerning, there is nothing for its customers to be worried about here. He went onto say that the terms of service were ‘written by lawyers, for lawyers’. We don’t want users’ personal information – that doesn’t help us.” Although not specifically citing what this ‘data’ was, this was clearly enough to ring a few alarm bells among its community.įollowing an official statement from Daniel Ray, head of strategy at Audacity’s parent company ‘Muse’ though, he has categorically stated that although certain information may be shared with ‘WSM’, it will not include anything that could potentially identify or compromise your system It has, in fact, become so significant that its management has felt compelled to issue an official statement categorically confirming that this will never be the case and Audacity will never ‘spy’ on its users! Audacity Denies Spyware ClaimsĬoming in a report via the BBC, the main concern expressed by the Audacity community was that in their newly updated terms of service, part of the agreement from the user was that they would allow their ‘data’ to be shared with Russian-based firm ‘WSM’.
– Following an update to their terms of service, however, there has been a significant outcry from its community that Audacity might’ve been set to start engaging in ‘ spyware‘ activities. Don’t get me wrong though, considering it costs nothing, it’s still an exceptionally handy tool for the amateur recorder looking to get their podcast or audio files in order.
In terms of what it offers regarding functionality, it’s good, but not exactly professional-grade.
Admittedly, this is more to do with the fact that it is available as a free download and is relatively user-friendly.
For many years Audacity has proven to be one of the most popular audio editing software programs around.