Privacy Policy for Magic Endoscope

Magic Endoscope is a viewer for USB and Wi-Fi inspection cameras (borescopes). This policy explains what the app does with your information, in plain terms.

In brief

• There is no account. You never give us a name, an email, or a password.
• We operate no server that your photos or videos could reach. They stay on your phone unless you send them somewhere yourself.
• There is no advertising and no tracking.
• The app works without an internet connection. A Wi-Fi camera connects to your phone directly, not through the internet.
• One permission is required — the camera. Everything else is optional.
• Videos have no sound unless you turn sound on. The microphone is used only while a video records with sound on, and the sound stays in the video on your phone.
• Inspection reports stay on your phone too. Anyone can make and preview a report; exporting one needs Pro. Only the PDF and Word files you export from a report can leave the app, and only when, with Pro, you share or save one yourself or open it in another app.

Why the app asks for each permission

Camera — required. Android treats a USB endoscope as a camera. That is why the app asks for camera permission even when you have plugged a scope into a cable: Android will not let any app open a USB camera without it. It is the same permission for both. Magic Endoscope uses your phone’s own rear camera only if you choose it as the picture source; otherwise it shows the picture from your endoscope. Either way it saves the photos and videos you take. That picture is processed on your phone and goes nowhere else.

Location — optional, off until you switch it on. Used only to print the place where a capture was taken onto the picture. Please read Before you turn on location stamping below.

Microphone — optional, off until you switch it on. Used only to record sound into your videos, from your phone’s own built-in microphone, while the Sound switch is on. The app asks for it when you first turn sound on, never when it starts and never when you press record. Please read Sound in your videos below.

Internet, network state, Wi-Fi multicast. Used to find your Wi-Fi camera and stream from it, to check whether you have bought Pro, and to make sure camera traffic goes over Wi-Fi rather than your mobile data. The app does not read the name of your Wi-Fi network.

In-app billing. Added automatically by Google Play’s billing library so you can buy and restore Pro. You are never prompted for it.

Inspection reports need no permission of their own.

If you say no to a permission

• Camera — the app cannot show a picture. This is the one permission it cannot work without. Nothing is sent anywhere as a result; the app simply has nothing to show.
• Location — captures are saved without a location stamp. Everything else works normally.
• Microphone — videos are recorded without sound. Everything else works normally.

The app will not keep nagging you, and it will not lock unrelated features behind a permission you refused. You can change your mind at any time in your phone’s settings, under Apps → Magic Endoscope → Permissions.

Your photos and videos

Captures are saved to your phone. They are never uploaded to us, and we operate no server that could receive them. We cannot see them. If you share a capture, that happens through your phone’s own Share button and is governed by whichever app or service you choose.

Where they are saved. By default, into a MagicEndoscope folder in your phone’s normal Photos and Videos storage. In Settings you can instead choose an SD card, or pick any folder yourself. If you pick a folder, Android gives the app ongoing permission to read and write that folder and everything in it, until you change the setting. The app uses that access only to save your captures and to list them in its own gallery.

What it cannot see. The app declares no general storage permission. Apart from a folder you choose yourself, it can only see the media it created.

Captions. You can attach a short text note to a photo or video. The note is kept in the app’s own storage on your phone, not in the file, so other apps cannot read it and it does not travel with the file when you share it. It is never sent to us. Deleting the capture in the app’s gallery deletes its note, and uninstalling the app deletes every note. If you add a capture to a report, its caption is copied into the report as the picture’s caption. The report’s copy is separate: you can change it there, and it then appears in the documents you export. Deleting the capture does not delete that copy; it stays in the report until you delete the report.

Sound. Videos have no sound unless you turn sound on. When you do, the sound is part of the video file and is treated exactly like the picture: it stays on your phone and is never uploaded to us. Please read Sound in your videos below.

Reports. If you put captures into an inspection report, the report keeps its own copies of those pictures inside the app. Please read Inspection reports below.

If you uninstall, your captures stay on your phone. Android treats saved photos and videos as your media, not as app data, so removing the app does not delete them.

Sound in your videos

Magic Endoscope can record sound into your videos from your phone’s microphone, so you can say what you are looking at while you inspect.

Sound is off until you switch it on. You turn it on with the Sound button on the camera screen, in the preview settings, or under App Settings → Camera → Record Sound. Before Android asks you for microphone permission, the app explains what turning sound on means. Updating the app does not turn sound on.

