Effective 28 September 2026

RANN Ultra Searcher ("the app") is made by RANN APPS. This policy explains what information the app handles, where it is kept, and who can see it. In short: the app keeps your information on your own computer, and RANN APPS receives none of it. The only time information leaves your computer is when you choose to join a RANN Team server, which is run by you, your family or your organisation, not by RANN APPS.

1. What the app keeps on your computer

When you search or scan a drive, the app builds a catalog in your user profile (on Windows, %LOCALAPPDATA%\RANN\UltraSearcher). Depending on the scan profile you choose, the catalog can hold:

• file names, folders, sizes and dates, and the names and identifiers of the drives you scanned;

• the metadata files carry (for example camera, date taken, GPS location, author, artist);

• the text inside documents, and text read from pictures and scanned documents (OCR);

• small thumbnails of pictures and documents;

• face data: for each face found in a picture or in a picture inside a document, where it is and a numeric fingerprint used to find the same person again, with a small picture of each face found in a document;

• the kinds of objects found in pictures (for example "dog", "car");

• your own tags, notes, favourites and collections, your search history and your settings.

The app also writes a small hidden file (.rann\device.json) at the root of removable drives you add to the catalog, so it can recognise them later. It holds identifiers only, never file names or content.

Face and object recognition run on your computer, with recognition packs you choose to install. No picture, face or document is sent anywhere for recognition.

This information stays on your computer until you remove it: you can remove a drive and everything recorded about it from the catalog, delete collections, notes and history, or delete the whole catalog folder. Uninstalling the app keeps the catalog, so you don't lose it by reinstalling; delete the folder above to remove it.

2. When the app goes online

The app connects to the internet only in these cases:

• Recognition packs. When you open Settings → Recognition engines, or click Refresh there, the app downloads the list of RANN's free recognition packs from GitHub (github.com, operated by GitHub, Inc.), and downloads a pack when you ask it to. GitHub receives the ordinary information of any web request, such as your IP address. Nothing about your files or your catalog is sent.

• A Team server you join (section 3).

• Links you click, such as the link to the VLC media player's website, open in your web browser.

The app has no advertising, no analytics and no tracking, and does not send crash reports.

3. Team servers (optional)

A RANN Team server lets a family or a small team search each other's scans. It is free software that you or your organisation install and run on your own computer, NAS or cloud server. RANN APPS does not run Team servers and has no access to them. The person who runs a server (its Admin) is responsible for it and for the information on it.

If you join a Team server, the app sends it:

• Your account: your email address, the name you choose, and your password (the server keeps only a hash of it). If you turn on two-step sign-in, the server keeps the key your authenticator app uses, and hashes of your recovery codes and of the answers to your security questions (the questions themselves are kept as you wrote them).

• Your scans, except those you set to Local only: the same information as in section 1 (file records, metadata, text, thumbnails, and face and object data), but not the small pictures of faces found in documents, which stay on your computer. Scans set to Private can be searched only by you, on any of your computers. Scans set to Public can be searched by the other people on that server. Face data in your public scans is searched by others only if you turn on "Share face data in public scans", which is off unless you turn it on.

• Collections you keep on the server, with who may see them (only you, chosen people, or everyone on the server). Others see only the files they could see anyway; your private scans stay private.

• Security and sign-in records: the names of the computers you sign in from, when they were last used, and an audit log of account and security events (for example sign-ins that failed, password changes, sharing a collection), which the server's Admin can read.

Your tags, notes and favourites on other people's files stay on your computer and are never uploaded.

You can stop at any time: set scans to Local only to remove them from the server, sign out of the server, or ask the server's Admin to turn off or remove your account.

4. Face data and Quebec's Law 25

Face fingerprints are biometric information. In Quebec, the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25) sets extra rules for it, including the consent of the people it identifies. The app finds faces only when you scan with the Deep profile or search by face, and keeps them on your computer. On a Team server that follows Quebec's rules (its Admin's choice), the app shows notices before your scans are first uploaded, before you share face data, and before you share a collection of people, so that you can decide. Please use face search only on pictures of people who agree to it, as the law where you live requires.

5. Children

The app is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.

6. Security

The catalog is stored in your user profile, protected by your operating system's account. A Team server connection is encrypted (HTTPS) and checks the server's certificate. A saved sign-in is encrypted for your Windows user (on Linux, kept in a file only your account can read), and you can choose not to save it at all. Team server accounts can use two-step sign-in, and repeated failed sign-ins lock an account for a while.

7. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be published at the same address with a new date. Changes that affect what the app sends will be described in the app's release notes.

8. Contact

Questions about this policy: info-rann-apps@NorthMail.ca. For information held on a Team server, contact that server's Admin.