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Privacy policy

Last updated 17 October 2026

Collie is a voice assistant for coding agents, and it runs on your own computer. This policy covers the iPhone and Android apps, the desktop app, the collie-server daemon and the shared relay at relay.freethinkel.dev.

The short version

• There are no accounts. You never sign up for Collie.
• No tracking or ads, and no third-party SDKs that collect personal data. The apps and this site count anonymous usage events with Aptabase.
• Your voice and transcripts go only to your own computer.
• I don't sell or share anything for marketing.

What stays on your devices

You pair the phone with your computer by scanning a QR code. The phone keeps the pairing key in its secure storage, the keychain on iPhone and the Keystore on Android, and never sends it to me. Call history stays on the phone.

During a call the phone sends audio to collie-server on your computer. collie-server recognizes the speech, answers and speaks back. The answers come from the Claude Code you already have on that computer, under your own agreement with its provider.

How calls reach your computer

At home a call goes over your local network, and away from home over Tailscale if you use it. Either way it goes straight to the server on your own computer, encrypted in transit like any WebRTC call.

Otherwise, by default, the call goes through the shared relay at relay.freethinkel.dev, which I run. Call audio through the relay is always end-to-end encrypted between the phone and your computer, so the relay can't hear it or read the transcript. The apps refuse a relay call that isn't encrypted this way. The relay keeps only what it needs to work:

• the registration secret of each computer that joined it,
• the client IP address, for rate limits,
• call minutes, for usage limits,
• up to 32 push notification tokens per computer, to deliver notifications.

You can host your own relay instead, or not use one at all.

Notifications

When an agent waits for you, your computer sends a notification through the relay to Apple Push Notification service. The phone decrypts the text itself. Apple and the relay see only that a notification went out.

Anonymous usage statistics

The phone apps, the desktop app and this site send anonymous usage events to Aptabase, on its servers in the EU, so I can see which features get used and where calls fail. For example: "app started", "call ended after about 2 minutes, through the relay" or "a call failed: offline". An event carries the app version, the operating system, the language and the country worked out from the IP address. The IP address itself isn't stored, and there's no device id, account or cookie, so events can't be tied to you. They never carry machine names, addresses, pairing keys, transcripts or anything you say.

Optional cloud speech

By default local models on your computer recognize and speak. If you add your own API key for Soniox, Deepgram, ElevenLabs, OpenAI or another provider in the desktop app, your computer sends call audio or text to that provider directly. That happens under your own account and the provider's privacy policy. The phone never talks to these providers, and I never see your keys.

Permissions

The phone app asks for the microphone, for calls. It asks for the local network to reach your computer at home, and for notifications to tell you when an agent waits. On iPhone it also asks for the camera, only to scan the pairing QR code. Camera frames never leave the phone.

Children

Collie is a developer tool. It isn't meant for children.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, I'll post the new version here with a new date. Questions go to [email protected].