Vesper
A private time tracker for Chrome

Privacy Policy

Last updated

Vesper records how you spend your time in one Chrome profile, so it can write your day up for you.

Everything Vesper records stays on your own computer. It is never uploaded, and there is nowhere to upload it to — the developer operates no server and can never see any of it.

No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party code of any kind. A day leaves your machine only as a file you choose to save.

Who publishes Vesper

Vesper is published by an individual developer, ordinarily resident in Jamaica, contactable at the address at the foot of this page. There is no company, no team and no third party involved.

What Vesper records

Only while tracking is switched on, and only in the single Chrome profile it is installed in. This is the complete list:

Why each of these is recorded

Every item above exists to make a feature you can see work. Nothing is recorded speculatively, and nothing is kept that no feature reads.

What is recordedThe feature it makes possible
Site, page title, time spentThe day's line items and the written summary — the whole product
Search termsTurning an hour of scattered tabs into one readable line, such as "Research — capacity planning"
Typing, reading and idle stateCounting reading and calls as work instead of stopping the clock the moment you stop typing
Video call stateSeparating meeting time from heads-down time without counting an hour twice
Meeting titles and timesNaming a quiet period so you don't have to, and so it need not ask you
Notes, answers, what it learnsCorrecting the day before you commit it, and not being asked the same question twice
Workspace name and work emailTelling your profiles apart, and naming whose timesheet an export is

What Vesper never records

When you install Vesper, tracking is off. Nothing is recorded until you open the settings, read a plain description of exactly what will be recorded, and press Start tracking. You can pause it at any moment from the toolbar.

Each of the items above can be switched off individually. When one is off it is never written down in the first place — it is not merely hidden from view. You can also list websites that Vesper must never record; time on those is either counted with no detail kept, or not counted at all, whichever you choose.

Where it is kept

In your browser's local extension storage, on your own machine. Vesper uses local storage only and never Chrome's sync storage, so nothing is copied to your Google account or to your other devices.

Detailed activity is compressed after 7 days and deleted after a period you choose, 45 days by default. Delete all data in the settings removes everything immediately. Removing Vesper from chrome://extensions deletes everything it holds.

The one time anything leaves your browser

Optional, off by default, and only if you set it up: if you paste your calendar's private address into the settings, Vesper fetches that calendar directly from your browser so meetings can label themselves. It reads only event titles and their start and end times. It never writes to your calendar, and it sends nothing to anyone — not to the developer, not to anybody.

Leave that empty and nothing ever leaves your browser at all.

Your own exports are the other way data moves, and those are files you save deliberately — a PDF, a spreadsheet or a text file, saved where you choose.

Who your data is shared with, and selling

The complete list:

There are no third-party libraries, no analytics service, no advertising network, no crash reporter and no data broker. The extension contains no third-party code. Your data is never sold, never shared and never transferred.

Limited Use

Vesper's use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

How it is protected, honestly

Both optional connections use a secure (https) address, so anything sent is encrypted in transit. What is stored on your computer is not encrypted — it sits in your browser's own extension storage. Anyone who can use your computer, or who has your Chrome profile, can read it. Vesper is not a vault; it is a notebook that stays on your desk.

No certification, audit, security review or standard is claimed. None has been carried out.

Your rights over this data

This is personal information — hostnames, page titles and search terms all describe you. It is not anonymous and this policy does not pretend otherwise.

But because it is held on your own computer and the developer never receives it, there is nobody to make a request to. You hold it directly, and every right is a button:

What you may wantHow to do it
See everything held about youSettings → Back up everything, which downloads the complete contents as a readable file
Take it elsewhereThe Export screen: a PDF, a spreadsheet (.csv) or a text file (.md), for any week, fortnight or month
Correct somethingEvery line item can be renamed, re-timed or removed on the review screen before it is committed
Erase all of itSettings → Delete all data, or remove the extension
Stop the processingPause from the toolbar, at any time

Data protection law

Vesper is free software published by one individual who receives no data from it and no revenue from it. On that footing it does not meet the applicability thresholds of the California Consumer Privacy Act, and the General Data Protection Regulation is not engaged, since Vesper is not offered into the European Union and the developer neither collects nor monitors anything.

Rather than claim compliance with regimes that do not apply — or a certification that does not exist — this policy sets out plainly what is recorded, why, where it stays, and how to remove it. Storing your time log is the very thing you asked Vesper to do, and it is used for nothing else.

If you are subject to rules that require more than this, the honest answer is to ask before installing.

Children

Vesper is a tool for working adults. It is not directed at children, and it is not knowingly made available to anyone under 13.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the previous versions remain visible in the public history of the repository this page is published from.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about Vesper: bkeepersja@gmail.com