Liao Privacy Policy (updated 2026-11-01)
This is a translation of the Simplified Chinese original. If the two versions differ, the Simplified Chinese version prevails.
Operator: the Liao team. Contact email: [email protected].
1. In short
Your chat apps' login data and chat history stay on your computer and do not leave it. The text you use when you translate or ask Liao (and any images you have Liao look at, voice messages you have it listen to, or files you have it read) is sent to our servers, which pass it on to translation services or AI model services (DeepSeek, Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic Claude); our servers do not keep this content. When you click "Hand over to a colleague" under "This person" in Liao, what Liao has noted about that one person (not the original chat messages) is encrypted and stored temporarily on our servers. It is deleted as soon as the colleague you chose accepts or declines it, and in any case after no more than 7 days. If you yourself turn on "Save to my account" in the desktop app under Settings → What Liao remembers (off by default), what Liao has noted about each person (not the original chat messages) is stored on our servers in encrypted form. Liao decrypts it only to deliver it back to computers where you are signed in, and uses it for nothing else. You can turn it off at any time; the copy on our servers is then deleted right away. Your saved phrases, glossary, translation preferences and chat account names sync to your account when you sign in, so they come back on a new computer; ask support if you want them deleted.
2. What data we handle
| Data | Where it is | What it is used for | How long it is kept |
| Account name, password (hashed), email | Our servers | Signing in, verification codes, password recovery | As long as the account exists |
| Sign-in state (the sign-in pass issued at each sign-in and when it expires, plus the network address and browser details at sign-in; the one issued when you sign in with Google records no network address or browser details) | Our servers | Keeping you signed in | Deleted when you sign out; if you do not sign out it stops working when it expires, and the record is kept at most until the account is deleted |
| What Google gives us when you continue with Google: your email address and your Google account ID (used only to recognise the same Google account). Google also sends your name and profile picture; we do not store them. We do not store Google access tokens and do not read anything else in your Google account | Our servers | Signing up, signing in | As long as the account exists |
| A "computer tag" when free trial characters or referral bonuses are given (made on your computer by scrambling the Windows system ID together with our own fixed prefix; the original ID never leaves your computer), and a scrambled value of your network address at that time (the whole address for IPv4, the first half for IPv6; the address itself is not stored, and the value is scrambled with a server key that is not in the database, so the database alone cannot turn it back into an address). Accounts created with an email address get the trial at sign-up (including older accounts made before this update); for them too, the app records this computer's tag the first time it connects to our servers and fetches the account data (only the first computer, no network value, and no extra characters are given), so accounts created later on this computer with Google sign-in do not get the trial again | Our servers, in the same record as the account that received it | Only to check whether this computer or network has already received it (for accounts created with Google: one trial per computer and at most 3 trials per network in 24 hours; accounts created with an email address get the trial at sign-up and are not subject to these two limits; referral bonuses: at most 3 per network in 30 days). Not used for tracking or advertising | Computer tag: as long as the account exists; network value for the free trial: cleared after 24 hours; network value for referral bonuses: cleared after 30 days (cleanup runs every 6 hours, so at most 6 hours later) |
| When you sign in to the desktop app with Google: the network address of the browser that finished the sign-in (desktop app only; nothing is kept when you sign in with Google on the website). Also, when you click "Continue with Google", a count of clicks per network (to stop repeated clicking: at most 30 per network per hour and 120 per day; the count is kept under a scrambled value of the network, never the address, and the scrambling key lives only in memory and changes every time the server restarts) | In our server's memory (this item is not written to disk or to the database; the website's access log is described below under "About the server access log"; the short session the sign-in library creates during the Google callback, which is cancelled straight away, does not record your network address or browser details either) | When the sign-in succeeds and the app receives its sign-in pass, we compare whether it is the same network, once per sign-in; the server log and our daily statistics record only how many were "same / different", never the address, to notice when someone has been tricked into sending their sign-in address to another person | Network address: at most 2 minutes with the one-time sign-in code, plus at most 5 more minutes while waiting for a two-step code; dropped as soon as it is used, and expired ones are cleared every minute, so at most about 8 minutes. Click count per network: cleared once that network has not clicked for 24 hours (checked every minute) |
| The sign-in library's own anti-abuse count when you sign in, sign up or reset a password (if one network sends too many requests in a short time, it is held back for a moment; counted by network address) | In our server's memory (not written to disk or to the database) | To stop repeated password guessing and repeated email requests | Stops counting after at most 1 minute; expired counts are cleared from memory the next time someone signs in or signs up |
| The email you enter under "Tell me when the Mac version is out" or "Tell me when the phone version is out" (only the email and the time you signed up are stored; the two lists are kept separately) | Our servers | Sending you one email when the Mac / phone version is out, and only that one | Deleted once that email has been sent; the Mac list is kept for at most 180 days even if that email has not been sent yet |
| The email you enter under "Email me the link" (on a phone, tablet, Mac or Linux computer, you can have the download link emailed to yourself when you click download; our servers do not store the address itself, only a token scrambled with a server key, from which the address cannot be read, and the time the email was sent) | Our servers (the address is only used for the few seconds it takes to send the email) | Sending you the download link, just that one email; stopping the same address from being emailed again and again | The token is deleted automatically after 30 days and is not included in backups; for the copy of the email, see "About emails" below |
