Audacity is going to change the privacy policy text after criticism of data collection

Audacity is going to amend the text in its privacy policy about data collection and sharing. The company behind the audio editing software received a lot of criticism from users earlier this month by announcing that it would start collecting user data.

Audacity owner Muse Group wants to collect data from users and since then users have been concerned about what will happen to this data. Therefore, in a response to GitHub, the company is trying to address these concerns among users by providing the specify exactly what data the company collects.

According to Muse Group, they collect IP addresses, system information and what operating system the user has. In the response, the company emphasizes that the data is not shared with third parties. According to the company, users’ IP addresses are stored under a pseudonym after 24 hours and cannot be traced back. Muse Group writes that it needs the IP addresses for automatic updates and sending error reports.

When the privacy policy was changed at the beginning of July, it was not specified exactly what data was collected. The company only stated that it concerned ‘data that is necessary for investigation, prosecution and any requests from authorities’. It was the second time that there was a lot of fuss, because Audacity previously announced that it wanted to collect telemetry.

Audacity was acquired by Muse Group in May this year. This company is mainly known for Ultimate Guitar.