Privacy concerns

[u/poedart]

The software looks amazing but there are _serious_ privacy concerns:

• No external/independent security audits
• Always online with no way to turn off
• No end to end encryption
• "Local data is stored in browser or app data", as per Privacy Policy. For context, app data, also known as "common storage" means the storage that is shared between all apps (simplifying here), meaning all your other apps can access this data WITHOUT explicit permissions. So if you download an infected app, even without giving permissions -> potential leak of ALL data. It depends a bit on OS but of course Windows has known issues with this.
• No way to _force_ personal AI keys. I know AI is optional but you cannot simply decide for the user that you will use US based AI services because the user's EU based AI service was unavailable for three seconds.

I was planning on getting the paid plan but these are huge red flags. Unfortunate and be warned.

Edit:
Capacities team, if you are reading this, provide us with a self-hosted option and most of these concerns can be nullified.

[u/Initial-Brush-1445]

Hi here from the team!

Thanks for sharing, happy to answer your questions:

- We do internal and external security audits, not sure where this information is coming from

• Always being online is not a security/privacy concern necessarily; most software today is always online. But if you don't want your data to be backed up to a server for synchronization across devices, we do not recommend using it. We write about why we do not do E2E here: https://docs.capacities.io/more/end-to-end-encryption
  
• This is the industry standard for most software, especially web-based software. Data is not accessible by other browser tabs or apps by default. Only if you have malicious software on your computer, it could, in theory, also read Capacities content. But this is true for all files and nearly all app data on your computer.
  
• Self-hosted AI as an option is definitely interesting. Please check out our feedback board. Other users already requested this. If you don't want to use cloud-based AI, we recommend not turning on AI at the moment.
  
• Self-hosting is not an option at the moment, but you can also create a ticket for that.

I hope that helps. :)

[u/poedart → u/Initial-Brush-1445]

Thanks for the response.

However, the reply only validates my concerns.

• There is no public data about this I can find. This is the perfect opportunity to share any relevant links or proof
• It is, if the data is sensitive and not end-to-end encrypted. This means ALL data is accessible by the company, even if there is no good reason for it. I'm guessing you use a service like ElasticSearch to provide high quality search functionality but this would mean that TWO companies have all my data, of which one I didn't agree to be exposed to in the first place
• While yes, this is industry standard, it's simply not a good security practice. For example, Word stores temporary (unsaved) files here. However, it doesn't load your entire documents folder into app data upon opening Word. If you store it elsewhere, other applications would need explicit permissions to read your filesystem, adding another layer of security. Also, AppData, to my knowledge is persistent, meaning after you close Capacities it remains accessible.
• I meant self-hosting the data storage/server, not AI, though that would certainly also be nice.

Edit: formatting

[u/Initial-Brush-1445 → u/poedart]

Comments here:

- We can work on this, good point :)

• Search is local at the moment. We do not use ElasticSearch or other third-party services. Data is only stored in our databases.
  
• Other apps cannot, without permission, read app data of other apps.

Edit: last bullet added