Privacy policy
What Desktop Pals, PalPlayer, PalStudio and this website do with information about you – which, for the most part, is nothing at all.
Last updated 26 September 2026.
Who we are
This policy covers the Desktop Pals, PalPlayer, PalStudio (including PalStudio Community) and this website. They are made by WhiteFish Creative Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 11042372, at 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE. We are the data controller for anything this policy describes. You can get in touch with us here.
WhiteFish Creative’s general privacy policy covers our other work. Where the two differ, this policy is the one for the pals, the apps and this website.
The short version
- No accounts, no analytics, no tracking, no ads. None of the apps or pals has telemetry, crash reporting or advertising in it, and this website has no cookies or trackers.
- Your pals stay on your computer. Nothing you make in PalStudio is uploaded anywhere by us. It only leaves your computer if you share it yourself.
- A few things are fetched from the internet, listed below. Fetching something means the server you fetch it from sees your IP address, as it would for any web page. We don’t send anything about you or your pals with those requests.
What each app fetches
| App | What it fetches | From | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pals with news (Dot, The Cynical Developer) | The podcast’s public feed | The podcast’s own website | To tell you about new episodes. You can turn this off in the pal’s menu. |
| PalPlayer | The list of pals and the pal packs you choose to download | This website | For the Get pals tab |
| PalPlayer, PalStudio Community | Our signed list of updates, and an update when there is one | GitHub, where our releases are published | To keep the app up to date. You can turn automatic updates off in Settings. |
| PalStudio (paid edition) | Your licence check | Lemon Squeezy, our payment and licence provider | To check your licence is valid (at most once a day) |
Opening a link in an About box or a speech bubble opens that page in your own web browser, under that website’s own privacy policy.
Information we do handle
Buying PalStudio. If you buy a PalStudio licence, Lemon Squeezy handles the purchase as the seller of record. They collect your name, email address and payment details under their privacy policy, and tell us what we need to support your licence: your name, email address, what you bought and your licence key. We use this only to provide and support your licence, and keep it as long as the law requires for tax and accounting records.
Activating a licence. When you activate PalStudio on a computer, the app sends Lemon Squeezy your licence key and a name for that computer, made from its network name, for example “PalStudio on Sam’s MacBook”. Computers are often named after their owners, so this can include your name. It is used only to show you which computers your licence is active on, and it is removed when you deactivate that computer.
Getting in touch. If you contact us, we use what you send only to reply, and keep it only as long as the conversation needs.
This website. It is hosted by Netlify, whose servers record standard request details (such as IP address, the page requested and the time) to run and protect the service, under Netlify’s privacy policy. We don’t use those records to identify or profile anyone.
Our lawful basis is performing our contract with you (licences), our legitimate interest in running and securing the apps and website (updates, hosting), and, for anything else, your consent.
Pals you make and share
Everything in a pal – its name, author, description, lines and pictures – goes to everyone you share it with, and anyone they pass it on to. Please don’t put personal information in a pal, such as your full name, address, email address, phone number or anything that could identify you or someone else. Use a nickname or a business name as the author instead.
We don’t collect, host or check community pals. If you put personal information in a pal you share, you are responsible for that information, and WhiteFish Creative accepts no responsibility for it or for what others do with it.
Children
The apps don’t ask for or collect personal information, so they are suitable for anyone. Buying a PalStudio licence is for adults, or with a parent or guardian’s permission.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) you can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or ask us to limit its use. Get in touch and we’ll answer within a month.
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be here with a new date at the top. If a change affects what the apps send, we’ll say so in that version’s release notes too.