Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Flare makes the Flare desktop app for Firebase and other databases, and runs flare.tools and the Flare API. In this policy "Flare", "we" and "us" mean the people who operate Flare. You can reach us about privacy at privacy@flare.tools.

2. Connecting your Google accounts

You sign in to Flare with your email address and a password. To open Firebase projects, you connect one or more Google accounts in the desktop app, and for each the app asks Google for these permissions:

• Your name, email address and profile picture (openid, email and profile), to show which Google account is connected.
• Google Cloud access (cloud-platform), to list the Firebase projects your account can reach, and to read and change the Firebase and Google Cloud resources you choose to open and work on in the app: Firestore documents and indexes, Authentication users, Cloud Storage buckets and files, and Security Rules. It also reads your Cloud Functions and the Cloud Build runs behind them, which Google only allows under this permission.

Flare can only reach what each Google account can already reach, and only does what you ask it to do. Each Firebase project opens through the Google account you chose for it, and never through another. Flare never changes who has access to your projects in Google Cloud.

Your Google tokens are stored on your computer, encrypted with your operating system's credential storage, separately for each account. To finish connecting and to keep a connection working, the app sends the one time code, or a refresh token, to the Flare API, which passes it to Google together with the app's client credentials and returns Google's answer. The API does not store these tokens. When you reconnect an account, the app tells Google which account to suggest. Disconnecting an account deletes and revokes that account's tokens; signing out deletes all of them from your computer.

Your saved Firebase connections remember which Google account each project opens through, by the account's ID and email address, on your computer.

3. Your Firebase data and your databases

Your Firebase data travels directly between your computer and Google, and the data in the other databases you connect, such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Supabase, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis and S3 compatible storage, travels directly between your computer and that database. None of it passes through or gets stored on Flare's servers. Backups you make are written to your own computer.

The connections you save, and their passwords and keys, such as a Supabase service role key, are kept on your computer. Passwords and keys are encrypted with your operating system's credential storage, or where there is none, kept in a file only your user account can read. They leave your computer only if you turn on sync or put a connection in a team folder, and then only end to end encrypted, as the next section explains.

Some of what you do does reach our servers, only when you use the feature that needs it:

• Flare Assistant. When you ask the Assistant for help, your request is sent through the Flare API to OpenAI with what it needs to answer. For Firebase that is the names of the fields in your collections. For other databases it is a summary of their tables or collections, their columns or fields and types, keys and indexes, the query you are working on, and when you ask it to fix or speed one up, the error or the query plan the database gave. Values from your data are not sent unless you attach them or turn on sample values.
• Team features. Scripts, migrations and activity that you share with a team are stored on our servers so your teammates can see them. Shared activity says what was changed and where, and for SQL and Redis it includes the text of the query or command that made the change.
• Crash reports. When the app runs into an error it sends a report with technical details of the error, the app version and your operating system, with tokens, keys and other secrets removed first. Reports are on by default and you can turn them off in Settings.

4. Sync and team folders

Sync is off until you turn it on, and team folders hold only what someone puts in them. Both are end to end encrypted: your saved connections and saved queries are encrypted on your own devices before they are sent, with keys that never leave your devices, and our servers store only the encrypted copies.

• What we cannot read: the names, addresses, users, passwords and keys of your connections, the text of your queries, and the names of your folders. We cannot decrypt them, and no one at Flare can.
• What our servers do see, because they need it to deliver your items: how many items you have in each place, their size rounded up to a block, when each changes and from which account, whether each is a connection, a query or a folder, the name and platform of each device you add, the public keys your devices use, and who belongs to which team.
• For Firebase connections, the encrypted copy carries only the project and database IDs you chose, your own names, tags and colours for them, and which of your Google accounts each opens through, by Google's account ID alone. Your Google tokens and your Google email addresses are never synced, and connections in a team folder never carry whose account the sharer used; each device connects to Google itself.
• A team folder's key is shared among its members through each member's own keys. A teammate's password travels with a connection only when whoever shares it chooses so. When someone leaves a team, the folder's key is replaced, but what their devices already had stays with them.
• If you lose every device and your recovery key, your synced copies cannot be recovered, by you or by us.
• Turning sync off stops it and offers to delete the encrypted copies from our servers.

5. How we use Google user data

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

• Google user data means what we receive through Google APIs: your Google name, email address and profile picture, your Google sign in tokens, and the Firebase and Google Cloud data Flare reads for you, such as documents, collection and field names, Authentication users, Storage files, Security Rules and Cloud Functions details.
• We use Google user data only to provide and improve the features you use in Flare.
• We do not sell Google user data or use it for advertising. We share, transfer or disclose it only to the recipients listed in the next section, and only for the reasons given there.
• We do not use Google user data to develop, improve or train generalized AI or machine learning models.
• No one at Flare reads your Google user data unless you ask us to for support, it is needed for security or to comply with the law.