A short guide explains it. If you used an earlier version of the app, a short guide about sound opens once on the camera screen after you update. You can open it again at any time from the preview settings: How sound works.

The microphone is on only while a video records with sound on. It is not used for the live picture, for photos, or while a recording is paused or stopped. On Android 12 and later your phone shows its own microphone indicator whenever the microphone is in use, so you can check this yourself.

You can turn sound off at any time, even in the middle of a recording. The microphone is released at once. The video keeps recording, and from that moment it is silent. Your choice is remembered for the next video.

Your phone’s own microphone. The app asks Android for the microphone built into your phone or tablet, not one in a headset or in your endoscope.

The sound stays in the video file on your phone. It is never uploaded to us, and we operate no server that could receive it. The app does not analyse or transcribe it and sends it to no speech service. Because the sound is part of the video, anyone you send the video to can hear it. A video recorded with sound off may still carry an empty sound track, which other players show as a volume control; it contains only silence.

Let people nearby know before you record them. A recording with sound can pick up the voices of people around you — a customer, a colleague, someone in the next room. Tell them before you record.

When Android takes the microphone away. During a phone or video call, or while the app is in the background, Android does not let the app hear the microphone. The video keeps recording, and that part of it is silent.

A note of which parts have sound. So that the gallery can show which videos have sound, the app keeps a short note for each video it records while microphone access is allowed: which stretches have sound, not the sound itself. It stays on your phone with your settings (see What is stored on your phone).

Inspection reports

You can turn captures from Inspection Media (the app’s gallery) into an inspection report and preview its pages. With Pro, you can also export it as a PDF or an editable Word document and share or save that file, or open it in another app. Without Pro you can still view a PDF exported earlier, inside the app. All of this happens on your phone.

What a report holds. It holds what you type into it and copies of the pictures you add. That means a title, a report date, an overview, findings (each with a title, what you observed, a next action and a priority), picture captions, and the details you choose to fill in: what was inspected, the inspection date, who prepared it, the location, the customer or job, and a contact. The app suggests a title and sets the report date to today; you can change both. It fills in none of the details for you.

A photo is copied into the report as it was saved. A video goes into a report as one still picture. The app picks a frame for you, and with Choose frame you can pick another one; the app then takes that frame from the original video in Inspection Media. A report never holds the video itself, and reports never contain sound. A report also remembers which capture each picture came from (its file name, size and date), so it can tell you when the original has changed or is gone.

Editing a picture. With Adjust image you can crop and rotate a picture and mark it with arrows and numbered markers. These changes are saved with the report and applied to the pictures in the files you export. Your original photo or video in Inspection Media is never changed.

Where it is kept. A report is kept in the app’s own private storage on your phone, together with every PDF and Word file you export from it. Other apps cannot see it. Reports are excluded from Android’s backup and from phone-to-phone transfer, so they do not move to a new phone and do not come back if you reinstall. The app remembers your report choices, such as paper size, format, picture quality, layout and whether file names are shown, with your settings. Those choices hold nothing you typed into a report.

What leaves your phone, and when. Nothing leaves until you act. We operate no server for reports, and making, previewing or exporting one sends nothing anywhere. An exported file leaves the app only when, with Pro, you tap Share, Save as or Open on it, which hands it to another app. The file then goes to the app, folder or service you pick, and that app or service’s own terms apply. Without Pro, Share, Save as and Open on a Word file ask for Pro, and Open on a PDF shows it inside the app, so nothing leaves.

What an exported file contains. Pictures in an exported file are fresh copies made from the picture itself, so hidden image data, including GPS coordinates, is removed. Anything you can see in a picture stays, including a location stamp printed on it. Every detail you filled in and each picture’s file name are printed in the document, unless you untick them under Details to include or untick File names under images before exporting. A Word file also records a few document properties, as Word files normally do: the report’s title, the time the report was created (Word shows it as both the created and the modified time), “Magic Endoscope” as the program that made it and, if Prepared by is filled in and included in the export, that name as the document’s author.

Other people’s details. A report can hold a customer’s name, address or phone number. They stay on your phone like the rest of the report, and we never receive them. When you share or save an exported file, you decide who sees them.

Deleting a report removes, from the app’s storage, the report, its copies of your pictures and every PDF and Word file exported from it. Your original photos and videos in Inspection Media are not deleted. You can undo for 10 seconds. You can delete reports with or without Pro.

