Privacy Policy
This policy covers the YellowLight app for Mac and the yellowlight.app website. Both come from NZN Workbench LLC (“we”, “us”).
The short version: YellowLight doesn’t collect any data. It processes your voice on your Mac, it has no access to the internet, and it never records audio or saves what you say. The little it does keep (your settings, numbers about your calls and a troubleshooting log) stays on your Mac, and we never receive it.
1. When YellowLight uses your microphone
YellowLight measures how fast you speak, so it needs to hear you. It listens to your microphone only:
- during calls in the apps ticked in its Settings (Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom, Slack huddles, and FaceTime and phone calls unless you change them; web browsers only if you turn them on);
- when you start it yourself with Start Listening Now, until you choose Stop Listening; or
- all the time while it’s running, but only if you choose “Always” under Listen in Settings.
To tell when a call starts, YellowLight checks which apps are using the microphone and playing sound, from information macOS provides on your Mac (which app it is and which audio devices it uses). It doesn’t capture the sound other apps play, and it doesn’t look at their windows or content.
macOS shows an orange microphone indicator in the menu bar whenever YellowLight (or any app) is using the microphone. You can stop listening for the rest of a call with Pause for This Call, and you can turn YellowLight’s microphone access off at any time in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone.
2. How your speech is processed
The sound from your microphone goes to Apple’s speech recognizer, which is part of macOS and runs on your Mac. It returns the words it heard and when each one was said. YellowLight counts the words and keeps only their timings, in memory, for about the last minute or two, to work out your pace. The words themselves are dropped once they’ve been counted, and the timings are discarded when listening stops.
Audio goes straight to the recognizer and isn’t kept. Audio and recognized words are never written to disk, to a log or anywhere else.
The first time you use YellowLight, macOS may need to download Apple’s on-device speech model for your language. YellowLight asks macOS for it, and macOS downloads it from Apple in the same way it gets other system language files. That download is between your Mac and Apple, is covered by Apple’s privacy policy, and doesn’t include your speech.
3. No network access
YellowLight runs in Apple’s App Sandbox, and the only special permission it has is the microphone. It has no permission to use the network, so macOS blocks it from connecting to the internet or to your local network. It can’t send anything to us or to anyone else.
YellowLight contains no analytics, advertising, tracking or crash-reporting code, and no code from third parties that collects data.
4. What YellowLight stores on your Mac
YellowLight keeps three things, all inside its own folder on your Mac (its App Sandbox container, ~/Library/Containers/com.nznworkbench.yellowlight). None of them contains audio or words.
| What | What’s in it, and where |
|---|---|
| Settings | Your three pace levels and the International call setting, sound and volume, which alerts are on, which call apps to watch, the microphone and headphones you picked (their device ID and name, which can include a name you gave the device), how loud your voice usually is on each microphone you’ve used (one sound level, how far it is above the room’s background noise, and when it was saved), so YellowLight recognizes your voice from the start of your next call, window positions, language and similar preferences. In Data/ |
| Call history | For your last 50 calls with at least 15 seconds of your talking: date and time, the call app’s name, length, how long you talked, average and peak words per minute, the share of your talking time at or under your target and the share over your red level, the number of dings, early warnings and nudges, your longest stretch without a break, and the levels in use (your target and red level, and whether International Call was on). No audio, no words, and nothing about the other people on the call. In Data/ |
| Log | A plain-text activity log for troubleshooting: times, events such as “call started” or “call ended”, the names of the call app and of your audio devices (which can include a name you gave a device, such as “Alex’s AirPods”), words-per-minute numbers, sound levels, how many words were counted or set aside (as numbers, never the words) and error messages. When it passes about 1 MB, it’s renamed YellowLight.old.log (replacing the previous one) and a new log starts. In Data/ |
YellowLight also sends the same log messages to the macOS system log on your Mac, which macOS keeps for a limited time and then deletes by itself. macOS itself keeps track of YellowLight’s microphone permission and whether it opens at login.
This information stays on your Mac, and in your backups if you back up your Mac (for example with Time Machine). We never receive it.
5. How to delete it
- Call history: in YellowLight’s menu, choose Call History…, then choose Clear History… in that window.
- Your voice level: in YellowLight’s Settings, open Calls and choose Forget next to Voice level.
- Everything: quit YellowLight, delete it from your Applications folder, then delete the folder
~/Library/Containers/com.nznworkbench.yellowlight. The support page walks you through it step by step.
6. What we receive
- From the app: nothing. YellowLight can’t connect to the internet.
- When you buy YellowLight: Apple sells YellowLight for us on the Mac App Store and handles payment under Apple’s privacy policy. Apple gives us sales and download reports that don’t identify you.
- Crash reports from Apple: if you’ve turned on “Share with app developers” in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements, Apple may share crash reports and app usage statistics with us in a form that doesn’t personally identify you. We use them only to find and fix problems. You can turn this off at any time in the same place.
- When you email us: we receive your email address and whatever you write or attach (for example, YellowLight’s log, if you choose to send it). We use it only to help you, we don’t add you to any mailing list, and we delete it when we no longer need it to help you or for our records. Our email provider stores these messages for us.
- When you visit this website: the site is plain pages with no cookies, analytics, trackers, ads, or third-party scripts or fonts. The service that hosts it may keep standard technical logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, to keep the site running and secure. We don’t use them to identify or track visitors.
7. Sharing and third parties
We don’t sell, rent or share personal information. YellowLight doesn’t send data to us or to any third party, and it contains no third-party analytics or advertising code. The only outside companies involved are Apple, which sells the app and provides the on-device speech recognition, and the providers that host this website and our email.
8. Children
YellowLight is a tool for people on work and personal calls, and it isn’t directed at children. It doesn’t collect personal information from anyone, including children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information by email, contact us and we’ll delete it.
9. Your choices and rights
Everything YellowLight stores is on your Mac and under your control: you can turn off microphone access, clear your call history, or delete all of YellowLight’s data as described above. We hold no data about you from the app, so there is nothing for us to look up, correct or delete there.
If you’ve emailed us, you can ask to see, correct or delete what you sent, wherever you live, including under laws such as the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Write to the address below and we’ll reply within 30 days.
10. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we’ll post the new version on this page with a new effective date. If a future version of YellowLight ever handled information differently, we’d update this policy before releasing that version.
11. Contact
NZN Workbench LLC
100 S Murphy Ave, STE 200 #4038, Sunnyvale, CA 94086, USA
Phone: +1 (408) 458-9294
Email: [email protected]