Facet

Privacy policy

Applies to the Facet application for macOS and Linux. Last updated 5 October 2026.

Who this is from

Facet is made by Harry Phillips, in Australia. For anything in this policy, write to facet@tux.com.au.

What Facet records, and where it keeps it

Facet records what you would expect a time tracker to record:

• the categories you create, with their names, colours and icons;
• which category each face of your tracker is assigned to;
• the stretches of time you spend on each one, as a start time and a duration;
• the stretches the tracker reports, as which face was up, when, and for how long, and what it says about itself: its name, model and firmware;
• your settings, including your daily reset time and your paired device, which is kept as its name and Bluetooth identifier.

All of it is written to a SQLite database in your own user folder: under Application Support in your Library folder on a Mac, and in ~/.local/share/Facet on Linux. The file belongs to you. It is not uploaded, mirrored or backed up by Facet, and on a Mac it is included in your Time Machine backups only because everything in that folder is.

What Facet does not do

• There is no account to create and no login to Facet itself.
• There are no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting and no advertising, from us or from any third party. The app contains no third party tracking code.
• We operate no servers that your data could be sent to, because there are none to send it to.
• Nothing is sold or shared, because nothing reaches us in the first place.

Your tracker

Facet communicates with a TimeFlip2 tracker over Bluetooth Low Energy, directly between the device and your computer. On a Mac, macOS asks your permission for Bluetooth the first time, and you can withdraw it in System Settings. On Linux, Facet talks to BlueZ like any other desktop program and there is no permission prompt. The tracker's own manufacturer is not involved in this and receives nothing from Facet.

Facet protects your tracker with a six-digit PIN of its own and keeps it in your computer's secret store: the Keychain on a Mac, the Secret Service on Linux. If the secret store will not take it, Facet keeps it in a plain file called config.json in its own folder. It is never sent anywhere.

The debug trace

Facet can keep a trace of what it is doing, to help find a fault. It is off until you turn it on in the Debug section of the App tab. While it is on, Facet writes a file called debug.sqlite beside its database, or in a folder you choose. It holds every Bluetooth exchange with your tracker, including the tracker's PIN in plain text, the tracker's name and Bluetooth identifier, some category names, and, if you have connected Google, your email address and the name of the calendar. Facet never sends it anywhere. You can open its folder, save a copy and clear it from the App tab, and whether a copy goes to anyone is your decision. Look through it first.

Google Calendar, if you turn it on

Facet can write your recorded time to Google Calendar so that it sits alongside the rest of your day. This is optional and is off until you connect an account. If you never connect one, nothing in this section happens and Facet makes no network connections at all.

What Facet asks for

• Your name and email address (the openid, userinfo.email and userinfo.profile scopes), so the app can show you which account is connected. Facet reads only the name and the email address, and does not use or keep your profile picture. They are displayed in the app and stored on your computer. They are not sent anywhere else.
• Permission to manage a calendar that Facet itself creates (the calendar.app.created scope). Facet makes its own calendar in your account and writes your time entries there as events. This permission does not give Facet access to your existing calendars, and it cannot read, change or delete anything that Facet did not create.

What Facet does with it

Google user data is used for one purpose: putting your own recorded time into your own calendar, at your request. Each event is titled with the category name and carries the start and end times with their time zone, and a description holding two reference numbers from Facet's own database. It carries nothing else. Once a calendar exists, Facet sends every recorded session it has not sent yet, including sessions recorded before you signed in. While you sign in, Facet listens briefly on your own computer (address 127.0.0.1) to receive Google's reply. The connection is made from your computer straight to Google's API. It does not pass through any system of ours, and we never see it.

Where the permission is kept

The refresh token that lets Facet act on your behalf is stored in your computer's secret store: the Keychain on a Mac, the Secret Service (GNOME Keyring, for example) on Linux, protected by your login. Facet does not store the short-lived access tokens, and it does not store the refresh token in its database or in any file. It is not transmitted anywhere other than to Google.

Limited use

Facet's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

In plain terms, and to be explicit about the things that policy forbids: Google user data is never used for advertising, is never sold or transferred to anyone, is never used to build a profile of you, and is never read by a human, including us.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect the account inside Facet at any time, which deletes the stored token from your computer's secret store, clears your name and email address from Facet's database, and stops any further syncing. You can also revoke Facet's access from Google's own side at myaccount.google.com/permissions, which has the same effect and does not depend on the app. Events already written to your calendar stay in your calendar, and are yours to keep or delete.

Deleting your data

Because your data lives on your computer, you delete it the way you delete anything else on it: remove Facet's folder (Application Support/Facet in your Library folder on a Mac, ~/.local/share/Facet on Linux), and the debug trace's folder too if you chose one. Facet leaves two entries behind in your Keychain or Secret Service, both with names beginning au.com.tux.facet: one for the tracker's PIN and one for the Google sign-in, which Disconnect already removes. Search for facet there and delete them if you want them gone. There is nothing held elsewhere that we could delete on your behalf, and no request you need to send us to have it done.

Children

Facet is not directed at children and is not designed for use by them.

Changes to this policy

If the app's handling of data changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top changes too. Where a change affects what Facet asks of your Google account, you will be asked to approve the new permissions before it takes effect, because Google requires it.