Arion Privacy Policy
The short version: Chordalia Systems does not intentionally collect, transmit, or have access to your files, index content, or usage information. Your purchase — if you buy Family or Archive — creates the ordinary customer record any transaction does (name, email, product and edition bought, date) held by our payment processor and license system for support, renewal, and tax purposes. Your document index stays on your hardware. If you choose to use Azure services, your content goes to your own Azure account — not ours. If you use local AI features, nothing leaves your machine at all.
Scope
This policy describes how Arion (the installed software) handles your data. It does not cover your visit to the Chordalia Systems website — that's covered by our separate Terms of Service.
What Arion does with your data
Chordalia Systems does not intentionally collect or have access to the content of your documents, search queries, or AI interactions.
Your documents
Arion scans folders you specify and builds a full-text search index of their contents. That index is stored in a local SQLite database on your computer (or a MariaDB server you control). The original documents are never copied or moved — Arion reads them in place. No document content is ever sent to Chordalia Systems.
Your license
Your license is verified entirely on your device using a public key embedded in the application. The app makes no network connection to Chordalia Systems to verify your license, and does not transmit any machine ID or usage telemetry back to us.
Crash reports and telemetry
The Arion application does not collect crash reports, usage statistics, or any telemetry. If the app crashes, nothing is reported anywhere automatically. If you contact support, you may choose to provide information (such as logs) voluntarily; any such information is used solely to provide that support and is not used for tracking or advertising.
Purchases and payment information
When you buy a paid edition, your payment is processed by Stripe, our payment processor. Stripe collects the information needed to complete your purchase and deliver your license — for example your email address, name, and billing details — and processes it under its own privacy policy and terms. Chordalia Systems receives your email address and order information in order to deliver your license file and provide support, including processing refund requests, but does not receive or store your full payment card details, which are handled entirely by Stripe. We also retain a record of which license file we issued to you, and its edition and (for subscription tiers) expiration date, so we can support and renew it. These records contain no information about your files or your use of the software, because the application transmits none of that back to us. If you use only Arion Personal (the free tier) and have never purchased an upgrade, no record of you exists in our systems at all.
Azure services (optional, Family and Archive editions)
Arion can connect to Microsoft Azure services that you configure using your own Azure account. When you do:
- Azure AI Search: Text content extracted from your documents is uploaded to a search index in your Azure account. This index lives in your Azure subscription and is not accessible to Chordalia Systems.
- Azure OpenAI (Ask a Question): When you ask a question, relevant text excerpts from your index are sent to Azure OpenAI along with your question. The AI generates an answer from that context. These requests go to your Azure deployment, not a shared Chordalia endpoint.
Key point: All Azure services are configured with credentials you provide. Data goes to your Azure tenant. Chordalia Systems has no access to your Azure account, your data, or your query history.
You can find Microsoft's privacy terms for Azure at microsoft.com/privacy.
If you do not configure Azure, none of your data is ever sent there.
Local AI features (optional, Family and Archive editions)
Arion supports fully local alternatives to Azure:
- Ollama (Ask a Question): Your questions and document excerpts are sent to a locally-running Ollama server on your own computer or network. Nothing leaves your machine.
- ChromaDB (semantic search): The semantic search index is built and stored locally. All searches run on your machine.
When using local AI features, no data leaves your device or local network.
Cloud connectors (optional, Family and Archive editions)
Arion can retrieve documents from cloud storage services you configure (Dropbox, OneDrive, and others). When a connector is enabled:
- Arion authenticates to the cloud service using credentials you provide
- Document content is downloaded to your machine for indexing
- Your use of those cloud services is governed by their respective terms of service
- Chordalia Systems has no access to your cloud storage accounts or credentials
Connector credentials are stored in your operating system's credential manager (keychain) when available, or in your local configuration file. They are never transmitted to Chordalia Systems.
Per-user document visibility (Family and Archive editions)
Arion supports multiple named users sharing a single installation. Each user can designate folders as private so their contents appear only in that user's search results. This is a convenience feature for household privacy, not a security boundary — there are no passwords or access controls. All document content remains in the shared local index.
The web interface (Archive edition)
Arion includes an optional local web interface that provides browser-based access to your document index. This server:
- Runs on your local network only — it is not exposed to the internet by default
- Does not send any data to Chordalia Systems
- Stores no data of its own — it reads directly from your existing search index
You are responsible for securing access to the web interface on your network.
Audio and video transcription (Family and Archive editions)
When Whisper transcription is enabled, Arion can extract spoken text from audio and video files. Transcription runs locally on your machine using faster-whisper — no audio data is sent to any external service.
Personal Edition
The Personal Edition has no AI features (no cloud search, no local AI, no 'Ask a Question' functionality) and makes no network connections of any kind. All scanning, indexing, and searching happen on your machine using local full-text search only, and all data stays on your machine.
Children's privacy
Arion is not directed at children and we do not knowingly sell to anyone below the age at which they can enter a purchase contract. The application itself transmits nothing about you or your files. Our purchase and license records (see above) contain only the information you provided to complete your purchase.
Changes to this policy
If we update this policy, the new version will be included in the next release of Arion and posted on the Chordalia Systems website. We will note the updated date at the top of this document.
Governing Law
This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Utah, United States. Any disputes shall be resolved in courts located within Utah.
Contact
If you have questions about this policy, contact us at:
Chordalia Systems LLC
support@chordalia.com