Machinist Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how The Mechanical Vision Corporation, doing business as Machinist, also called "Machinist," "we," "us," or "our," collects, uses, stores, discloses, and protects information when you use our websites, hosted applications, mobile applications, smart glasses capture workflows, APIs, AI features, evaluations, and related products and services, together called the "Service."

This Privacy Policy is part of our Terms of Service. If your organization has a separate written agreement with Machinist, that agreement may include additional privacy, security, retention, or data processing terms.

1. Summary

Machinist products and services help teams document aviation maintenance, repair, inspection, manufacturing, and industrial work. In plain English: glasses observe, the mechanic just does the job, and a human reviews and signs.

To provide the Service, we may collect inspection evidence and related information, including video, audio, images, document scans, measurements, notes, transcripts, form fields, workflow data, account data, device data, and system logs. We use that information to provide the Service, secure it, support users, prepare review-ready records, improve Machinist products and services, train and evaluate Machinist models, and develop new Machinist products and services.

Customers retain ownership of their Customer Content. Machinist receives the rights needed to provide and improve the Service, and Machinist may use Aggregated Data as described below.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Account and Contact Information

We may collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, job titles, organization names, authentication-related information, account settings, user roles, support requests, and communication preferences.

2.2 Customer Content and Inspection Evidence

We may collect Customer Content submitted, uploaded, captured, imported, generated, or made available through the Service. This may include:

• video, audio, images, photos, and smart glasses recordings
• transcripts, voice notes, annotations, comments, and mechanic input
• document scans, manuals, drawings, forms, work instructions, and reference files
• work orders, component data, part numbers, serial numbers, measurements, inspection notes, discrepancy notes, and review decisions
• sensitive inspection and maintenance records when your organization chooses to capture or upload them
• generated reports, drafts, summaries, form fields, checklists, audit trails, and related outputs
• timestamps, location-related metadata if enabled, device metadata, file metadata, workflow status, and other evidence metadata

2.3 Usage, Device, and Log Information

We may collect information about how users interact with the Service, including pages viewed, features used, clicks, session events, errors, upload status, device identifiers, browser type, operating system, IP address, performance data, security logs, and diagnostic information.

2.4 Integration Information

If your organization enables integrations, we may collect or exchange information with third-party systems as authorized by your organization. This may include data from maintenance, ERP, quality, document, identity, storage, messaging, analytics, or inspection systems.

2.5 Cookies and Similar Technologies

We may use cookies, local storage, pixels, analytics tools, and similar technologies to keep users signed in, remember preferences, understand usage, improve performance, secure the Service, and measure website activity.

3. How We Use Information

We may use information for the following purposes:

• provide, operate, maintain, secure, and support the Service
• capture, store, transcribe, analyze, structure, and map inspection evidence
• provide real-time and after-the-fact AI assistance for documentation and inspection workflows
• generate forms, reports, summaries, checklists, review packets, audit trails, and other outputs
• enable user accounts, organization administration, authentication, access controls, notifications, and support
• import from or export to third-party systems when your organization enables integrations
• troubleshoot errors, monitor performance, prevent abuse, and protect security
• validate, test, improve, and measure the Service
• train, evaluate, fine-tune, and improve Machinist's computer vision, speech, language, workflow, and other AI or machine learning models
• develop new Machinist products, features, services, models, and workflows
• create and use Aggregated Data
• comply with law, enforce agreements, resolve disputes, and protect users, customers, Machinist, and the public

4. Customer Ownership and Machinist Rights

As between your organization and Machinist, your organization retains ownership of Customer Content. Machinist does not claim ownership of your organization's raw maintenance records, inspection evidence, or uploaded files.

Machinist uses Customer Content under the license in the Terms of Service and any applicable written agreement. That license allows Machinist to provide the Service, improve the Service, train and evaluate Machinist models, and develop related products and services.

Machinist owns the Service, software, models, model improvements, workflows, product improvements, usage analytics, Aggregated Data, and other technology that Machinist creates, except for Customer Content that your organization owns.

5. Aggregated, De-Identified, and Anonymized Data

We may create and use data derived from Customer Content and Service usage that does not reasonably identify your specific organization or individual personnel. We call this "Aggregated Data."

Aggregated Data may include statistics, model inputs, model outputs, annotations, embeddings, performance metrics, workflow patterns, inspection patterns, component characteristics, part categories, defect patterns, process steps, transformed media, and other derived information. Aggregated Data may also include video, image, audio, transcript, or measurement data that has been aggregated, de-identified, anonymized, masked, cropped, blurred, transformed, or otherwise processed so it is not reasonably traceable to your specific organization or individual personnel.

