Privacy Policy

1. Waitlist & Website Data

When you visit the Soniq preview site or submit your email address to join the launch waitlist, we collect only the minimum information required to fulfill your request:

• Waitlist Email Address: If you submit your email via the Notify me at launch form, we store that address solely to send you a single notification when Soniq v1.0 for Windows 10 and 11 is ready for download. We do not send marketing newsletters or share our waitlist with third parties.
• Local Browser Storage: On the interactive preview site, your waitlist submission status is cached in your browser's local storage (soniq.waitlist.v1) so the page remembers you have already signed up.
• No Third-Party Tracking Cookies: We do not load advertising scripts, retargeting pixels, or session-recording beacons. Basic server access logs (IP address and user-agent string) are retained for no more than 14 days strictly for DDoS mitigation and security diagnostics.

2. How the Windows Desktop App Handles Playback Data

Soniq is designed to sit above your workspace and react to the music playing on your machine. All core media processing happens locally on your device:

• System Media Transport Controls (system-smtc): Soniq reads the currently playing song title, artist name, album title, playback timeline, and thumbnail artwork directly from the Windows OS media session API (used by Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and web browsers). This metadata stays in local memory to render your widget and extract colour palettes.
• Audio Visualizer Spectrum: When the real-time visualizer is active, Soniq samples loopback audio frequencies in memory on your PC to animate the spectrum bars and sync your pixel companion's dance tempo. Audio buffers are never recorded, written to disk, or transmitted over the network.
• Widget Preferences & Companion State: Your chosen widget finish, screen coordinates, and pixel companion progress (such as hatched eggs, stats, and accessories) are saved locally in your Windows user profile directory.

3. Optional Network Features & Integrations

Soniq only makes outbound network requests when you enable features that require external data:

• Word-Synced Lyrics: When karaoke lyrics are enabled, Soniq sends only the current track's title, artist, and duration to our lyrics provider to fetch time-synced lyric lines. No user identifier or hardware fingerprint is attached to these queries.
• Discord Rich Presence: If you turn on Discord status sharing, Soniq communicates with your locally running Discord client over Discord's local IPC socket on your computer. Your use of Discord is governed by Discord's own privacy policy.
• Automatic Updates: The desktop app periodically checks our release endpoint for signed v1.x updates, sending only the current app version and Windows architecture.

4. Data Retention & Security

Waitlist email addresses are stored in an encrypted database with strict access controls. Within 60 days after the public v1.0 launch notification is sent, all unconfirmed waitlist email records are permanently deleted.

We never sell, rent, or trade personal data. We only disclose information if compelled by a valid, binding court order or subpoena.

5. Your Rights & Data Deletion

Regardless of where you live (including under GDPR, UK GDPR, and CCPA), you have the right to access, export, or erase any personal data we hold about you:

• To remove your email from the pre-launch waitlist at any time, email us from the address you registered and we will purge it within 48 hours.
• To clear local data stored by this preview website, clear your browser's site data for this domain to remove the soniq.waitlist.v1 key.

6. Contact & Updates

If we make material updates to this Privacy Policy before or at the launch of Soniq v1.0, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. For privacy questions or deletion requests, contact us at privacy@soniq.app.