Tricorder Privacy Policy

Effective November, 2026 · Back to Tricorder

Tricorder is an iPhone and iPad app that sends songs you choose to your Last.fm and ListenBrainz accounts. It is made by one developer, Otávio C., who runs no server for it and receives no data from it.

What I collect

Nothing. Tricorder has no account system of its own, and no analytics, crash reporting, advertising or tracking code. I can't see what you scrobble, which services you connect, or how you use the app.

What stays on your device

• Your play history: the songs you scrobble, when, and whether each was sent. It is kept on your device for up to 90 days so History can show it, then deleted. A play still waiting to be sent is kept until it goes out or you clear it. "Clear History" in the app deletes all of it at once.
• Your service credentials: the Last.fm session key and the ListenBrainz token are kept in the iOS Keychain. If you use iCloud Keychain, Apple syncs them to your other devices, end-to-end encrypted. Your Last.fm password is never stored. It is sent to Last.fm once, to get the session key.

What leaves your device, and where it goes

Only what's needed for the feature you're using, sent directly from your device:

• Last.fm and ListenBrainz: the title, artist, album, length and time of each song you scrobble, sent only to the services you connect. Their own privacy policies apply: Last.fm and ListenBrainz (MetaBrainz).
• Apple, for song recognition: when you tap Identify a Song, Tricorder uses Apple's ShazamKit. The microphone is on only while that screen is open. What's sent is an acoustic fingerprint, a summary of the sound used for matching, not a recording. No audio is stored.
• Apple, for search and artwork: what you type into Scrobble a Song is sent to Apple's iTunes Search API, and album artwork is loaded from Apple's servers. Apple's Privacy Policy applies.

Permissions

• Microphone: only to identify a song you asked to identify. You can turn it off in iOS Settings, and every other feature keeps working.

Children

Tricorder isn't directed at children and collects no data from anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date.