For video or image data, de-identification may include face blurring, badge or name removal, customer name removal, metadata reduction, background masking, or similar technology.

Machinist may use Aggregated Data for any lawful business purpose, including improving the Service, training or evaluating Machinist models, creating benchmarks, improving reliability, developing new products and services, and understanding product performance.

6. AI Processing and Model Improvement

The Service uses AI to help capture inspection data, understand evidence, identify possible matches to procedure steps or form fields, generate draft records, and support human review.

We may use Customer Content to train, evaluate, test, and improve AI models used by or for Machinist in connection with the Service and related Machinist products or services. This may include proprietary Machinist models for computer vision, speech recognition, language understanding, workflow understanding, document generation, multimodal reasoning, physical-world task understanding, robotics, and other AI or machine learning systems.

Unless your organization has agreed otherwise in writing, Machinist does not authorize third-party AI providers to use Customer Content to train their general-purpose models. We may use third-party AI providers and infrastructure providers to process Customer Content as needed to provide, secure, support, and improve the Service.

AI outputs are not final inspection decisions. A human reviews and signs.

7. How We Share Information

We may share information in the following ways:

• With your organization and organization administrators, who may control accounts, users, settings, access, and organization content
• With service providers that help us provide hosting, storage, databases, security, authentication, analytics, AI processing, transcription, communications, support, billing, and other business operations
• With third-party systems when your organization enables an integration or directs us to transfer information
• With professional advisors, auditors, insurers, and legal counsel
• With government authorities, regulators, courts, or other parties when required by law or when we believe disclosure is needed to protect rights, safety, security, or property
• In connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or similar business transaction
• With your consent or at your direction

We do not sell Customer Content. We do not sell personal information as that term is commonly used under U.S. state privacy laws. We do not intentionally make Customer Content public unless your organization directs us to do so.

8. Where Information Is Stored

Unless a written agreement says otherwise, Machinist stores Service information in cloud infrastructure used by Machinist and its service providers, primarily in the United States.

Information may be processed by Machinist and our service providers in locations where we or they operate, subject to contractual and technical safeguards. If your organization enables an integration, information may also move to or from the systems your organization selects.

Customer-specific storage, retention, access, security, regional, integration, or deployment commitments may be set out in a separate written agreement between Machinist and your organization.

9. Security

Machinist uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information. These safeguards may include encryption in transit and at rest, authentication and access controls, logging and monitoring, backups, internal access limits, vendor review, and written commitments from service providers that process information for Machinist.

No internet or cloud service can be guaranteed to be perfectly secure. You are responsible for using strong credentials, protecting devices, managing organization users, and promptly telling us about suspected unauthorized access.

10. Sensitive and Regulated Data

Your organization decides what to capture, upload, or connect to the Service. The Service may process sensitive inspection or maintenance information, proprietary repair data, supplier data, customer data, component data, and confidential business information.

Unless a written agreement says otherwise, you should not submit classified information, controlled unclassified information, ITAR-controlled technical data, protected health information, payment card data, government security information, or other highly regulated data to the Service.

Additional handling requirements for specific sensitive or regulated data categories may be set out in a separate written agreement between Machinist and your organization.

11. Data Retention and Deletion

We retain information for as long as needed to provide the Service, support users, comply with law, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, maintain backups, protect security, improve the Service, and preserve Aggregated Data and model improvements.

Your organization may request deletion or export of Customer Content, subject to legal, security, backup, operational, contractual, and technical limits. Deletion of Customer Content does not require Machinist to delete Aggregated Data, de-identified datasets, trained model parameters, product improvements, analytics, or records that no longer reasonably identify the original source.

12. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to request access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, or objection regarding certain personal information. These rights may be limited by law, security needs, identity verification, contractual obligations, or your organization's control of the account.

To make a privacy request, contact us at jake@machinist.co. If you use the Service through an organization, we may refer your request to that organization or require the organization to approve the request.

13. Communications

We may send Service-related emails, notices, security alerts, product updates, support messages, and administrative messages. You may opt out of marketing communications, but you may still receive transactional or Service-related communications.

14. Children

The Service is not intended for children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18.

15. International Use

The Service is operated from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that information may be processed in the United States and other locations where Machinist or its service providers operate.

16. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice by posting the updated Privacy Policy, sending notice, or using another reasonable method.

Your continued use of the Service after the updated Privacy Policy takes effect means you acknowledge the updated Privacy Policy.

17. Contact

The Mechanical Vision Corporation, doing business as Machinist, is located in Austin, Texas, United States.

Questions about this Privacy Policy may be sent to jake@machinist.co.