| Sign-up and download page step counts (one entry each for opening the sign-up page, filling in the form, requesting a verification code and signing up successfully, and also one entry each for sending a download link email and clicking download from the link in that email; each entry only says whether the page was Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese or English and whether it was a computer or a phone; no IP address, email or account name) | Our servers | Seeing at which step sign-ups get stuck and whether the download link emails help, so we can improve the pages | Counted per day; the entries themselves contain no personal information |
Website visit and installer download records: the time, your IP address, the country / region / city looked up from it, the kind of operating system and browser, which page you opened or which file and version you downloaded, and which website or promotion link you came from; plus a random browser ID cookie (liao_vid) used only to connect visits from the same browser with a later sign-up on our website. The app's automatic updates are recorded the same way when they download an update package. The location is looked up in a geolocation database on our own server; your address is not sent to anyone else | Our servers | Security (spotting download abuse and attacks) and statistics (where visitors come from, which regions use Liao, which promotions work); never sold, never shared with advertisers, no cross-site tracking | IP addresses are deleted after 90 days (daily backups may keep them up to 14 days longer), after which only the region is kept; the browser ID cookie expires after 180 days and you can delete it in your browser at any time |
| Text to be translated | Passes through our servers in transit | Producing the translation (passed on to the translation provider) | The original text is not stored in our database; to avoid asking the provider again and to answer faster, translation results are kept temporarily on the server (only the translation and a fingerprint of the original are stored, not the original itself; linked to your account; when a stored result is used again it is still charged as usual, see the Top-up Terms) and are deleted automatically 7 days after they were last used |
| Text to be analyzed (when you click "Check this chat"; or, if you have chosen the AI insight engine or have reply suggestions turned on, sent in the background together with the recent chat after the other person sends a new message) | Passes through our servers in transit | Producing the insight (may be passed on to a self-hosted or hosted model service) | Not stored in our database; discarded once used |
| What you ask Liao (your question; the chat messages, memories, manual and skills Liao looks up as needed; attachments you add) | Passes through our servers in transit | Passed to AI models (Anthropic Claude, DeepSeek or Google Gemini; OpenAI if they all fail) to write answers and wording | Not stored in our database; discarded once used |
| Images you have Liao look at, voice messages you have transcribed, files you have it read (images, PDFs) | Passes through our servers in transit | Passed to Google Gemini (OpenAI if that fails) to recognize and read the content; text transcribed from voice is then passed to the AI model that writes answers (Anthropic Claude, DeepSeek or Google Gemini) to translate it into your language and add a one-line summary. Larger PDFs are first uploaded to Google's file API and then read; we delete them as soon as they have been read (if that ever fails, Google deletes them automatically after 48 hours) | Not stored in our servers' database |
| Web links you have Liao read | Passes through our servers in transit | Our server opens the public web page, takes out the title and the main points of the text, and passes them to the AI model that writes answers (Anthropic Claude, DeepSeek or Google Gemini) to sum them up | Not stored in our database; discarded once used |
| Notes under translations (slang, what someone really means; only when you use Liao) | Passes through our servers in transit | The last few messages of that chat are passed to the AI model that writes answers (Anthropic Claude, DeepSeek or Google Gemini) to write the notes | Not stored in our database; discarded once used |
| Descriptions you give when you have Liao make or edit an image (and any reference images you provide) | Passes through our servers in transit | Passed to Google Gemini's image model to generate the image; finished images are saved back to your computer | Not stored in the server database; you delete images in Liao's gallery |
| Web search questions | Passes through our servers in transit | Passed to Google Search (through Gemini) to look up public information; answers include their sources | Not stored in our database; discarded once used |
| Liao usage records (time, purpose, model, character and token counts, cost; no content) | Our servers | Keeping costs under control, reconciliation | For as long as the related billing records are kept |
| Saved phrases, glossary, translation preferences, the names of your chat accounts, and usage counts (translation preferences = the window layout and each chat account's translation settings: your language, the other person's language, whether incoming messages and what you type are translated, how sending is confirmed, translation colour; chat account names = the name you gave each account, its platform and order, and any start address you set; usage counts are numbers only. No chat content, passwords or login data) | Our servers (synced automatically when you sign in; this can't be turned off separately) | So they come back on a new or reinstalled computer | As long as the account exists; ask support to delete them and we delete them by hand; deleted together with the account. Included in backups, where they can remain for up to 14 more days |
| Liao's memory, manual, your own ways of doing things, the index of older chats, images you made, the broadcast helper's list, the sentence to send and its translations (kept until the run is finished, so it can continue), who it went to today | Your computer (the Liao data folder); only when you click "Hand over to a colleague" is the part about that one person passed to the colleague (see the next row); if you turn on "Save to my account", an encrypted copy of what was noted is kept with your account (see the row after next) | Letting Liao remember things about you and the other person; each time, only the parts relevant to that request are given to the model | You delete them in Liao |
