Audition Buddy is made by Hara Technologies Sdn. Bhd. (Company No. 201901010477 (1319805-K)), 18 Dutamas Raya, 51200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ("we", "us"). We are the data controller for the information described here, under Malaysia's Personal Data Protection Act 2010.
This policy explains what the app does with your information, in the order you are likely to care about it.
The short version
Your scripts, your recorded takes and your slate stay on your phone. We never upload them, and we cannot see them.
Two things do leave your device:
- The lines Buddy reads aloud are sent to our server so they can be turned into speech. That means the dialogue of the other characters in a scene — not your lines, not your video, not your audio.
- Your sign-in, if you choose to create an account. You can use the app without one.
That is the whole of it. There is no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party SDK in the app other than the one that talks to our own server.
What stays on your device
All of the following is written to your phone's private app storage and is never transmitted:
- Scripts you upload, and everything parsed out of them — scenes, characters, dialogue.
- Every take you record: the video, the audio, and the notes you write on it.
- Your slate.
- Your name and profile picture.
- Your settings, your search history, and the audio clips of Buddy's voice once they have been downloaded.
Deleting the app deletes all of it. We keep no copy, so we cannot restore it for you.
What is sent to our server
The lines Buddy reads
When you set up a scene, the app sends the text of the lines Buddy will read to our voice service, along with the voice you picked and its mood and energy settings. It sends nothing else about the script — not the title, not the scene headings, not your own lines, and not the file you uploaded.
Please read this part if your material is confidential. Casting sides are often under embargo or NDA. Using Buddy's voice on a scene means the other characters' dialogue is transmitted to us and, from us, to our speech provider (ElevenLabs). If you are not permitted to share the material with a third party, do not use Buddy's voice on it — the app still records, still shows the teleprompter, and still keeps your takes.
The audio that comes back, and the shared cache
Rendered speech is stored on our servers so that the same line, in the same voice, with the same settings, never has to be paid for twice. This cache is shared across accounts: it is keyed by a fingerprint of the line rather than by who asked for it, so a phrase somebody else has already rendered may be served to you, and a phrase you render may later be served to somebody else. The stored item is the audio; we do not keep the text alongside it.
If that is not acceptable for your material, the guidance above applies: don't use Buddy's voice on it.
How much you have used
We count the number of characters of speech rendered against your account each day and each month. This is what enforces the fair-use limits and stops one account exhausting the shared allowance. It is a number, kept against your account id.
Your account, if you make one
Signing in with Apple or Google gives us the identifier that provider uses for you, and — only if the provider passes it on, which you control — your email address and name. We use them to recognise you when you sign in again and nothing else. You can use Audition Buddy without an account; choose "Continue without an account" on the first screen.
Sign in with Apple offers Hide My Email. If you use it, we never see your real address.
Why we are allowed to hold it
We process the information above because it is necessary to give you the app you asked for — there is no way to have Buddy read a line without sending that line to be spoken — and, for the usage counts, because we have a legitimate interest in keeping a shared, paid-for service available to everybody. Where we rely on your consent, you gave it by choosing to sign in or by using the voice, and you can withdraw it at any time by not using that feature, by deleting your account, or by writing to us.
We do not use any of it to build a profile of you, and we do not make automated decisions about you.
Camera, microphone and photos
- Camera and microphone are used only while you are recording, and only to make the file that is saved on your phone. Nothing is streamed anywhere.
- Photos is used only when you tap Download, to write that one take into your library. The app asks only for permission to add; it cannot read your photos.
- Speech recognition permission is declared for following along with your lines. If it is used, it is used on-device.
Subscriptions
Audition Buddy Pro is sold through Apple. Apple handles the payment and tells us only whether your subscription is currently active. We never see your card, your billing address, or your Apple Account. Manage or cancel the subscription in Settings → your name → Subscriptions on your iPhone.
Who else is involved
- Apple — the App Store, Sign in with Apple, and payments. What they receive is covered by their own policies; we receive no payment details.
- Google — sign-in, if you choose it. They get their own account identifier for you, and whatever email and name you allow.
- Supabase — hosts our server, database and audio storage, in their Singapore region. They hold the data described above on our behalf.
- ElevenLabs — turns the reader's lines into speech. They receive the text of those lines and the voice settings, and nothing else.
Both Supabase and ElevenLabs act on our instructions under written data processing agreements. We do not sell your information, and we do not share it for advertising.
Where your information goes
We are in Malaysia and our processors are not, so the data described above leaves the country: to Singapore, where our database and audio storage live, and to ElevenLabs, which renders speech outside Malaysia.
Section 129 of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 allows a transfer abroad where the destination gives personal data protection comparable to the Act's. We have satisfied ourselves that this is so for each of them, taking into account the law where they operate, the written data processing agreement we hold with each, and the security they apply — and we keep that assessment under review. The information we send is in any case small and deliberately narrow: dialogue for the other characters, and an account identifier.
Your rights
Under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 you may:
- ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- ask us to correct it if it is wrong or out of date;
- ask us to stop processing it, or to limit how we process it;
- withdraw consent you have given;
- ask us to delete your account and the records held against it.
Write to hejhej@haratechnologies.com from the address you signed in with. We will answer within the period the Act allows. If we cannot do what you ask, we will tell you why.
Most of what Audition Buddy holds is on your own phone, where it is already yours: deleting a take, a script, or the app removes it without asking us.
If something goes wrong
If personal data we hold is breached, we will notify the Personal Data Protection Commissioner as soon as practicable and within 72 hours, as the Act requires. Where the breach is likely to cause you significant harm, we will tell you as well, within seven days of notifying the Commissioner, and say plainly what happened and what to do about it.
Keeping and deleting
- On-device data lives until you delete the take, the script, or the app.
- Deleted takes, scenes and slates are recoverable for seven days and then the files are removed for good.
- Account records are kept while your account exists, and are removed when you ask us to delete it.
- Cached audio is kept so the cache stays useful. Because it is keyed by a fingerprint of the line and not by you, it is not linked to your account.
Children
Audition Buddy is not directed at children and has no minimum age. A person under 18 cannot agree to our Terms of Use themselves — a parent or guardian does that for them — and we ask that children under 13 use the app with a parent or guardian present.
We do not knowingly collect personal data from a child except through an account a parent has chosen to create. If you believe a child has given us information and you would like it removed, write to us and we will remove it.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and note the change in the app's release notes.
Contact
Hara Technologies Sdn. Bhd.
Company No. 201901010477 (1319805-K)
18 Dutamas Raya, 51200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Person to contact about your personal data: Ms. Luna Kamarudin, Customer Relations Manager
Email: hejhej@haratechnologies.com
Phone: +60 10-279 5025
A Bahasa Malaysia version of this notice is published alongside it.