Privacy Policy

1Who is responsible

Castor is an app developed by Daniel Vargas Peset (Spain). In this policy, “we” means the developer and “the app” means Castor for iPhone, Apple Watch and CarPlay, including its widgets and shortcuts.

2What we don’t collect

We don’t run servers that receive information from the app. We don’t ask you to create an account or to give us your name, email or phone number. The app has no advertising, analytics, usage reporting or third-party SDKs, doesn’t use the advertising identifier and doesn’t track you across other apps or websites.

3Where your data is stored

On your device

Downloaded episodes, the feed cache, the transcript search index, episode summaries, the “Your year in Castor” statistics and per-device settings stay on that device only. They’re deleted when you delete the app.

In your iCloud

If iCloud is turned on, Castor syncs your subscriptions, playback progress and played episodes, your Up Next list, transcripts, preferences and dismissed recommendations across your devices. They’re stored in the private CloudKit database and iCloud key-value storage of your own Apple Account. Only you have access; the developer can’t read them. Apple handles them under its privacy policy.

4What’s processed on device

• Episode transcription: uses Apple’s on-device speech recognition. The audio never leaves your iPhone.
• Apple Intelligence: episode summaries, answers in “Ask your podcasts”, recommendation topics and their explanations are generated by the on-device language model.
• Recommendations and statistics: computed on device from your subscriptions and what you listen to.

5Who the app connects to

Podcast servers

To show and play a podcast, Castor downloads its feed, episodes, artwork, chapters and transcripts directly from the servers each podcast chooses. As with any download, those servers receive your IP address and technical connection data. Some podcasts use audience-measurement services in their links. Castor doesn’t control those servers or send them information about you.

Apple Podcasts directory

Castor queries the public Apple Podcasts directory, without any personal identifier, to:

• search for the podcasts you type in “Add Podcast”;
• compute recommendations: category charts for your country, related podcasts and searches for interest topics generated on your device;
• build the Apple Podcasts link when you share an episode (it searches for the podcast’s title).

App Store

Castor Pro purchases are handled by Apple through the App Store. We don’t receive your payment details; the app only knows whether you have Castor Pro or the free trial.

6Notifications

New-episode alerts are local notifications created by your own iPhone when it finds new episodes. There’s no notification server, and you can turn them off in the app’s or the system’s settings.

7Sharing

Castor only shares an episode, a quote or your year in review when you ask it to, and only with the app you pick in the system share sheet.

8Children

Castor doesn’t collect personal data from anyone, including children.

9Your rights and deleting your data

Because we don’t process your data on our systems, we hold no data about you to access, correct or delete. You stay in control:

• Delete downloads and transcripts in the app’s Settings → Storage and Settings → Transcripts.
• Delete what’s synced to iCloud in Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage → Castor.
• Deleting the app removes everything stored on the device.

If you believe your data protection rights have been infringed, you can file a complaint with the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) or your local authority.

10Changes to this policy

If the app changes how it handles data, we’ll update this page and the date above before releasing that version.

11Contact

For any privacy question, write to castor.app@icloud.com.