| The information about one person that you hand over to a colleague (only exists if you click "Hand over to a colleague" under "This person": the other person's name or the name you gave them, the platform, the one-line summary, habits and language level, tags, things noted, promises made, the five parts of Liao's notes (Who this is, What you've been talking about, Still to do, Their likes and preferences, What you agreed on), their city and time zone, and a scrambled ID used on the colleague's side to recognize which chat it is; no original chat messages, although this content does describe things you have talked about; items marked "Only for me", items not yet confirmed with "Remember", things you told Liao to forget, and your conversations with Liao are not handed over) | Stored temporarily on our servers after encryption (the encryption protects against a database leak; the server decrypts it when passing it to the colleague) | Passed to the Liao of the one colleague you chose (in the same workspace); the main account and other colleagues cannot see the content | Deleted immediately when the colleague clicks "Add it" or "Decline"; also deleted immediately if you withdraw it or if either of you leaves the workspace; deleted automatically if not handled within 7 days; not included in backups. Apart from that we only keep "who handed it to whom and when, and whether it was accepted" (no content), deleted after 7 days |
| "This person" information saved to your account (only exists if you yourself turn on "Save to my account" in the desktop app under Settings → What Liao remembers; off by default: for each chat, the other person's name or the name you gave them, the one-line summary, habits and language level, tags, things noted, promises made, Liao's notes, their city and time zone, and a scrambled ID; no original chat messages, photos or voice messages, and none of your conversations with Liao, although this content does describe things you have talked about; items marked "Only for me" are still used only on your own computer) | Our servers, stored in encrypted form (protecting against a leak of the database or backups). Liao decrypts it only to deliver it back to computers where you are signed in and uses it for nothing else; strictly speaking our servers can decrypt it, and we plan to change this so only your own computers can | Only back to computers where you yourself are signed in; the main account, colleagues and sub-accounts in the same workspace cannot see it | You can turn it off at any time, which deletes all of it right away; one person's copy is deleted when you clear that person under "This person"; deleted together with a sub-account when it is deleted, and when you are removed from the workspace; included in backups (backups also contain only encrypted data), where it can remain for up to 14 more days |
| Translation cache (translations of messages you have seen, stored per account; only fingerprints and translations, not the original text; at most 20,000 entries) | Your computer (the "translation cache" in the Liao data folder) | After a restart, messages you have already seen show up right away, with no new request and no characters charged | Cleared when you click "Clear translation cache" under "Settings → Translation", remove the account, or sign out |
| Translation receipts (character count, provider, cost, time) | Our servers | Billing and reconciliation | For as long as the related billing records are kept |
| Top-up orders (amount, address, on-chain transaction ID, number of confirmations) | Our servers | Crediting payments and reconciliation | For as long as the related billing records are kept |
| Two-step verification secret and backup codes (optional feature, off by default) | Our servers | Checking the one-time code you enter when you sign in | While it is turned on; deleted when you turn it off |
| Workspace members and sub-account credit (membership, credit allocation records) | Our servers | Letting the main account manage the balance and members in one place; when using "Hand over to a colleague", members can see the account names of other members of the same workspace (not their emails) | As long as the account exists |
| Daily usage numbers for sub-accounts (whether the app was opened that day, how many times Liao was asked, which chats were followed up; chats are stored only as IDs scrambled with a server key, never the chat's own ID or its content) | Our servers | On the website under "Account → Sub-accounts", the main account sees for each staff member how many characters they translated this week, how many times they asked Liao, on how many days the app was open, and how many chats they followed up | Up to 62 days |
| Chat analysis records | Your computer (%LOCALAPPDATA%\ClientPilot\Analysis) | Letting you review and analyze; can be exported and cleared; de-identified by default | 30 days by default, adjustable |
| Login data, cookies, local profiles | Your computer | Keeping your chat apps signed in | Removed when you remove the chat account they belong to |
| Local logs and audit records (no content) | Your computer | Troubleshooting | Until you clear them |
| Crash reports (error type, where the error happened, app and system versions; no chat content; your computer's user name is replaced with a placeholder) | First saved on your computer, then sent automatically to our servers the next time you open the app | Finding and fixing crashes | Our servers keep at most the latest 2000 reports |
| Chat page structure checks (for each platform, whether "messages and the message box were found", plus the app version; no chat content, accounts or contacts) | Sent to our servers every 10 minutes after you sign in | Noticing quickly when a chat website changes its layout, and fixing translation | Aggregated on our servers by platform and by hour, kept for 7 days |
| Feedback you choose to send (the text you write, and any diagnostic package you choose to attach) | Our servers | Replying to you and solving your problem | Our servers keep at most the latest 2000 items |
About backups: data on our servers is backed up once a day, and backups are kept for up to 14 more days (plus one extra copy made before each server update, of which only the latest 10 are kept), after which they are deleted automatically; so anything described above as "deleted" disappears from backups only that much later. The translation result cache, information handed over to colleagues and the download link email tokens are not included in backups. Backups made before this update still hold the referral bonus network values in the old scrambling (without the server key, so easier to turn back into an address than now); they are deleted together with those old backups: the daily backups within 14 days, and the extra copies made before server updates once 10 more updates have replaced them.
