Privacy Policy — Meta-Insight

      Short version: Meta-Insight collects no data about you and
      sends nothing to any server. All processing happens on your Mac, inside Apple's
      sandbox, using only the files you explicitly choose to open.
    

1. Who is responsible

Meta-Insight is developed and published by:
Udo Wessels
mail@udo-wessels.de

For any privacy-related questions, please contact me at the address above.

2. What data we collect

None. Meta-Insight does not collect, store, transmit, or share any personal data, usage data, diagnostic data, or any other information about you or your device.

This is confirmed by the app's PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy manifest, which Apple's App Store toolchain audits at submission:

NSPrivacyTracking: false — no tracking of any kind.
NSPrivacyTrackingDomains: empty — no tracking domains.
NSPrivacyCollectedDataTypes: empty — no data types collected.
NSPrivacyAccessedAPITypes: empty — no privacy-sensitive APIs accessed.

3. How the app works

Meta-Insight is a read-only file viewer. It operates as follows:

File access

The app runs in the macOS sandbox with the entitlement com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only. This means it can only read files and folders that you explicitly open — it cannot browse your file system on its own.

The entitlement com.apple.security.files.bookmarks.app-scope lets the app remember the last folder you opened across launches (a convenience so you do not have to re-navigate on every restart). It does not widen which files can be accessed; it only stores a sandboxed pointer to the folder you already granted access to.

Metadata reading

The app reads the bytes of the image files you open and extracts embedded metadata — PNG text chunks, EXIF fields, XMP, IPTC, JUMBF/CBOR payloads. This data is displayed in the app window and never written to disk or transmitted anywhere.

On-device image analysis

The following analysis features run entirely on your device with no network access:

Color analysis — dominant colors, histograms, brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature, and related statistics are computed directly from the image pixels on your Mac.
Similar Images — when a folder is open in the sidebar, color similarity between images is computed locally. No images or hashes leave the device.
Vision labels and aesthetics score — these use Apple's on-device Vision framework. The framework processes images locally; Apple's privacy documentation confirms that Vision analysis does not transmit image data to Apple or any other party.

C2PA Content Credentials

The app decodes C2PA manifests (JUMBF/CBOR/COSE payloads) embedded in image files. It reports the claims found inside the manifest — it does not verify cryptographic signatures against a remote trust store. No network request is made.

Thumbnail generation

Thumbnails in the folder browser are generated by macOS QuickLook, which runs locally on your device.

4. Share and Open With

The app offers two optional, user-initiated hand-off actions:

Open With… — passes the currently open file to another application via macOS LaunchServices, exactly as Finder's "Open With" does.
Share… — invokes the standard macOS share sheet (Mail, Messages, AirDrop, etc.).

In both cases, Meta-Insight itself transmits nothing. The receiving application or service handles the file according to its own privacy policy. You initiate these actions explicitly; the app never triggers them automatically.

5. Network access

Meta-Insight makes no network requests of any kind. It has no server, no analytics endpoint, no crash reporting service, and no advertising SDK. The app is not granted outgoing network entitlements in its sandbox.

6. Data storage

The app writes nothing to disk other than:

A sandboxed security-scoped bookmark for the last folder you opened (stored in the app's own sandboxed container, accessible only to this app).
Standard macOS app preferences (window size, section preferences), stored in the app's sandboxed UserDefaults.

No image data, metadata, or any user content is ever written to disk.

7. Third-party services and SDKs

Meta-Insight uses no third-party SDKs, analytics libraries, advertising frameworks, or external services. It depends only on Apple's first-party frameworks (SwiftUI, Vision, QuickLook, StoreKit).

8. In-app purchases

The app may offer optional in-app purchases processed through Apple's App Store via StoreKit. Meta-Insight itself does not handle or store any payment or billing information. All purchase data is managed by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy.

9. Children's privacy

Because Meta-Insight collects no data from anyone, there are no special considerations for children. The app is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from them (or from anyone else).

10. Your rights

Since no personal data is collected, there is no data to access, correct, export, or delete. If you believe this policy or the app's behavior differs from what is described here, please contact mail@udo-wessels.de.

11. Changes to this policy

If the app ever adds a feature that affects data handling (however unlikely given its design), this policy will be updated and the effective date above revised before the updated version ships on the App Store. The latest version of this policy is always available at this URL.

Last updated: 16 September 2026 · mail@udo-wessels.de · ← Back to Meta-Insight