Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 30, 2026

The short version

Front Porch AI is a free, open-source desktop app (AGPL-3.0). The app itself is local-first: your characters, chats, lorebooks, settings, and models live on your device. Using the app offline collects nothing and sends us nothing.

There is one optional online feature — "The Stoop" (a community hub for sharing AI character cards). The Stoop is the only part of Front Porch AI that uses an account or involves any data collection, and only if you choose to sign in and use it. Everything below about data collection applies to The Stoop only. If you never open The Stoop, none of it happens.

What stays entirely on your device (always)

Stored locally, in a folder you choose, and never collected or transmitted to us:

• Character cards, chat logs, lorebooks, worlds, story projects
• App settings, RAG memory / embeddings, and model (GGUF) files

Local AI models (KoboldCpp) run entirely on your hardware — no chat data leaves your machine. Text-to-speech / speech-to-text runs locally (Kokoro, Piper, Whisper); no audio is collected by us. Remote AI / TTS APIs (OpenRouter, Nano-GPT, OpenAI, etc.) are opt-in — if you configure one, your prompts/audio go to that provider, not to us; review their own privacy policy.

The Stoop (optional community hub) — what we collect, and why

The Stoop is a strictly-18+ community where people share AI character cards. Using it requires an account. When — and only when — you use The Stoop, we collect:

Account information

• Your email, a display name, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, and a securely hashed password (your password is never stored in readable form).
• Your acceptance of the Acceptable Use Policy.

Content you choose to share

• Character / group cards and avatar images you upload — stored on our servers and S3-compatible object storage so others can browse and download them.
• Your votes, your download history, reports you file, and messages between you and moderators.

An anti-abuse signal (a hashed IP — never the raw IP)

• On sign-up and sign-in we record a salted, one-way hash of your IP address (we do not store the raw IP) alongside a random per-install identifier. This is used only to enforce bans and to detect ban-evasion and coordinated vote-brigading. These signals are automatically deleted after a limited retention window (currently 90 days).

Anonymous app analytics — opt-out, on by default

• So we can see what platforms, app versions, and hardware the community runs (and prioritize development accordingly), the app sends a once-per-launch, anonymous ping containing only coarse device facts: operating system + version, app version, language/locale, and a coarse GPU tier (e.g. "NVIDIA · 8–12 GB").
• It contains no chats, no characters, and no IP address.
• It is opt-out: on by default, but you can turn it off right on the sign-up screen, or any time later in Account → "Share anonymous analytics." When it's off, no ping is ever sent.

NSFW content

Adult content is hidden by default. You only see it if you explicitly opt in via Account → "Show NSFW content."

Your controls

• Delete your account at any time (Account → "Delete my account"). This permanently erases your account, your uploaded characters, your votes, and your messages.
• Toggle analytics off, toggle NSFW off, enable optional two-factor authentication, or change your display name — all from the account menu.
• Simply not using The Stoop keeps the entire app local and silent.

What we do not do

• We do not sell your data.
• We do not use third-party advertising/tracking SDKs, behavioral profiling, or crash-reporting services.
• We do not store raw IP addresses, and the analytics ping never includes your IP, your chats, or your characters.

Changes to this policy

The "Last updated" date reflects the current version. Material changes to how The Stoop handles data are also surfaced in-app through the Acceptable Use Policy, which you re-accept whenever it changes.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, please open an issue on our GitHub repository.