Privacy Policy

In one table

Every network connection the application can make, and what triggers it. Nothing else leaves your computer.

Send Feedback

The feedback window (Help › Send Feedback…) lets you write to us. Nothing is sent until you press Send. When you do, the application posts one report to our support server at https://appsupport-gajv.onrender.com, a service we run on Render (Render Services, Inc., USA). The report contains:

• the text you wrote;
• the images you attached, if any. Nothing is attached unless you attach it yourself;
• a technical context: the application version and build, the Windows version and processor architecture, the computer’s host name, the display language, the keyboard layout, the screen size and scale, whether the canvas is drawn by the graphics card, the last lines of the application’s own log, and — if a document is open — the active tool, the zoom and the colour mode. Not the picture, not its name, not its path.

If you are offline the report is queued in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Flare\feedback-outbox\ and sent the next time the application starts with a connection. You can delete that folder at any time and the queued report is gone.

The host name is included so that several reports from the same machine can be read together. It is the only identifier in a report; there is no account and no e-mail address unless you type one in the text. The same window is where you tell us that the AI assistant gave you an inappropriate answer.

Diagnostics and crash reports

The application keeps a plain-text log on your computer. With Send diagnostic logs automatically switched on in Edit › Preferences… › Debug (it is on by default), errors and the actions that led to them are sent to the same support server, so that we can fix what breaks. Never document content. Send Logs Now sends the current log once; Reveal Log File shows it to you in File Explorer.

If the application crashes, it writes a report and a memory dump on your computer (in C:\dumps if that folder exists or can be created, otherwise in your temporary folder). At the next launch the report is shown to you and, if the switch above is on, its text — the exception, the call stack with module names, the last window messages and the technical context described above — is sent as one report. The memory dump is not sent. Turn the switch off and nothing is sent; the local files stay where they are and you can delete them.

AI Console

The AI Console is an assistant inside the application that can use the application’s own commands. It only talks to the network when you press Send. What happens depends on the engine chosen in Edit › Preferences… › AI:

Native — the default, no key needed

• The request goes to our AI proxy at https://appsupport-gajv.onrender.com, which forwards it to the AI provider it is configured with — Anthropic, OpenAI or Google (all in the USA) — and returns the answer. The provider processes the request under its own terms; we send it nothing that identifies you.
• The request contains your prompt, the images you attached and, when the assistant uses its tools, what those tools report about the open document (for example its size, its colour mode and the names of its layers). The tools run on your computer; the pixels of your picture are not sent unless you attach an image yourself.
• Each request carries a random device id: a UUID generated the first time and kept in the application’s settings file. It exists only so that the proxy can apply a daily limit of free requests; it is not linked to a person, an account or a computer name, and it is not used to track what you do.

Your own key (Anthropic or Google)

• The request goes directly from your computer to the provider you chose, with your key, under that provider’s terms. Nothing passes through our server and there is no daily limit from us.
• Your API keys are kept in the Windows Credential Manager for your user account, not in a settings file.

Conversations are kept locally so that you can reopen them; they are not uploaded anywhere except as part of a request you send.

Creator Suite

A few commands, such as Isolate Background and the Creator Suite source of Depth Map, are processed by Rainbowfactory’s own Creator Suite service instead of on your computer. The first time you run one, the application asks: This sends the image to Creator Suite servers for processing. Continue? Nothing is uploaded unless you choose Continue; Don’t ask again remembers your answer, and the cloud features can be turned off altogether in Edit › Preferences… › AI.

• What is uploaded: the picture and, where the command uses it, the selection. The result comes back as a new layer, mask or selection.
• The service uses an anonymous sign-in (Google Identity Toolkit): no e-mail, no name, no password. The anonymous token is kept in the Windows Credential Manager.
• The service runs on Google Cloud (Google LLC, USA). Uploaded pictures and results are kept only as long as needed to process the job and let you download the result.

Remove Background, Select › Subject and Retouch › Remove Object work on your computer and upload nothing.