6. Who we share Google user data with

These are the only parties that receive Google user data from Flare, what each one receives and why:

• Google. Changes you make in the app, such as editing a document, deploying Security Rules or uploading a file, are sent to your own Firebase and Google Cloud projects. Sign in codes and refresh tokens are sent to Google to get access for the app.
• Railway, which runs the Flare API in the European Union (Amsterdam). Your sign in code or refresh token passes through the API on its way to Google and is not stored. The API also handles your name and email address to run your Flare account, and passes on Flare Assistant requests.
• Cloudflare, which carries encrypted traffic between the app, flare.tools and the Flare API. It does not store Google user data.
• Supabase, which stores our account database in the European Union (Frankfurt). It holds your Google name, email address and profile picture address, what you share with a team (see Your teammates below) and crash reports, which have tokens, keys and other secrets removed before they are sent. If you use sync or team folders, it also holds the encrypted copies of your saved connections, which for a Firebase connection contain the project and database IDs you chose and the ID of the Google account each opens through; we cannot read them.
• OpenAI, only when you use Flare Assistant. It receives your request, the Firebase project ID, the collection paths and field names of your Firestore database, and anything you choose to attach: a query, Security Rules, Cloud Functions details, a Storage listing or document values. OpenAI uses this only to return a suggestion and, under its API terms, does not use it to train its models.
• Stripe, only when you start a checkout or manage billing. It receives your Google email address to create your customer record and send receipts.
• Resend, only when you invite someone to a team. The invitation email it sends includes your Google name as the person inviting.
• Your teammates, only when you use team features. People in your team see your Google name and email address, and whatever you share with them: Security Rules, index and schema versions, scripts, and the activity log, which records each change you make: the Firebase project, the operation, the document path, file name or user ID it touched, and whether it worked. Connections you put in a team folder, with the Firebase project and database IDs they carry, are shared with the members of that folder, end to end encrypted.

We may also disclose Google user data when the law requires it, to protect the safety or security of our users or of Flare, or to a company that acquires Flare, in which case we will tell you first and the acquirer must keep to this policy.

The contents of your Firestore documents, the details of your Authentication users and the contents of your Storage files go only to Google, unless you attach them to a Flare Assistant request. We do not share Google user data with any other party.

7. Your Flare account

To run your account we store:

• Your email address and name, and a password that we store only as a secure hash, never as the password itself. Accounts made before passwords keep the profile picture address Google provided.
• The teams you belong to, your role in each, and the invitations you send, including the email address of each person you invite.
• Your plan and its billing status.
• A small number of product events, such as a migration being run or checkout being started, each recorded with your plan, the time and the app version, so we can see which features are used.
• If you use sync: your devices, by the name and platform you give them, their public keys, and the encrypted copies of your items described above.

8. The waitlist

If you join the waitlist on flare.tools, we store your email address, which part of the site you joined from (such as the home page or the waitlist page) and when. You do not need an account, and we store nothing else about you.

We use your address only to tell you when Flare opens to you. We do not use it for anything else, sell it or use it for advertising. It is stored by Supabase, in the European Union (Frankfurt), with the rest of our account database, where only the Flare API and the people who run Flare can read it.

We keep your address until Flare opens to you or you ask us to remove it, whichever comes first. To be taken off the waitlist, email privacy@flare.tools from that address and we will delete it.

9. Payments and email

Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details; we keep the Stripe identifiers for your customer record and subscription so we can show your plan and invoices.

Invitation emails are sent through Resend to the address the person inviting you enters.

10. Who helps us run Flare

We use these providers, each only for the part of Flare it serves:

• Supabase, for the account database, the waitlist and sign in, hosted in the European Union (Frankfurt).
• Railway, which runs the Flare API in the European Union (Amsterdam).
• Vercel, which hosts flare.tools.
• Cloudflare, for our domain, network and the storage the desktop app is downloaded from.
• Stripe, for payments.
• Resend, for account and invitation emails.
• OpenAI, for Flare Assistant.
• Google, for the Firebase and Google Cloud services you connect and use through Flare.

11. Cookies and your browser

flare.tools does not use advertising or cross site tracking cookies. It keeps your sign in session and your light or dark theme choice in your browser.

12. Keeping and deleting data

We keep your account data for as long as you have a Flare account, and team activity for as long as your team's plan keeps it. Encrypted sync copies are kept until you delete them, turn sync off and choose to delete them, or delete your account. A waitlist address is kept until Flare opens to you or you ask us to remove it. Other records are kept only as long as we need them to run and improve Flare.

You can ask us to show you, correct, export or delete your data by emailing privacy@flare.tools. You can remove Flare's access to any of your Google accounts at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions, signed in as that account.

13. Security

Everything between the app, flare.tools and the Flare API travels over encrypted connections. Google tokens, database passwords and keys are encrypted on your computer, synced items are encrypted end to end before they leave it, and access to our systems is limited to the people who need it to run Flare.

14. Children

Flare is not meant for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

15. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we update the date at the top of this page, and for changes that matter we tell you in the app or by email before they take effect.