Privacy Policy: StitchBench, StitchShop and StitchHub

Version: 2026-11-01

_Rewritten for the free model (16 Oct 2026): the programs, the hub and the hosted service are free, paid for by YouTube and donations, so there are no subscriptions or billing records. New: bug reports on GitHub, donations, and our website and videos._

This policy explains what information we hold, where it sits, who sees it, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it. It covers StitchBench and StitchShop (the programs), StitchHub (the community hub), and our hosted service.

1. Who we are

We are Bruce Wattendorf dba SiteSentrix ("we", "us"), of 8 Maplewood Drive, Mapleville, RI 02839. Contact us about privacy at bwattendorf@gmail.com.

"You" means the shop that uses our services, and the shop's owner and staff. "Your customers" means the people your shop serves.

2. The short version

• The Windows program keeps your shop's data on your shop PC. We don't have it and can't see it.
• On our hosted service your shop's data sits on our hosting provider's servers. We hold it for you: you decide what it's for, and we use it only to run the service.
• The hub holds only what it needs and what you choose to share: your account, your shop's name, what you offer to the community, and messages between you and a partner shop.
• Your customers' contact details never go to the community. Partner shops see only what a repair needs (first name and last initial, not phone or address).
• We take no payment from you, so we hold no card details. The programs are free. If you give a donation, it goes through Buy Me a Coffee, which handles your card.
• We don't sell information, and we don't show ads. No advertising or tracking cookies.
• Bug reports go to GitHub. If you press Report a bug, what you type is filed as an issue on GitHub. For the open-source programs it is public. Your shop's name and email are not put in it (section 5.2b).

3. Two kinds of information, two roles

1. Information about you as a user of our services: your hub account, your shop's name, what you share on the hub. We decide how this is used, as this policy says.
2. Information your shop keeps about its customers and staff: customers, machines, tickets, photos, payments, messages. Your shop decides how this is used; your shop is responsible for it (the "controller", or "business" in California's terms). On the hosted service we store and process it on your shop's behalf (as its "service provider" or "processor"). On the Windows program and a self-hosted server, we don't have it at all.

If you are a customer of a shop and have a question about your information, please ask the shop first. If the shop uses our hosted service, we'll help the shop answer you.

4. Where your shop's data sits

Manuals stay on your PC in every case. The hub stores links to where manuals are published, never the manuals. On the hosted service, each tech's browser opens manuals from that tech's own PC.

In every case, what you choose to send to the hub sits on the hub (section 5), which runs on Railway too.

5. What we collect, and why

5.1 Your StitchHub account

5.2 What the program tells the hub about your install and shop

When the program joins the hub, it sends the install's name and a contact you give (usually an email). At every sync (every few minutes) it tells the hub, for each company: its id, name, kind, program and version. The hub answers with the shop's standing (free, unless we have suspended it) and licence key. The hub keeps the install's key only as a hash.

Internet (IP) addresses. The hub uses the address a request comes from, for a short time, to limit abuse (for example, too many sign-in attempts). It holds this in memory and doesn't save it to its database. Our hosting provider may record addresses in its request logs, which it keeps for 30 days.

5.2a The Help button and error reports

The programs have a Help button. When someone uses it to say something is wrong, suggest an idea or rate the program, the program sends the hub what they typed, the email address they gave to be answered at (if any), the program, its version, the page they were on, their role (not their name), whether the program runs on a PC or hosted, the browser and screen size, and the shop's id and name. For "Something's wrong" it can also send a picture of the screen; that is optional, shown to the person before sending, and may show whatever was on the screen, including customer details, which they can choose to leave out. When the program meets an error, it sends the error's message and technical trace and the page, with anything that looks like an email address, a phone number or a card number removed, and never form contents. We keep this until we have dealt with it (pictures are deleted 90 days after that) and use it only to fix and improve the programs and to answer the person; we do not share it or use it to advertise.