• Deleting a photo or video in the gallery does not remove it, or the caption copied with it, from a report that uses it; delete the report too.
• Removing a finding or a picture from a report, replacing a picture, or choosing a different frame does not erase the old version yet: the report’s earlier copy of the picture, its caption and a removed finding’s text stay inside the app until you delete the report.
• A copy made with Duplicate report is a separate report; delete it on its own.
• Copies you have shared or saved elsewhere are not affected.
• Uninstalling the app, or clearing its storage in your phone’s settings, deletes every report.

Before you turn on location stamping

Magic Endoscope can print the place where a photo or video was taken onto the picture itself. This is off until you turn it on. Before you do, understand what it means.

The stamp is part of the picture, like writing on a photo with a marker. It is not a hidden tag that a phone, a website, or a messaging app can strip out.

You cannot remove it later. Turning the setting off afterwards does not clean the captures you already took. Uploading the file somewhere that “removes location information” will not remove it either, and neither does cropping. The only way to get rid of it is to delete the picture. On video, the stamp is on every single frame.

Anyone you send the file to can read it. If you photograph a job inside a customer’s home, a picture you send to that customer, to a supplier, to a group chat, or attached to a quote or an inspection report carries that address to everyone who sees it.

The setting stays on until you turn it off. Switch stamping on for one job and it will still be on at the next one.

If you are unsure, leave it off. You can switch it on for a single job — to prove where an inspection was carried out, say — and switch it off when you are done.

How location works when you do switch it on

Approximate by default. The app asks only for approximate location and prints a general place name, such as a town or a region.

Exact coordinates must be switched on separately. Only then does the app ask for precise location and print exact latitude and longitude.

The place name is looked up by Google, not by us. Your phone has to turn coordinates into a name like Leeds or Bavaria. It does that with a service built into Android, which on most phones means sending the coordinates to Google to ask what place they are.

That lookup happens once for where you are, and again only if you move more than about half a kilometre — far enough that the place name could genuinely have changed. Working on one site all day costs a single lookup. We never see any of it and keep no record of it. Google’s handling of the lookup is governed by Google’s own privacy policy.

The app reads a saved position, not a live fix. It asks Android for the last known location. It does not follow you in the background or when the camera screen is closed.

One thing the toggle does not do. Switching exact coordinates back off stops exact coordinates being printed on your captures. It does not withdraw the precise-location permission you already granted, so the position the app reads — and sends for the place-name lookup — may still be precise. To change that, set the app’s location permission back to Approximate in your phone’s settings.

We do not transmit your location to ourselves, do not keep a location history, and do not use location for anything except drawing that stamp.

Wi-Fi cameras and your local network

To find a Wi-Fi endoscope, the app checks a small set of addresses on the Wi-Fi network your phone is currently joined to — usually the camera’s own hotspot — and then streams video from it. Your phone may warn you that this Wi-Fi has no internet. That is normal: the camera’s hotspot is not connected to anything.

This traffic travels only between your phone and the camera. It never reaches us.

Cheap endoscope cameras cannot encrypt what they send, and no app can add encryption they do not support, so this local video is unencrypted. In practice that means anyone else who has joined that same camera hotspot could potentially see the picture. The hotspot has a short range and normally nobody else is on it, but if you are working somewhere you would not want the picture seen, keep it in mind.

The app only connects to camera addresses it discovered on the Wi-Fi network your phone has joined; there is no way to type in an address of your own. Its unencrypted web requests are additionally restricted in code to private local-network address ranges.

No advertising, no tracking

Magic Endoscope integrates no advertising network, no attribution service, and no product-analytics service, and shows no third-party ads. It does show promotions for its own Pro upgrade to users on the free tier; those promotions are drawn entirely on your phone and make no network request.

The purchase library the app uses brings in standard Google Play components, and Google Play Billing sends its own operational information to Google as part of processing payments. Nothing about you is profiled, sold, or shared for advertising, and the app does not read your device’s advertising identifier.

Buying Pro

Payment is handled by Google Play. We never see or store your card details.

Purchases are managed through RevenueCat, which gives your installation a random identifier and uses it to record whether this installation owns Pro. That identifier tells RevenueCat only that some installation bought Pro. It is not linked to your name, your email, or your Google account, and it is not used to advertise to you. RevenueCat also receives standard technical information with those requests: device model, operating system and app version, country, and IP address.

