Privacy Policy
In effect from 22 September 2026
The short version
- Your campaigns, characters, notes and transcripts are stored on your own computer, not on our servers.
- When the microphone is on and someone is speaking, the audio goes straight to our speech-to-text provider. It never passes through or is stored on Sidebard's servers.
- To generate proposals, maps and story help, the relevant text is sent to AI providers through our service. Our service passes it along and does not store it.
- We keep your email, your subscription status and a record of how much AI each account uses, so we can bill fairly and enforce the monthly limit. We never see your card details.
- The app can automatically tell us when something breaks and send a daily line of counts, so we can see problems across customers' copies. Neither ever carries a word from your table. You can turn this off in Settings.
- If you run Sidebard at a table, you are responsible for telling your players the microphone is on.
Who we are
Sidebard is a tabletop role-playing assistant made up of a program you install on your computer (the "app") and an online service at sidebard.app (the "service"). It is operated by Ray Create Enterprises LLC ("we", "us"). You can reach us at support@sidebard.app.
What stays on your computer
The app keeps everything you create in a folder on your computer (on Windows, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Sidebard). That includes your campaigns, characters and parties, session plans, notes, imported documents, generated maps and portraits, the text transcripts of your sessions, and your licence key. We do not have a copy of any of it, and we cannot recover it if your computer is lost.
What leaves your computer, and where it goes
Your voice
When you turn the microphone on, the app listens for speech. While someone is speaking, and for a moment either side, the audio is sent directly over an encrypted connection to Deepgram, Inc., which turns it into text. Silence is not sent. The audio does not pass through Sidebard's servers and we never store it. Our service's only part is issuing the short-lived credential that lets the app connect, and recording how many seconds of audio were sent, for billing.
Under Deepgram's standard terms, audio sent to it may be retained and used to improve its speech models (its "Model Improvement Program"). See Deepgram's privacy policy.
The app keeps the resulting transcript on your computer. It does not keep a recording of the audio unless you deliberately turn on the developer recording setting, and that recording also stays on your computer.
Two details worth stating plainly. First, so that Sidebard can tell your players apart, the transcription service marks each stretch of speech with a speaker number — “speaker 1”, “speaker 2” — that means nothing outside that one connection and is thrown away when it ends. No voiceprint, voice model or other measurement of how anyone sounds is created, stored or shared by us. Which player a number belongs to is learned from what is said out loud (“I’m playing Kessa”) and is stored on your computer only. Second, to help the transcription get names right, the app sends a list of your players’ and characters’ names with the connection, along with a label identifying your account that is a one-way hash, not your email.
Text sent to AI models
To understand what was said at the table and suggest what to do next, answer rules questions, help plan sessions, and write descriptions, the app sends the relevant text to Anthropic, PBC (the Claude models). That text can include recent transcript lines, character and creature names and statistics, and details of your campaign. It travels through our service, which adds our API key and passes it on. Our service does not store the content of these requests. It does attach a label identifying your account, which is a one-way hash rather than your email, so that misuse of our key can be traced back to an account. Anthropic's handling is described in Anthropic's privacy policy. Anthropic does not use data sent through its commercial API to train its models by default.
Images
When you generate a battle map or a character portrait, a description of the scene or character, and for maps a simple layout image, is sent through our service to OpenAI, L.L.C. to create the picture. Our service does not store the requests or the images. See OpenAI's privacy policy. OpenAI does not use data sent through its API to train its models by default.
Character imports
If you import a character from D&D Beyond, the app fetches that character's public page from D&D Beyond directly.
Bug reports and ideas
When you press Send in Sidebard's feedback box, your message, the Sidebard version, the screen you were on and the time are sent to us with your account, so we can follow up. Recent log lines are sent only if you tick "Include recent logs"; they can contain a few words from a session. A screenshot is sent only if you attach one yourself, with the button or by pasting it in; a screenshot shows whatever was on your screen when you took it, so have a look before you send it. It is kept with the report. Nothing is sent unless you press Send. We keep reports until we delete them.
Automatic error reports and the daily heartbeat
If something goes wrong inside the app, it can tell us automatically: the type of error, the file and line in Sidebard's own code where it happened, a fingerprint so the same fault is not reported over and over, your Sidebard version, your operating system, and whether this is an installed copy. That is all it ever contains — never an error's message text, log lines, transcripts, campaign content, file paths outside the app, or anything said or typed at your table.
Once every 24 hours the app can also send a heartbeat: counts only, and no text — sessions run, minutes of microphone use, how many suggestion cards you saw and accepted, how often voice, AI calls, maps or the service failed, and how slow AI calls were.
A separate local trace of what Sidebard did during a session (again, never what was said) stays on your computer, and is only sent to us if you tick "Include recent logs" on a feedback report you send yourself.
We keep error reports and heartbeats for 30 days, then delete them. You can turn both off in Settings > Help & about (Send nothing automatic); your own feedback reports, sent only when you press Send, still work either way.
