Privacy
WinShades works on your own PC. Two things use the internet, and only when you ask: Proofread sends text to an online service, and you can download a better speech model for dictation. Here is exactly what goes where.
Last updated 28 September 2026
Who is responsible
WinShades is made by Kristian Nilssen, an independent developer in the United Kingdom. You can reach me at info@winshades.org.
What stays on your PC
- Dictation. Your voice is turned into text by a speech model on your PC: the one inside WinShades, or one you have downloaded. The sound from your microphone is held in memory only while it is being transcribed. It is never saved, and never sent anywhere.
- Spell check and Read Aloud use the dictionaries and voices built into Windows on your PC.
- Screen tinting and the reading ruler work entirely on your PC.
- Text you select in other apps. To read it aloud or check it, WinShades briefly borrows the clipboard to copy the selection, then puts back whatever was there before.
- Your settings, and a log of what the app did, are kept in your Windows user folder. The log records things like how long dictation took and any errors. It never contains what you said or typed.
- Read Aloud keeps one temporary sound file in your Windows temporary folder, replaced each time you use it.
What leaves your PC: Proofread
When you press Proofread, WinShades sends the text in the Text Tools box, and the language you have chosen, to LanguageTool, an online grammar service run by Learneo, Inc. in the United States. It checks the text and sends back suggestions. The connection is encrypted.
- Nothing is sent until you press Proofread, and only the text in that box is sent.
- WinShades sends no name, account or other identifier with it. As with any website you visit, LanguageTool can see your internet address.
- What LanguageTool does with the text is covered by its own privacy policy, at languagetool.org/legal/privacy.
If you would rather not send text anywhere, simply don't use Proofread. Everything else in WinShades works without it. Organisations can also set WinShades to use their own LanguageTool server, so that text never leaves their network.
What leaves your PC: downloading a speech model
For some languages, WinShades offers speech models that dictate more accurately than the one built in. One is downloaded only if you choose it in the Speech model window and press Download.
The file comes from Hugging Face, a site that hosts speech and language models, run by Hugging Face, Inc. in the United States. WinShades asks it for the model file and nothing more. The connection is encrypted.
- Nothing about you is sent: not your voice, not your text, and no name, account or other identifier.
- As with any website you visit, Hugging Face can see your internet address and which file was downloaded. Its privacy policy is at huggingface.co/privacy.
- A downloaded model is checked before use and kept on your PC, and it is removed if you uninstall WinShades. Dictation with it works entirely on your PC, just like the built-in model.
If you would rather download nothing, keep the built-in model. Organisations can instead give WinShades a model file themselves, so that nothing is downloaded at all.
No tracking
WinShades has no analytics, advertising, tracking or telemetry, and it never sends anything to me.
You buy and install WinShades through the Microsoft Store, which handles your purchase under Microsoft's own privacy statement.
This website
winshades.org uses no cookies, analytics or tracking. Like any web host, Microsoft Azure, which serves the site, keeps routine technical logs such as internet addresses.
If you email me
If you write to info@winshades.org, I use your message and email address only to reply to you. I don't share them with anyone.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law, you can ask what personal information I hold about you, and ask me to correct or delete it. The only personal information I could hold is what you send me by email. For text sent through Proofread, please contact LanguageTool; for model downloads, Hugging Face.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be published here, with the date at the top updated.