Privacy Policy

The desktop app

The app has no sign-in and contains no analytics, telemetry or crash reporting. Screenshots and recordings are saved as files on your disk or copied to your clipboard. The app does not send them anywhere on its own.

The app uses the network in two cases:

• Once a day it fetches https://socorin.com/version.json to see whether a newer version exists. The request names the app version and carries no install ID or other identifier. You can switch the check off under Settings → Updates. When you install an update, the app downloads it from socorin.com.
• It uploads a file when you ask it to: with Upload & copy link, with Stop & upload, or after every capture if you chose Upload and copy the link immediately under Settings → After capturing.

The update check always goes to socorin.com. Uploads go to the server named under Settings → Share, which is socorin.com unless you change it, and this policy covers socorin.com only. Like any request on the internet, both arrive from your IP address, and they pass through Cloudflare on the way (see The website).

When you upload a file

An upload sends the file, its type and size, a checksum of the file, a file name, the app's version and your operating system (macOS, Windows or Linux), and a random install ID. The server hands that ID to the app the first time you upload. It is not derived from your device or from anything about you, and its only purpose is to let the server limit or block an install that abuses the service. Settings → Share → Reset install ID makes the app forget it and ask for a new one at the next upload.

The server keeps:

• The file. The server removes EXIF and other embedded metadata, such as a GPS position, from images. Videos are stored exactly as uploaded, including any metadata inside the video file. The file name is held only while the upload is in progress, for at most an hour, and is not stored with the file.
• A record of the file: its type, size, pixel dimensions, checksum, upload and expiry time, the install ID, and the IP address the upload came from.
• A record of the install: the install ID, the operating system, the app version, and when the install first registered and last uploaded. There is no name, email address or device identifier in it.

Files are kept for 60 days from the upload and then deleted automatically. A file can be at most 15 MB. If the server runs out of space, it removes the oldest files early to make room.

Deleting an upload

Each link comes with a delete token that the app keeps on your computer. While the app still has it, Delete from server takes the file down, both in the Link copied popover and under Settings → Share, and the file is removed from the server right away. The app remembers your 20 most recent links. For a link it no longer remembers, wait for the expiry or write to [email protected] with the link. We try to respond as quickly as we can, but we do not promise a response time, or that every request will be carried out correctly and in full.

Deleting removes the file. We keep the record of the file described above, including the checksum and the IP address, and for now we have not set a time after which these records are deleted. We use them to look into abuse. Install records stay in the same way, also after Reset install ID. When we block a file for breaking the Terms of Use, its checksum stays on a blocklist so that the same file cannot be uploaded again.

Rate limits and your IP address

The service is free and open to anyone, so the server counts requests to keep one source from using it up. Upload requests and views of shared files are counted per IP address, and uploads per install ID as well. The counters expire on their own within about a day.

Share links

Anyone who has a share link can view and download the file. The link contains a random 22-character ID, the page asks search engines not to index it, and we do not list shared files anywhere. That makes a link hard to guess. It does not make the file private: there is no password, and the file is not end-to-end encrypted, so we are technically able to open it.

Do not upload passwords, keys, identity documents or anything else that must stay secret. Cover sensitive parts with the pixelate tool before you upload.

When you paste a link into a chat app, that app's servers usually fetch the page and the file to build a preview.

The website

Everything on socorin.com, including the addresses the app talks to, is delivered through Cloudflare, which works as our content delivery network and protects the site from attacks. To do that, Cloudflare processes every request, including your IP address, the address you asked for and details about your browser, under its own privacy policy. Our own web server may keep ordinary access logs (IP address, time, requested address, browser identification) for a limited time, to keep the service running and to look into abuse.

We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits and measure how fast pages load. It is a small script that, according to Cloudflare, sets no cookies and does not fingerprint or follow visitors across sites. What we get from it are totals. The site shows no advertising. Besides Cloudflare Web Analytics, the only measurement tool on the website is the Meta Pixel on the home page, described under Advertising and the Meta Pixel.

The site sets one cookie of its own, socorin-locale, which remembers whether you read the site in Vietnamese or English. It lasts a year and is used for nothing else. On the home page the Meta Pixel may set cookies of its own, described in the next section.

When you open an address without a language in it, such as socorin.com or a share link, and you have no language cookie yet, the server looks up the country of your IP address to choose between Vietnamese and English. The lookup happens on our own server. Your IP address is not sent to anyone for it, and it is neither logged nor stored.

IP address data powered by IPinfo. The country data comes from the IPinfo Lite database, used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Advertising and the Meta Pixel

We advertise Socorin on Facebook and Instagram. To learn whether those ads bring people to the website and whether anyone downloads the app, the home page of the website (socorin.com/vi and socorin.com/en) loads the Meta Pixel, a script from Meta Platforms.

The Meta Pixel is on the home page of the website and nowhere else. The Socorin app does not contain the Meta Pixel or any other tracker, as described under The desktop app. Share pages, this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use do not load it either.

When you open the home page, the Meta Pixel tells Meta that the page was opened. When you click a download button, it also reports that a download was started and whether the installer is for macOS, Windows or Linux. We have switched off what the pixel would otherwise collect by itself, which is clicks on other buttons and the page's metadata. Like any request on the internet, each report carries your IP address, details about your browser, the address of the page and the address of the page that led you there. The pixel sets a cookie named _fbp so that it recognises the same browser on a later visit. If you arrived from an ad, it sets a second cookie, _fbc, which records that ad click. Both last about 90 days.

If you are signed in to Facebook or Instagram in the same browser, Meta can connect these reports to your account. Meta handles the data under its own privacy policy and uses it to measure our ads, to decide who sees them, and for its own purposes described in that policy. What we see in Meta's advertising tools are totals, such as how many people opened the page and how many started a download.

The Meta Pixel does not load if your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. It also does not load when you come to the home page from another page of socorin.com, for example from a share link, so that the address of a share link is not passed on to Meta. An ad blocker or tracker blocker stops it as well, and the website works the same without it.

Who we share data with

We do not sell your data. Cloudflare handles it on our behalf as described above. On the home page of the website, Meta receives data through the Meta Pixel as described under Advertising and the Meta Pixel; we do not use your data for advertising in any other way. Files you upload, install IDs and upload records are not shared with Meta or any advertiser. We disclose information only when the law requires us to, for example in response to a valid order from a court or an authority.

Access and deletion requests

Because there are no accounts, we cannot find your files by your name or email address. Write to [email protected], include the share link, and tell us whether you want a copy of what we hold about that upload or want it deleted. We may ask for a detail that shows the upload was yours, such as when you made it or the install ID shown under Settings → Share.

Children

Socorin is a general-purpose tool and is not aimed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and since there are no accounts we never ask anyone's age. If a child has uploaded something that should come down, send the link to [email protected]. Here too we act as quickly as we can, but we do not promise a response time or a result. Please weigh that before you download and use the app, and before you use the upload feature; for a child, that decision belongs to a parent or guardian.

Changes and contact

When this policy changes, we update this page and the date at the top.

Questions about privacy go to [email protected]. Reports about a shared file go to [email protected]. The app's source code is public on GitHub, so everything this page says about the app can be checked there.