5.2b Bug reports

The programs have a Report a bug command: in StitchBench and StitchShop it is in the Help button; in StitchFoundry and LightFoundry it is in the Help menu and opens our report page in your browser; the hub has a link in its footer. What you type (a short summary, what happened, the steps to repeat it, what should have happened, and optionally a log or error text) goes to the hub, which files it as an issue on GitHub, using a token that only the hub holds. The issue also carries the program's name and version and a few details about the system: for StitchBench and StitchShop, the page, your role, whether it runs on a PC or hosted, and the browser and screen size; for the open-source programs and the hub's page, the operating system and processor, or the browser's name. It does not carry your shop's name, your email address or your internet address.

• StitchBench and StitchShop: the issue is in our private repository. The report is also kept on the hub, with the shop's name and the reply address if you gave one, as in section 5.2a. A picture of the screen, if you included one, stays on the hub and is not put in the issue.
• StitchFoundry, LightFoundry and the hub's own page: the issue is in a public repository. Anyone can read it and copy it, and GitHub keeps it until we close and delete it. Don't put anything private in a report.
• The hub uses your internet address for a short time to limit abuse (not saved to its database). GitHub's own privacy statement applies to what GitHub holds. We read reports only to fix and improve the programs.
• A maintainer can have an AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic) work on an issue to propose a fix. It reads the issue text and our code, not your shop's data.

5.3 What you share on the hub

You choose what to share, item by item. Nothing about a ticket or a customer goes to the community unless someone offers it. What can be shared:

• Tech notes ("hints") about a model: brand, model, the kind of note, the title, the text, and the photos you tick. Never the customer, the serial number, the ticket's problem or its notes. The program refuses a note that contains the machine's serial or the customer's name. Your shop's name and the name of the person who wrote it are shown with it.
• Manual link fixes and parts cross-reference edits: the change, with your shop's name and the person's name, kept in the history so it can be undone.
• Marketplace listings: the part, price, quantity, condition, photos, shipping. Your shop's name and rating show with it.
• Marketplace orders between two shops: the items, the seller's payment instructions, messages, tracking number, and ratings. Only the two shops see an order (ratings show to every shop, without the rater's name).
• Parts-used counts (only if you turn on the setting): how many of each part number you used each month. No customers, tickets or prices. The community list shows a part only when at least three shops used it.
• Figure pictures: small crops of manual pages that show a timing or adjustment. These contain nothing about your shop or customers. The program sends a figure to the hub automatically when it draws one for a factory setting; it is not an item-by-item choice.

Every shop on the hub can see what you share there, except orders and partner messages. The hub may post a short announcement of new notes, link fixes, listings and new members (with the shop's name) to the community's Discord channel. Orders are never posted.

5.4 Messages between partner shops

When a repair shop and a sewing or quilt shop connect as partners, their programs exchange messages through the hub: the sewing shop's tag number, the customer's first name and last initial, the machine and the problem, intake photos, estimates and approvals, the repair bill and status, orders, consignment stock and sales, and monthly statements. Customers' phone numbers and addresses stay in the shop.

The hub keeps these messages so a shop that was offline can catch up: for a year after every shop they're for has received them, and never more than three years. They are not end-to-end encrypted: the people who run the hub (us) can read them in the database. We look at them only to keep the hub running, to fix a problem a shop reports, or when the law requires.

5.5 Your shop's data on the hosted service

On the hosted service we store everything your shop enters, for example: customers (names, phones, emails, addresses, notes, how they want to be contacted, their consent to marketing); machines and serial numbers; tickets, repairs, estimates, photos and payments; sales and inventory; emails and texts sent, replies received, opt-outs and the consent record; classes, enrollments, appointments; staff names, sign-ins (passwords as hashes) and shifts; online bookings and online orders (with shipping addresses); and your mail, Twilio and Stripe passwords and keys, which are encrypted in the database.

We use it only to run the service for your shop: to store it, show it to you and your staff, send your messages through your accounts, take your online payments, back it up, keep it secure, and fix problems. We don't sell it, use it for advertising, combine it with other shops' data, or look at it otherwise.

