Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Hookbase is run by WAYNE HSU LTD, a company registered in England and Wales (number 16001721), registered office A102 Legacy Building, 1 Viaduct Gardens, London SW11 7AY. We decide how the information described here is used, so we’re its controller under UK data protection law. Questions and requests go to support@hookbase.so.

2. What stays on your Mac

Your library lives on your Mac, in your user Library folder: the videos and images you save, their storyboards and on-screen text, your workspaces, Studio and Assets. We can’t see it, and it isn’t uploaded to our server. Deleting the app’s data folder deletes it.

Your sign-in session is kept on your Mac, encrypted with a key held in your Mac’s Keychain.

3. What our server keeps

To run your account, our server keeps:

• Your account: your email address, your name if you sign in with Google, and the answer to “What do you do?” from onboarding.
• Your plan and billing: your plan, its status and your Stripe customer ID. Stripe holds your payment details; we never see your card number.
• Your saves and usage: which posts and ads you’ve saved, when, and what each used of your monthly usage.
• API keys: a fingerprint of each key and its last four characters, never the key itself.
• Links sent from your phone: until your Mac adds them to your library; then they’re deleted within 30 days.
• Service records: the requests we make to look up posts, whether they worked and what they cost, to keep Hookbase reliable and our prices fair.

4. Usage statistics

The app sends us usage statistics so we can see what’s used and fix what breaks:

• when the app is opened and updated;
• the steps of signing up and of the Get started checklist;
• which screens and features you use, and how often your agent runs Hookbase commands (their names only);
• whether each saved link finished, which step failed and its error code;
• errors the app didn’t expect: their kind, never their text.

Each comes with the app and macOS versions and a random ID for your Mac. They never include your links, library, captions, transcripts, files, file paths or anything you type. Before you sign in, the app sends only that it was opened for the first time; the rest waits until you sign in and is linked to your account.

You can turn them off in Settings → Activity → Share usage statistics; anything not yet sent is deleted. We keep individual statistics for 180 days and daily totals after that.

5. Public posts and the shared catalog

When you save a link, our server looks up the public post or ad: its caption, media links, counts such as likes and comments, the creator’s or advertiser’s public profile, and a transcript of the speech. These details come from public Instagram posts and the Meta Ad Library. We keep them in a catalog shared by everyone who uses Hookbase, so the same post isn’t looked up twice. Which posts you saved stays private to your account; other people never see it.

Snapshots of a post’s numbers older than 90 days are deleted, except the latest one. Posts and profiles nobody has saved for a year are deleted. A creator or advertiser can ask us to remove their posts and profile at support@hookbase.so, and we’ll delete them from the catalog.

6. How we use it

We use this information to provide Hookbase: to sign you in, save your links, charge for your plan, answer your questions and keep the service working and secure. We email you about your account and the service, not marketing, unless you ask for it.

We don’t sell your information, show you ads or use your library to train AI models.

Our legal bases are: providing the service you signed up for (your account, saves and plan); our legitimate interests in keeping Hookbase reliable, secure and improving (service records and usage statistics, which you can turn off) and in running the shared catalog of public posts; and legal obligations, such as keeping invoices.

7. Who helps us run Hookbase

These companies process information for us, only to provide their part of the service:

• InsForge: our database, sign-in and server.
• Stripe: payments and the billing portal.
• ScrapeCreators: looks up public Instagram posts and Meta ads for the links you save.
• Google: sign-in, when you choose it.
• Resend: email delivery.
• Vercel: hosts this website and counts page visits.

Most of them store information in the United States. Where information leaves the UK, we rely on the safeguards UK law provides, such as the UK–US data bridge or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

8. This website

This website sets no cookies. Vercel Web Analytics counts page visits without cookies and without identifying you; it sees which pages are visited, the referring site and a rough location from your connection. When you download the app, we count the download with your country, the site that sent you and any campaign tag in the link, never your IP address.

9. How long we keep it

We keep your account information while your account is open. When you ask us to delete your account, we delete it within 30 days, except records we must keep by law, such as invoices. Phone links and catalog entries are kept as described above.

10. Your choices

You can ask us for a copy of your information, to correct it or to delete your account at support@hookbase.so, and you can object to how we use it. You can cancel your plan in the app at any time. If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) in the UK, or your local data protection authority.

11. Security

Everything between the app, this website and our server is encrypted in transit. Access to your account’s records is limited to your organization, and API keys are stored only as fingerprints. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that affects you, we’ll tell you.

12. Children

Hookbase is a tool for work and isn’t meant for anyone under 16.

13. Changes and contact

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the app or by email. Questions: support@hookbase.so.