Privacy Policy: YouTube Transcription

Last updated: 28 September 2026

This policy explains what the YouTube Transcription browser extension ("the extension", "we") does with your data. Plain-language summary first, details below.

In short

• The extension shows a transcript panel on YouTube and can translate it, summarize it, and let you share it.
• Transcript, video, and title content stays on your device unless you actively choose Summarize or Share. Only then is that content sent to our server.
• Separately, the extension automatically sends small first-party usage events (install/update, panel opened, transcript load result, export created) to count active installations and measure reliability; they never include transcript or summary text, video id/title, or page address: see section 3 below.
• We do not collect your name, email, passwords, payment details, location, or browsing outside of the YouTube video you are actively viewing.
• We do not sell your data or show ads.

What data is handled, and where it goes

1. On your device only (never leaves the browser)

Your settings, bookmarks, reading-mode preferences, and in-progress export state are stored locally via the browser's storage API. This data is not transmitted anywhere.

2. YouTube (to fetch the transcript)

To build the panel the extension reads the caption/transcript data that YouTube itself serves for the video you are watching (the video id, the caption tracks, and the selected language). These requests go to YouTube (youtube.com) using your existing YouTube session, exactly as the site would use them. We do not add tracking to these requests. YouTube's own handling of this data is governed by Google's Privacy Policy.

3. Our server

Our server runs at https://yt.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz. Transcript, title, and channel content are sent there only when you take one of these deliberate actions:

• Summarize: the video id, language, the transcript text, and an anonymous random install identifier (see below) are sent to our server. The transcript is forwarded to Cloudflare Workers AI to generate a summary; the identifier is not. The generated summary is cached for up to 90 days so a repeat request is fast; the transcript itself is not stored beyond generating that summary.
• Share (when you click the Share icon): the video id, title, channel name, language, transcript, (if present) the summary, and an anonymous random install identifier (see below) are sent to our server. Everything except the identifier is stored and published at an unlisted https://yt.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz/s/<random-id> page so you can share it. Creating the link is a deliberate click; simply hovering the Share icon does nothing and sends nothing. The link id is random and unguessable. Shared links automatically self-destruct 15 minutes after you create them.

Anonymous install identifier and product analytics. On first run the extension generates a random identifier (a UUID) and stores it on your device. It is sent only to our server, under the header X-YT-Client, for fair-use limits and first-party analytics. The extension sends small first-party events when it is installed or updated, opens the panel, completes or fails transcript or summary work, creates an export, and when you use Share, Copy link, or QR. These events can include the extension version, a broad feature and outcome category, export format, interface entry point, language code, operation time, and an approximate byte or item count. They never include transcript or summary text, video id, title, channel, filename, page address, Share link or token, clipboard content, name, email, or account. It is not linked to your name, account, or email, it is never sent to YouTube or any third party, and it is not used to profile you or track you across sites. We keep it for at most 400 days from your last use of Summarize or Share; product-analytics events are described in Data retention and deletion below. To have it deleted sooner, email support@onlinevoicerecorder.xyz.

We use these events to measure active installations, feature adoption, reliability, and broad geography. They are not used for ads, cross-site tracking, credit decisions, sale, or personal profiling. There is no session replay inside the extension or Share recipient page.

The welcome page sends one separate install event on a first installation through this site (https://youtube-transcription-privacy.pages.dev). It contains a random client ID, the product name, and the extension version. The install counter derives the country from the connection and stores nothing on our Pages site. The relay passes the connecting IP to our analytics service for that country signal. The hosted goodbye and rating pages also send page-open events to this service to count visits by country.

Cloudflare (Workers AI, KV storage, and Analytics Engine) processes Summarize and Share requests and the extension's product analytics events. Cloudflare states it does not use customer content to train its models (Cloudflare Workers AI data policy). For these requests, our server sees the connecting IP and uses it for rate limiting and country derivation; a short-lived counter keyed to the IP is held for 60 seconds and then deleted. Raw IP is not written to the in-product Analytics Engine. We do not build user profiles from it.

Our analytics service receives the welcome install event and the hosted rating and goodbye page-open events. For the install event, the Pages relay passes the connecting IP for country attribution and stores no copy. Page-open events are sent from the hosted pages. The analytics service retains these events according to its configured data-retention setting.

Transcripts can contain the words spoken in a video, including names. Only share or summarize content you are comfortable sending off your device.