5.6 Emails we send you

From one mailbox we control, we send: account emails (confirm your address, password resets, connecting a shop), notices about changes to these terms and this policy, and, on the hosted service, password-reset emails to your staff. We don't send you marketing. We send these emails through Resend, our email provider.

5.7 The Assistant

The Assistant is not available yet and sends nothing anywhere. Before it ships we'll publish an updated policy that says exactly what it sends, to whom, and for how long, and we'll ask you to accept it.

5.8 Payments and donations

• The programs are free, so we take no payment from you and hold no card details, bank details or billing address for you.
• Donations. If you give a donation, Buy Me a Coffee takes it under its own terms and privacy policy, with Stripe handling the payment. We receive from it only what it passes on to us: the name or display name you gave, your email address, your message, the amount and the date. On Buy Me a Coffee, a supporter's name and message show publicly unless the supporter changes that in their own settings there. We use that to thank you and for our own records, and we don't share it. We never see your card number.
• Your online shop. Stripe Checkout takes your customers' cards. Card numbers never reach the program or us. The order (the customer's name, email or phone, shipping address, items and amounts) is kept in your shop's data. If you use the hosted service's Stripe account, Stripe and we see these payments too, because they go through our account.
• The marketplace takes no payments: the buyer pays the seller directly.

5.9 Other services the program talks to

• Your email account and Twilio, to send your messages (section 8).
• UPCitemdb, when someone looks up a retail barcode: only the barcode number is sent.
• Manufacturers' websites, when a tech downloads a manual into the library.
• A tunnel (Tailscale, Cloudflare and similar), only if you set one up.

5.10 Cookies

The programs and the hub use sign-in cookies only: to keep you signed in, and for security. No advertising, analytics or tracking cookies. The online shop keeps the cart in the page's address, not in a cookie.

5.11 Our website and videos

• Our website (stitchbench.app) is a set of pages with information and links: no accounts, no forms, no advertising and no analytics or tracking cookies. Cloudflare, which hosts it, keeps ordinary request logs (including internet addresses) under its own policy, and we can see them in its dashboard. We don't export them or keep our own copy.
• Links to other sites. The website links to YouTube, GitHub, the donation page and the hub. When you follow one, that site's own privacy policy applies, not this one.
• Our YouTube channel. What you do on YouTube (watching, liking, subscribing, commenting) is handled by YouTube under its own policy. We see what YouTube shows the channel's owner: public comments and overall figures such as views. We don't connect any of it to a shop's data or its hub account.

6. Your customers' information

6.1 Your shop is responsible for it

Your shop decides what to collect about its customers and staff and what to do with it. Your shop must give them any notice the law requires (for example a privacy notice on your website if you use online booking or the online shop), and answer their requests to see, correct or delete their information. The program can't yet delete or merge a customer record. Until it can, a hosted shop asks us and we do it; a shop on its own PC or server can ask us how.

6.2 What we do with it on the hosted service

We hold it for you and act only on your shop's instructions (which are these terms and what you do in the program). We and our provider Railway can technically get at it as the operators. We look at it only to keep the service running and secure, to fix a problem you ask us to fix, or when the law requires us to. We'll tell you about a request from the authorities for your data unless the law forbids it.

6.3 Texts and email: consent

Messages go from your email account and your Twilio account. Your shop is the sender and is responsible for consent under the TCPA, CAN-SPAM and state laws (see the Terms, section 12). The program records each customer's consent with the exact words they agreed to, honours STOP and unsubscribes, and keeps a consent record that is never edited or deleted, because a dispute can be raised for four years. Those records stay even if a customer's other details are deleted, because the law expects them to be kept.

7. Who we share information with

We don't sell or rent information, and we don't share it for advertising.