RevenueCat’s privacy policy: https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy/

Crash reports

This version of Magic Endoscope does not send crash reports. Nothing about crashes leaves your phone.

What is stored on your phone

• Your settings — zoom, overlays, measurement presets, camera controls, resolution, and your report choices.
• A list of the captures the app has saved — file names, sizes, dates and dimensions, not the pictures themselves.
• The captions you add to captures.
• A note of which parts of each video have sound — times only, never the sound itself.
• Your inspection reports — what you typed, the reports’ copies of your pictures, and the PDF and Word files exported from them.
• A note of whether this installation was seen to own Pro, and when that was last confirmed. (Earlier versions of the app also kept a daily counter of photos and clips taken, to enforce a free-tier limit. That limit no longer exists, and the first time you open this version it deletes any counter left behind by an older install.)

Your settings, the capture list, your captions and the sound notes may be included in Android’s standard backup, unless you have turned backup off on your phone. The Pro record and your reports are deliberately excluded from backup and from phone-to-phone transfer: the Pro record so that it cannot be copied onto a different install by restoring a backup, and your reports because they can hold other people’s names, addresses and phone numbers, which should not leave your phone in a backup.

The Pro record is kept until you uninstall. Everything in this list is destroyed when you uninstall.

Who else receives anything

We do not control how these companies handle what they receive. Their own privacy policies apply.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to see, correct, delete, or export personal information about you, or to object to how it is used.

Because Magic Endoscope has no accounts and we keep no records about you, you can already do most of this yourself: your captures, reports and settings are on your own phone. You can view, export or delete your captures and settings whenever you like. You can view, edit and delete your reports at any time, with or without Pro. Making a PDF or Word document from a report is a Pro feature, and so is using the app to share or save one already made, or to open it in another app. Without Pro you can still view a PDF already made, inside the app; a Word file opens only in another app, so it needs Pro. Copies you have already saved elsewhere with Save as, or shared, are your own files: they stay where you put them, with or without Pro.

The one exception is your purchase record held by RevenueCat and Google. Contact us and we will pass your request on to them and confirm when they have acted on it, or you can approach them directly. We reply within 30 days.

Children

Magic Endoscope is a tool for inspecting pipes, engines, and walls. It is not designed for or directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. There is no account system and no way for anyone — child or adult — to send us personal information through the app.

Security

Everything that leaves your phone — purchase checks, and the place-name lookup if you have enabled stamping — travels over encrypted connections. Video from a Wi-Fi camera is unencrypted, as explained above, but it never leaves your local network.

Data that should not follow you between installations, such as the Pro record and your reports, is excluded from backup. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise absolute security.

Changes to this policy

This policy takes effect on the date at the top. If we make a material change — a new kind of information, a new recipient, or a new purpose — we will show a notice inside the app the next time you open it, and we will not start the new processing until you have had that notice. Where a change needs your consent, we will ask for it separately; simply continuing to use the app is not treated as consent. Earlier versions are available on request.

Versions 1.1 and 1.2 each add one feature: sound in videos (1.1) and inspection reports (1.2). If you update from an older version of the app, you may get both at once.

Version 1.1 added optional sound recording: the microphone permission and Sound in your videos. The sound leaves your phone only if you share a video yourself. The app tells you about this change itself: after you update, a short sound guide opens once on the camera screen (if a recording or another guide is in the way, it opens on a later visit), and no sound is recorded until you turn sound on. Version 1.1 also corrected two statements that had gone out of date: the app can use your phone’s own rear camera when you choose it as the picture source, and captions are kept in the app’s own storage rather than in Android’s media database.

Version 1.2 added Inspection reports: anyone can make and preview one and view a PDF made from it inside the app, and exporting one needs Pro. Reports are made and kept on your phone; only the PDF and Word files you export from them leave the app, and only when, with Pro, you share or save one yourself or open it in another app. No new permission and no new recipient are involved. We do not treat this as a material change as described at the start of this section: we receive nothing from a report, nothing goes into a report unless you add it yourself, and updating the app creates no report. The app tells you where reports are kept as you use them: the Reports screen says that drafts and exported files are kept on this device, the report editor shows that your work is saved on this device, and the export screen says what is removed from exported pictures.

Contact

Magic Endoscope is published by Technomagic Solutions.

If you have a question about this policy, or you want to exercise any of the rights described above, write to support@technomagic-solutions.com. We read everything sent there and will reply.