Privacy Policy

This policy explains what Cutaway collects, what leaves your device, and who else sees it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.

Last updated: 25 September 2026

The short version

Your footage stays on your device. Cutaway imports, edits and exports on the phone itself. We never upload your video files, and we have no copy of your library.

When you use an AI feature, something specific leaves. Still frames when the agent looks at your footage, audio when it writes captions, your script when it generates a voiceover, and your prompt, with a short text summary of the project, when it plans an edit. Never the video files. Each of these happens when you ask for the feature it belongs to — with one exception you control: you can choose to have new clips looked at as you add them, and that choice starts off.

You do have an account, and you can delete it. It holds a user id, how many credits you have, and what you bought. Deleting it from the app removes it.

We do not sell your data, we do not advertise to you, and we do not use your footage to train AI models.

What stays on your device

Imported video and photos, every project you build from them, the frames the editor caches while you work, and the files you export. These live in the app's own storage on your phone.

There is no cloud library, no sync between devices, and no backup held by us. That has a consequence worth stating plainly: if you delete a project or uninstall the app, it is gone, and we cannot recover it for you.

What leaves your device, and exactly when

Each of these happens only when you use the feature it belongs to, and none of them sends a video file. One of them can also be set to run as you import — the entry on frames below says so, and it is off until you turn it on.

Sampled still frames — when you ask the AI agent to work on a project. To decide what your footage contains, the agent extracts a small number of stills and sends them to OpenAI for description. It sends images, not video, and only from the clips in the project you have open. The frames are deleted once they have been read; the text description is kept on your device so the same clip is not analysed twice.

The same frames, as you add a clip — only if you switch that on. Settings has an option, “Watch new clips automatically”, which describes each new clip the moment you import or record it rather than waiting until you ask for an edit. It is off unless you turn it on, it appears only after you have accepted the AI disclosure, and turning it off returns Cutaway to sending nothing until you ask.

Audio — when you generate captions. The relevant audio is sent to OpenAI for transcription so captions can be timed to the words actually spoken.

Text — when you generate a voiceover. Your script is sent to OpenAI or to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, which returns the spoken audio.

A short description — when you generate music or a sound effect. The prompt describing the music or sound you want is sent to Sonilo. Your footage is not sent.

What you type to the agent, along with a description of your project's structure — clip lengths, ordering, what the agent has already done. This is what it needs to plan an edit.

Your instruction and a text summary of the project, first — when you type an instruction to the AI. Before the agent starts, what you typed is sent to TypeSafe, with a short text list of what the open project holds: each clip's place, length and a short description of what it shows, the words of your titles and captions, and the names of your songs and sound effects. TypeSafe decides whether the change can be made straight away; when it cannot, the agent takes the instruction as described above. Text only, never frames, audio or video, sent through our own server and without your account details.

A clip's text description, once — after the clip has been described. When a clip has been described (see the entry on frames above), that text, not the frames, is sent to TypeSafe to rate the clip: how much movement it has, how clear its subject is, whether a person is in it, whether it was shot outdoors. The agent reads those ratings when it compares clips. Each clip is rated once.

A coarse location — only when you add a location sticker. To turn a position into a place name, it is sent to Apple's geocoding service. The position is deliberately imprecise, it is used once, and neither it nor the place name is stored on our servers.

Diagnostic data, described in its own section below.

Your account

Cutaway creates an anonymous account for you the first time it runs, so that credits and purchases have somewhere to live. You can sign in with Apple or with Google to attach that account to an identity you control, which is what lets you keep your credits when you change phone.

What we store about you: an internal user id we generate; which provider you signed in with and that provider's stable id for you; your email address and display name, when the provider gives them to us; a ledger of credit movements; and your subscription and purchase records.

Your email is used to recognise you across sign-in methods — so that signing in with Apple on your phone and Google on a tablet reaches the same account — and to contact you about your account if we have to. It is not used for marketing and there is no mailing list.

Deleting your account removes these records. Settings, then Delete account, in the app. It cannot be undone, and it does not cancel a subscription — Apple owns that, and the section on payments explains where to do it.