4. Install, feedback, ratings, and uninstall

• After installation, the bundled welcome page opens and sends the one install event described above through this site.
• Clicking a low rating opens the hosted rating page for optional feedback. Clicking a high rating opens the extension's Chrome Web Store reviews page. These open only when you choose to rate.
• On uninstall, the browser may open the hosted goodbye page. Its URL includes the extension version and interface language. Giving feedback is optional.

If you send optional feedback after a low rating, or from the page that opens after you remove the extension, we receive the reason you picked, any comment you typed, the extension version, and the interface language. We do not collect your email, your name, an install identifier, or your IP address. Comments are delivered to our private feedback inbox so we can read them. Submissions without a comment are stored only as counts. We do not sell this information.

Open the uninstall survey or open the rating page.

What we do NOT do

• No collection of personally identifying information (name, email, address, phone).
• No collection of authentication credentials, financial/payment data, health data, or precise location.
• We do not record your clicks, keystrokes, or browsing on other sites.
• No advertising, no selling or renting of data, no use of data for creditworthiness or lending.
• No third-party advertising trackers, cross-site tracking SDKs, or session-replay tools in the extension.

Limited use

We use the data described above only to provide the extension's stated features: showing, translating, summarizing, sharing a YouTube transcript, counting installations, and counting visits to the hosted rating and goodbye pages, plus directly related operational needs such as security and reliability. We do not use it for advertising, profiling, or any unrelated purpose, and we do not sell it or transfer it to anyone, except Cloudflare for the service and our analytics service for installation and hosted-page analytics as described above.

Who can access your content

Transcript content you send is processed automatically to produce your summary or share page. No member of our team reads it as a matter of course. We would only access specific content where it is strictly necessary to investigate abuse or a security incident, to fix a fault you report, or to comply with a valid legal request. We never use it to build a profile of you.

Data retention and deletion

• Local data lives on your device until you clear it or uninstall the extension.
• A shared link: and the video details, transcript, and summary stored with it: automatically self-destructs 15 minutes after it is created (enforced by an automatic expiry on our storage).
• When you use Summarize, only the generated summary text is stored on our server, indexed by the video id and language, cached for up to 90 days so a repeat request is fast; the transcript you sent is used to produce that summary and is not retained afterwards.
• The anonymous install identifier is kept for at most 400 days from your last use of Summarize or Share, then deleted automatically. Product-analytics events are stored by our Analytics Engine sub-processor for up to three months; identifier-free aggregate reports may be kept longer. To have it deleted sooner, email us: support@onlinevoicerecorder.xyz.
• The Pages relay stores no copy of the welcome install event or connecting IP. Our analytics service receives the install and hosted-page events; its configured data-retention setting applies to those events.
• To request earlier deletion of a share link, email us the link and we will remove it: support@onlinevoicerecorder.xyz.

International data transfers

Our server runs on Cloudflare's global network. Requests from networks where Cloudflare is throttled are routed first through a dedicated proxy server we operate in France (yt-fr.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz), which forwards them to the same Cloudflare service. To serve requests quickly and reliably, your request may be processed at a Cloudflare data center outside your own country. Wherever it is processed, the same limited-use commitments in this policy apply.

How we protect your data

• All traffic to our server is encrypted in transit with HTTPS/TLS.
• Share links use a long, randomly generated, unguessable identifier and expire automatically after 15 minutes, so a link cannot be enumerated or accessed after it lapses.
• Incoming requests are size-limited and validated, and access is rate-limited, to protect the service against abuse.
• No accounts, passwords, or payment data are ever collected, so there are none to breach.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live (for example under the EU/UK GDPR or the CCPA/CPRA), you may have the right to access, correct, or delete personal data, or to object to or restrict its processing. Because we do not create accounts, we hold nothing tied to your real-world identity; the only persistent item we hold is the anonymous install identifier described above. To exercise a right, or to ask a question about this policy, email support@onlinevoicerecorder.xyz and we will respond.

Children

The extension is a general-audience tool and is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Permissions, briefly

• storage: save your settings/bookmarks locally.
• downloads / downloads.open: to save the file when you export a channel's transcripts, and to power the "Show in folder" / "Open file" buttons on the export page afterwards.
• Host access to www.youtube.com: to read the transcript on the page you are watching.
• Host access to yt.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz and yt-fr.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz: to reach our Summarize/Share server when you use those features (yt-fr.onlinevoicerecorder.xyz is the same service reached through our proxy in France).

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we will update the "Last updated" date above and post the new version at this URL.

Contact

Questions or deletion requests: support@onlinevoicerecorder.xyz