Privacy & Security

The short version

• VIBE has no analytics or crash-reporting software inside its apps, and it does not track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
• Your music library and your work in VIBE Studio live on your Mac. What you publish is shared from your own iCloud, only with the people you invite.
• A listener’s access is decided by Apple’s iCloud, for the iCloud account the artist invited. VIBE does not keep its own listener accounts.
• Some AI features run on your device, one uses Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, and a few optional features use third-party services. Where each one runs is listed on the AI page.

What stays on your device

For musicians

• Your library. Songs, masters, stems, artwork and videos are kept in a library folder on your Mac (by default, a VIBE folder inside Music).
• Duke’s working files. Duke’s conversation history, the notes he keeps from voice conversations, and the analysis of your songs are stored in your user Library on the Mac. They are not uploaded.
• Your listener list. The names, email addresses and phone numbers you type when inviting listeners are saved in a file in your Studio workspace on the Mac.
• Keys for optional services. If you add your own keys for a video service, they are kept in the Mac’s Keychain.

For listeners

• Your setup details. The name, date of birth and Sign in with Apple details you give during setup are saved on the device and are never uploaded. VIBE asks for a date of birth to confirm you are 18 or older.
• Downloads. Songs you download on iPhone for offline listening are kept inside the app on that device.

What goes through iCloud

VIBE uses Apple’s CloudKit, which stores data in iCloud. HitFluence does not run its own servers for your catalogue, and the private data below is not readable by HitFluence.

• The published catalogue. When a musician publishes, the songs, artwork, videos, lyrics and song details chosen for listeners are placed in a zone of the musician’s own private iCloud database and shared, read-only, with the iCloud accounts they invited. A catalogue can be shared with up to 100 accounts. It never includes internal notes, file paths, chat messages, generation prompts or project documents, and stems are not sent to listeners.
• Messages. Conversations between a musician and a listener are stored in the musician’s private iCloud database and shared only with the people in that conversation.
• Plays and likes. When a listener plays or likes a song, a record goes to that listener’s private thread with the musician: which song, how many seconds were played, whether it finished, when, and the kind of device (iPhone, iPad or Mac). Only that listener and the musician can read it.
• Listener playlists. A listener’s playlists are stored in the listener’s own private iCloud database.
• The musician account. A musician’s account credential is saved in the Keychain, and iCloud Keychain carries it to that musician’s other Macs.
• Vibe AF repairs. Clean versions of repaired stems are copied to the musician’s private iCloud database unless the musician turns that off in Settings.In development

iCloud storage counts against the account holder’s own iCloud plan and is governed by Apple’s terms and privacy policy.

Invitations and invite links

A musician invites a listener by typing the listener’s iCloud email address or phone number into VIBE Studio. Here is what that creates.

• An iCloud share invitation. CloudKit adds the listener as a read-only participant, tied to that iCloud account. Apple checks the account when the invitation is accepted; VIBE cannot grant access to anyone else.
• An invitation note. So that the listener can get in by pressing Sign in with Apple once, Studio also leaves a small note in the public part of VIBE’s CloudKit database. The note contains the invitation’s web address and a lookup key. For an email invitation, the key is a one-way SHA-256 hash of the email address. The email address itself is not stored in the note, and phone numbers are never written there. The note also carries an identifier for the musician’s iCloud account, which CloudKit assigns and which is not a name or an email address. The note grants nothing by itself: the share still opens only for the invited iCloud account. When a musician removes a listener, the note is removed too.
• The message you receive. The musician sends the invitation personally, through Messages or Mail. VIBE does not send it for them and does not see it.
• Invite links on this website. An invite link of the form vibe.hitfluencetech.com/join/… ends in a token that identifies the invitation. The page it opens is the same file for everyone. Our website code does not read, store or look up the token, does not measure visits to it, and sends no referrer when you leave it. Your browser checks the token’s format and hands it to the VIBE app. Opening the link in VIBE directly from Messages is not available yet.In development
• The beta tester agreement. Listeners in the beta accept a tester agreement before using the app. Their acceptance is saved on the device. A record of the acceptance in CloudKit (the agreement version, the time, the app version and an installation identifier, with no name) is planned.In development

Sign in with Apple

The listener app and Vibe AF ask Sign in with Apple for your name and email address. You can choose Hide My Email.

• The sign-in is checked on your device. Nothing is exchanged with a HitFluence server.
• The email address is used for one thing: to find the invitation your artist left for you. It is hashed on your device and compared with the invitation notes described above. It does not grant access; your iCloud account does.
• Your Apple user identifier, name and email are stored on the device, in the Keychain or in the app’s local settings.
• If you use Hide My Email, the relay address will not match an invitation sent to your real address. VIBE then finds your invitation through your iCloud account, or you can open the invitation link your artist sent.

ContactsIn development

Today a musician types a listener’s name and email address or phone number by hand, and VIBE Studio does not ask for access to Contacts. A contact picker is planned. When it arrives, Studio will use the system picker, which lets you choose one person without giving the app your address book, and it will keep only the name and the phone number or email address you chose.

Private Cloud Compute

One feature uses Apple’s Private Cloud Compute: the written explanations in Vibe AF. The current build sends text only (measurements, decisions and checks) and never audio, file names, song names or file paths. Vibe AF’s permissions also allow spectrogram images, which are pictures of a sound’s frequencies.In development

VIBE Studio does not use Private Cloud Compute, and the listener apps do not use it today.

Optional third-party services

Each of these runs only if you choose to use it, and each company handles what it receives under its own privacy policy.

This website

• Forms. When you send the contact form, request Studio early access or file a copyright report, what you typed is stored in a HitFluence database hosted by Supabase in the United States. The public cannot read it. To slow down automated sending we also store a one-way keyed hash of your network address, never the address itself, and clear it after 24 hours.
• Analytics. We use Vercel Web Analytics to count page views. It sets no cookies and does not follow you between sites. Invite pages, everything under /join, are not measured at all.
• Hosting. The site is hosted by Vercel. Like any web host, Vercel keeps standard request logs, including the address requested, the time and the network address it came from.
• Nothing else. There are no advertising trackers, no third-party scripts and no third-party fonts on this site.

Security

• Listener access is enforced by Apple’s iCloud, for the invited iCloud account, and a musician can remove a listener at any time.
• The listener apps have no share or export function for the music. That is a build-time rule in the apps.
• VIBE Studio is signed with HitFluence’s Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The listener apps are distributed through Apple’s TestFlight.
• This website is served over HTTPS only, with a content security policy that allows scripts, styles and connections only from the site itself.

Your choices

• Listeners: to leave a catalogue, ask the artist to remove you. Deleting the app removes what it stored on the device.
• Musicians: you can remove any listener, which ends their access and removes their invitation note and message thread membership.
• Website forms: to see, correct or delete something you sent us, write to us through the contact form.

Contact

Questions about privacy go to HitFluence Media & Technology Group through the contact form on the Support page. Choose “My account or my data”.