On-device AI models

Remove Background, Select › Subject and Filter › Depth Map run on your computer, on your graphics card where possible. They need two model files that are too large to ship inside the application. The first time you use one of these commands the application asks for your consent, then downloads the model from https://www.rainbowfactory.uk/photo-editor/downloads/win/onnx/, checks it against the SHA-256 fingerprint built into the application, and keeps it in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Flare\Models\. The download is an ordinary file request with no identifier. Your pictures are processed locally and never uploaded. You can delete the folder at any time; the model is downloaded again, after asking, the next time it is needed.

Check for Updates

In copies downloaded from this site, Help › Check for Updates… fetches https://www.rainbowfactory.uk/photo-editor/updates/appcast-windows.xml (or appcast-windows-classic.xml for the Classic edition) with a plain request and compares the version in it with yours. The request carries no identifier, no document name and no machine name. The automatic check at launch, at most once every ten minutes, makes the same request and nothing more.

If you choose to install an update, the application downloads the package from this site, checks its length, verifies its signature against the key built into your copy, and refuses anything that does not verify. In the Microsoft Store copy there is no update check at all: updates come from the Store, under Microsoft’s privacy statement.

Scripts and MCP

Scripts, Actions and Batch run inside the application on your computer. flare.exe --mcp-stdio lets an AI assistant you set up yourself — such as Claude Desktop or Claude Code — work with the application through the Model Context Protocol. It exchanges messages over standard input and output and hands them to the running application through files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Flare\MCPBridge. It opens no network port. It is governed by Allow external control (MCP / scripts) in Edit › Preferences… › MCP Server. What that assistant sends to its own provider is governed by the assistant’s policy, not by this one.

What stays on your computer

• Your pictures. Flare opens and saves files where you tell it to. It never uploads a picture to check it, render it or save it. The only images that leave are the ones you attach to a feedback message or an AI prompt, and the ones you send to a Creator Suite command after confirming.
• Preferences (palette positions, options, recent files, the device id above) in %APPDATA%\Flare\settings.json, and application data (the feedback queue, AI models, update downloads, logs) in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Flare\.
• API keys and the Creator Suite token in the Windows Credential Manager.
• Camera and scanner imports go through Windows from your device to your disk.
• Crash reports as plain text and a memory dump, as described above.

Uninstalling the application does not delete these; you can remove the two folders yourself.

This website

This site is static pages. It sets no cookies of its own, runs no analytics and embeds no advertising. Fonts are served from this site. Links to Discord, the App Store, the Microsoft Store and GitHub lead to those services and their policies. Our hosting provider keeps ordinary server logs (IP address, requested page, time) for the operation of the site, including downloads of the application and of the AI models.

Retention, your rights, contact

Data controller: Rainbowfactory Ltd, London, United Kingdom (the company also trades as Rainbow Factory). Registered office: 24 Fitzroy Square, London, England, W1T 6EP. Company number: 14629999. E-mail for privacy requests: support@rainbowfactory.uk. You can also reach us on Discord.

Why we process it. Feedback, diagnostic and crash reports are processed to fix bugs and improve the application (our legitimate interest, and your request when you press Send). AI and Creator Suite requests are processed to provide the feature you asked for. Model downloads and update checks deliver the files you asked for. Nothing is used for advertising or profiling, and nothing is sold.

How long we keep it. Feedback, diagnostic and crash reports are kept on our support server for as long as the issue they describe is open, and at most 12 months. Our AI proxy keeps no requests beyond the daily request counter, which resets every day; what the AI provider retains is described in its own policy. Creator Suite keeps uploaded pictures and results only for the processing of the job. The update feed and the model files are public files and record nothing.

Where. Our support server and AI proxy run on Render (Render Services, Inc.) in the United States; Creator Suite runs on Google Cloud in the United States. The AI providers are in the United States.

No usage tracking. The Windows application collects no usage statistics of any kind: it does not count launches or the features you use, and contains no analytics library. If that ever changes, it will be said here before it ships.

Your rights. Under the UK GDPR and, where it applies, the EU GDPR you can ask us what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to the processing, or complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Because reports carry no account and no e-mail address, a request should mention the host name and approximate date of the report so that we can find it.

Children. The application is not directed at children and collects no personal data from anyone as part of normal use.

Changes. When the application gains or loses a network feature, this page changes with it, and the date at the top is updated.