We share only:

• With our service providers, who handle it for us under their own contracts and only to provide their service:
  • Railway: hosting and databases for the hub and the hosted service;
  • Stripe: payments in your online shop, only if you use the hosted service's Stripe account (Terms, section 13);
  • GitHub: bug reports, as issues (section 5.2b);
  • Cloudflare: hosting our website;
  • Resend: our account and password-reset emails;
  • Discord: short announcements on the community channel (section 5.3).
• Donations are handled by Buy Me a Coffee, an independent company, which gets your card details itself. We don't pass it anything about your shop.
• With other shops, only what you share on the hub (section 5.3), and with a partner shop only the partner messages (section 5.4).
• When the law requires it, or to protect people, the services or our rights, when that is lawful.
• If our business changes hands, with the new owner, who must keep to this policy. We'll tell you first.

8. How long we keep things

9. Deleting your information

• Your hub account. Ask us at bwattendorf@gmail.com. We delete the account and detach its shops. What your shop shared with the community (notes, link and part edits, listings) stays, under your install's name, because other shops rely on it, unless you remove it first or ask us to remove it.
• Your hosted company. Ask us. We'll confirm, give you the chance to export or move it first, and then delete it. Copies in backups disappear as the backups expire.
• On Windows or self-hosted, you delete your own data (uninstalling leaves the data and backups until you delete them; the installation guide says where they are).
• What we must keep: records the law requires (for example for donations), and anything we need for a legal claim.

10. Export and moving your company

You can take your data with you at any time, even when your shop is read-only:

• Settings → Your data downloads spreadsheets (CSV) of customers, machines, tickets, repairs, payments, sales, inventory, messages, consent records, campaigns, classes, appointments, shifts, online orders and more.
• Settings → Company → Move this company makes one file with the whole company, to move between a Windows PC, our hosted service and your own server. It holds everything, including staff password hashes, so keep it safe, don't email it, and delete it when the move is done. Passwords and keys for your mail, Twilio and Stripe are left out. On the hub, your shop's partner links, listings, notes and orders follow it; partner shops see nothing change.

11. Security, in plain terms

• Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes (bcrypt in the programs, scrypt on the hub). Reset links and codes are hashed too, and work once.
• Your mail, Twilio and Stripe passwords and keys are encrypted in the database (AES-256-GCM), each tied to your shop.
• The hosted service and the hub use encrypted connections (https). Sign-in cookies can't be read by page scripts.
• Sign-ins, sign-ups and resets are rate-limited against guessing.
• We take no card numbers: the programs are free, donations go through the platform, and your online shop's cards go to Stripe.
• Each shop on a hosted service sees only its own data; every query is limited to the signed-in shop.
• What we can't protect: your shop PC, its backups and move files. Backups are not encrypted. Keep them as private as the PC, and remember that Windows may copy Documents to OneDrive.
• Partner messages on the hub are not end-to-end encrypted (section 5.4).

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we'll tell you without unreasonable delay and as the law requires.

12. Your choices and rights

You can:

• see and change your account email and password on the hub, and your shop's details in the program;
• turn off sharing of parts-used counts, remove what you shared, and choose what you offer;
• export everything (section 10), and ask us to delete your account or hosted company (section 9);
• ask us what information we hold about you, at bwattendorf@gmail.com. We'll answer within 45 days and may need to check it's really you.

Depending on where you live, privacy laws may give you more rights. We'll honour them where they apply.

13. Children

The services are for businesses and are not meant for children. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13. A shop may keep records about customers who are children (for example a child in a sewing class); the shop is responsible for that under section 6. If you think a child has given us information, tell us and we'll delete it.

14. Changes to this policy, and versions

Each version has a version date in the form YYYY-MM-DD at the top, and is published on the hub at https://hub.stitchbench.app/privacy, with earlier versions kept there. The hub records which version your account accepted. If we make a change that matters, we'll email your account at least 30 days before it applies and show "We updated our terms" on the hub and in Settings → Account.

15. Contact

Bruce Wattendorf dba SiteSentrix 8 Maplewood Drive, Mapleville, RI 02839 bwattendorf@gmail.com