What our service keeps
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your email address | To send your licence key, receipts and account messages, and to let you recover a lost key. |
| Your subscription status, and the customer and subscription identifiers from our payment processor | To know whether your licence is active. |
| Your licence key, stored as a one-way hash, and when it was last used. For the first hour after you buy, a readable copy is also held so the page after checkout can show you the key; it is erased after that hour | To recognise your copy of Sidebard, and to show you your key once. |
| A usage record for each AI request: the time, your account, which provider, how much was used (tokens, images or seconds of audio), an estimated cost, and whether it succeeded | To enforce the monthly usage limit, to show you your usage, and to understand what the service costs to run. These records do not include what was said or written. |
| Automatic error reports: an error's type, where in Sidebard's code it happened, a fingerprint, your version, your OS and whether this is an installed copy | To find and fix faults across customers' copies without asking anyone. Kept 30 days. Never an error's message, log lines or anything from your table. |
| The daily heartbeat: counts of sessions, microphone minutes, suggestion cards, failures by kind, and how slow AI calls were | To see whether voice, maps or AI calls are failing, across all copies. Kept 30 days. Counts only, never text. |
| If you joined the early-access list: your email address | To tell you when Sidebard is available. |
Our hosting provider also keeps short-lived technical logs (such as IP addresses and error messages) to operate and secure the service.
Once a night, a copy of these account, usage and diagnostic records is emailed to the owner of Sidebard as a backup, so that a database failure cannot wipe out your account. Passwords and readable licence keys are removed from that copy before it is sent. It travels through our email provider and is kept in the owner’s mailbox.
We do not store the internet addresses of people who sign in. Where we need to count requests from one place to stop abuse, we store a one-way hash of the address instead, and delete it within hours.
Payments and email
Payments are handled by Stripe. You enter your card details on Stripe's page, and we never see or store them. See Stripe's privacy policy. Account emails are sent through Resend.
Service providers
We use these companies to run Sidebard. Each receives only what it needs for its part:
- Deepgram: speech-to-text
- Anthropic: AI language models
- OpenAI: image generation
- Vercel: hosting of the website and service
- Neon: the database holding account and usage records
- Stripe: payments
- Resend: email delivery
- GitHub: hosting of the installer downloads
- Google Fonts: the typefaces on this website, loaded from Google’s servers, which means Google sees your device’s internet address when you read a page here
These providers may process data in the United States and other countries. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
Your players
Sidebard is bought and run by a game master, but the microphone hears everyone at the table. If you use voice features, you agree to tell the people present that the microphone is on and that speech is sent to a transcription service, and to follow the recording laws where you play. Some places require everyone's consent before a conversation is recorded or transcribed.
In several places, including California and Illinois, everyone in a conversation must agree before it is recorded or transcribed. Asking them is your part, and Sidebard cannot do it for you. If anyone at the table does not agree, leave the microphone off; everything that does not need it still works.
Sidebard is sold to adults: you must be 18 or over to hold an account. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep any information from one. If anyone under 13 is at your table, get a parent’s or guardian’s permission before using voice features, or leave the microphone off. If you believe a child’s information has reached us, write to us and we will delete it.
How long we keep things
- Account and subscription records: for as long as your account exists, and afterwards for as long as tax and accounting rules require.
- Usage records (how much AI and voice an account used, never what was said): 13 months, or until your account is deleted -- a year of your own usage, and a month beyond it in case a charge is disputed.
- The record of the subscription terms you were shown when you subscribed: 3 years. We are required to be able to show what a customer agreed to.
- Records of payments and hours billed: 7 years, as tax and accounting rules require.
- Feedback you send us: 1 year. Anything you attached to it -- the recent log lines, the screenshot -- is deleted after 90 days, leaving the words of your report.
- Automatic error reports and the daily heartbeat: 30 days.
- Sign-in codes: minutes. Used and expired ones are deleted within a day.
- The record of a computer signed in to your account: until you sign it out, or a day after a sign-in that was never finished.
- Early-access email addresses: until Sidebard launches, or until you ask us to remove yours.
- Nightly backups in the owner’s mailbox: they are copies of the above, and go when the message does.
When you ask us to delete your account, we delete your account, your licence keys, the computers on it, your usage records and your feedback within 30 days, except records we must keep by law, such as records of payments. Deleting the account does not cancel a subscription: cancel first, or ask us to do both.
Your campaigns, characters, notes and transcripts are on your computer, and are not ours to delete. Deleting the app’s data folder removes them.
Your choices and rights
- Keep voice off. Everything that doesn't need the microphone works without it.
- Send nothing automatic. Settings > Help & about has a switch that stops automatic error reports and the daily heartbeat. Your own feedback reports still work.
- Access, correction and deletion. Email us from your account address and we will send you what we hold, correct it, or delete it.
- Your campaigns are files on your computer. You can back them up, move them or delete them yourself.
Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to support@sidebard.app from the address on your account and we will answer within 45 days. If we cannot tell who you are from what you send, we may ask for more, and we will use it only to answer you.
We do not sell your personal information, and we have never shared it for advertising. There are no advertising or analytics trackers on this website. Some US state laws give you a right to opt out of such sales; there is nothing here to opt out of.
Depending on where you live, including several US states, the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, you may have further rights, such as objecting to processing, asking us to limit it, or complaining to a regulator. Contact us to use them. We will not treat you differently for doing so, and we do not use your information to make automated decisions about you.
Sidebard is sold to customers in the United States. We do not currently offer it in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom.
Security
Connections to our service and to our providers are encrypted. Licence keys are stored as one-way hashes, apart from the one-hour window described above, passwords are stored only as salted hashes, provider API keys are never shipped inside the app, and account records are held with a hosting provider that encrypts stored data. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we will tell you as the law requires.
Changes
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, for example a new place your voice or text is sent, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
Ray Create Enterprises LLC
7012 E. Granada St, Mesa, Arizona 85207, United States
support@sidebard.app
sidebard.app