Payments and subscriptions

Subscriptions and credit packs are sold through Apple's In-App Purchase in the app, and through Polar on our website. We never see your card, and no payment details reach us or our servers. Apple, or Polar for a purchase on the website, processes the payment and tells us what was bought.

We store the transaction identifier, which product was bought, when, and the credits it granted — this is what makes your balance recoverable if you reinstall or change device.

Manage or cancel a subscription in your Apple account settings. Refunds are requested from Apple, not from us. Apple's own privacy policy governs everything on their side of that transaction.

Diagnostic data

Cutaway uses Google Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics to find faults and to see which features are actually used.

This is on only in an app installed from an app store. Builds we run during development, and builds installed any other way, send nothing at all — this is enforced in the app rather than promised here.

What is collected: which screens are opened, whether an action such as an export or an agent run succeeded and how long it took, crash reports with the stack trace that caused them, and a device model and OS version. Your account id is attached, so a crash can be tied to a report you send us.

What is deliberately not collected: the content of your videos, their file names, your project names, anything you type to the agent, or the text of your captions. Screen names are stripped of identifiers before they are sent, so a report says a project screen was opened and never which project.

There is no advertising SDK in Cutaway, no advertising identifier is read, and nothing here is shared with advertisers or data brokers.

Who else processes your data

These are every third party that receives anything, and what each one receives.

OpenAI — sampled frames, audio for transcription, voiceover scripts, and your prompts to the agent. Sent through our own server so that our key is not inside the app.

Sonilo — the text description of music or sound effects you want generated.

Google Cloud Text-to-Speech — voiceover scripts, returned as audio.

TypeSafe — what you type to the AI, with a short text summary of the open project (clip lengths and short descriptions, the words of titles and captions, song and sound-effect names), and each clip's text description once it has been described. Text only, never frames, audio or video. Sent through our own server, without your account details.

Google Firebase — diagnostic and crash data, as described above.

Apple — payment processing, sign-in if you use Sign in with Apple, and geocoding if you add a location sticker.

Polar — payments made on our website. Polar is the seller of record for those purchases: it collects your payment details and email address itself, and receives from us only the product and a reference that ties the purchase to your account.

Google — sign-in if you use a Google account.

Our own server runs on Google Cloud Run in Belgium, and our database is Neon (PostgreSQL) in Frankfurt, Germany. Those are where your account record and credit ledger live.

We do not grant any of these providers rights to your content, and we use them on terms under which content submitted through their APIs is not used to train their models.

Permissions the app asks for

Photos and media — to import the footage you pick and to save your exports. Cutaway reads only what you select; it does not scan your library.

Camera — only if you record inside the app.

Microphone — only if you record a voiceover.

Location — only if you add a location sticker to a video. Cutaway asks the system for a deliberately coarse position, never a precise one, and uses it once to look up a city-level place name. That name is what goes on your video; your coordinates are not stored by us and are not attached to your account.

Declining any of these disables that feature and nothing else.

How long things are kept

Frames, audio and text sent for processing are not stored by us. They are deleted once the result comes back, and are subject to the provider's own retention period on their side.

Your account, credit ledger and purchase records are kept while your account exists, and are removed when you delete it. Some purchase records may be retained where tax or accounting law requires it.

Diagnostic data is kept for as long as Firebase's own retention window allows, and is used only for diagnosing faults and understanding feature use.

Children

Cutaway is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, write to support@cutaway.design and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export or delete the personal data we hold about you, to object to certain processing, and to complain to a data protection authority.

Most of this you can do yourself: your footage and projects are on your own device, and Delete account in the app's settings removes everything we hold. For anything else — including a copy of your data — write to support@cutaway.design and we will respond within 30 days.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when the app's data practices change, and revise the date at the top when we do. Changes that materially affect what we collect will be signalled in the app rather than only here.

Contact

Cutaway is made by Yazan Aesmael, based in India.

Questions about this policy, or any request about your data: support@cutaway.design.