About the server access log: the web server writes one access log line per request (time, your network address, the address requested, the result status and how long it took; no browser details and no other request or response headers, so neither the computer tag nor any sign-in pass goes into the log), to find faults and spot attacks. When the website hits an error (for example the few seconds while it updates), that request also gets an error entry that includes its request headers (browser details and the computer tag; no sign-in pass), kept together with the access log; it is kept on the server's disk, the oldest file is deleted automatically once 5 files of 10 MB are full, and it is not backed up. Log lines written before this update still contain request and response headers (including browser details, the computer tag and the sign-in pass returned at sign-in) until newer lines replace them.
About emails: verification codes and download link emails are sent from our Gmail sending account through Google. Gmail keeps a copy of each email in that account's "Sent" folder (including the recipient address); this copy is not deleted automatically, and we do not use it for anything else. Download link emails contain only text (plus a simple web version with the same content), with no images and no tracking pixels; the link only says "from the email" and the date it was sent, so it is the same for everyone and cannot identify you. Entering your email does not subscribe you to anything, and we will not send you any other emails because of it.
3. What we will not do
- We will not read, export or upload your chat apps' login data or local profiles;
- We will not use chat content to train models;
- We will not sell chat content or provide it to third parties (except "passing it to a translation or model service to complete that one request of yours");
- We will not save any analysis records unless you have turned on the analysis feature (it is off by default; records are written only after you turn it on);
- We will not let the main account or other colleagues see what you hand over to a particular colleague; something is handed over only when you yourself click "Hand over to a colleague", one person at a time; the main account cannot pull the records off your computer.
About two-step verification: once it is on, the secret used for checking must be stored on the server (otherwise the codes on your phone could not be checked), but it is used only for checking; backup codes are stored only as hashes (not even we can read the originals). Support cannot see your verification codes and cannot use them to sign in to your account; turning off two-step verification requires your password + a currently valid code.
4. Third parties
To complete translations, analyses and Liao's answers, we pass the text, images, voice or files needed to complete that one request to third-party services, including: translation providers (such as Google Gemini, DeepSeek, DeepL, OpenAI, Anthropic Claude) and the AI model services Liao uses: DeepSeek (writing answers and wording), Anthropic (Claude writes answers, wording and the notes under translations, and sums up voice messages and web links), Google (Gemini writes answers, reads images and files, transcribes voice and makes images; web search uses Google Search), and OpenAI (the backup when reading images, transcribing voice, writing answers and similar tasks fail). Their own terms govern how they process it; we try to choose services that do not use it for further training.
When you continue with Google, you sign in on Google's own page; we never see your Google password. Google will know that you signed in to Liao, and Google's privacy policy applies to that part.
Our website and servers sit behind Cloudflare (for attack protection and faster access): every request between you and our servers passes through it first, and it can see your network address, browser details and the content sent; Cloudflare's privacy policy applies to that part.
5. Your rights
- View and change: in the app under "Settings → My account → Security & privacy" you can see what is stored on this computer, and under "Settings → AI & insights → Advanced: local analysis records" you can clear local analysis records and history;
- Export: local analysis records can be exported as JSON;
- Delete your account: just ask support (USDT that has already been credited is not refunded; see the Top-up Terms); To delete only the saved phrases, glossary, translation preferences and chat account names synced to your account, also ask support; "This person" information is deleted when you turn off "Save to my account" under Settings → What Liao remembers;
- Turn off analysis: turning the switch off also clears the records already saved.
6. Security
- Keys are stored only on the server side and are never sent to the app;
- The app and the server communicate over HTTPS (
127.0.0.1for local development); - Write operations such as top-ups, grants and credit allocations are validated only on the server side; the app cannot forge them.
7. Children and minors
This software is intended for adults; if you are under 18, please use it only with your guardian's consent.