Privacy

What Lisa OS does with your data.

Almost nothing — and where that is true, it is true because of how the system is built rather than because we promise it. This page says exactly what happens, including the parts where data does leave your machine.

Last updated 30 July 2026

The short version

  • Lisa OS runs on your hardware. We operate no servers that receive your files, your mail, or what you say to the assistant.
  • The daemons that read your context have no network access at all. That is a property of how they are confined, not a setting.
  • Anything that leaves your machine does so because you switched it on, and is recorded in a Ledger you can read.
  • We do not sell data, serve advertising, or use your content to train models.

The operating system

Lisa OS collects no analytics and phones nothing home. There is no telemetry service, no crash reporter that uploads without asking, and no account required to use it. Your files, your mail, your notes and your conversations with the local assistant stay on the machine.

Local models run on your own hardware. Prompts and results are processed on the device and written to the Ledger, which is a file on your disk that you own and can delete.

Updates are the one thing the base system fetches on its own. To download an update, the machine requests release files over HTTPS from our release host. That request necessarily reveals your IP address and which version you are asking for, the same as any download.

When something does leave your machine

Two features send data off the device, and both are off until you turn them on:

  • Cloud models. If you sign in to a provider — Anthropic, OpenAI, or another — the text of that conversation goes to that provider, under their privacy policy, not ours. We are not an intermediary: the request goes from your machine to them. Every such call is marked in the interface and recorded in the Ledger.
  • Mail sync. If you connect a mail account, your machine talks to that mail provider directly, over an encrypted connection, to download your mail onto your own disk. Nothing passes through us.

Google user data

If you connect a Google account, Lisa OS requests access so the mail client on your machine can download your mail and, if you enable them, your calendar and contacts.

  • The connection is between your machine and Google. Your mail is never sent to us and never passes through any server we operate.
  • Access tokens are stored in the system keyring on your device.
  • Mail is stored on your disk in a standard Maildir. Deleting it deletes it.
  • Your mail is read on your machine, by software running on your machine. If you have enabled a cloud model and then ask it about your mail, the text you ask about goes to that provider — which is why the system marks it, and why an action taken on a message you did not write is escalated for confirmation.
  • You can revoke access at any time in your Google Account's security settings, or by removing the account in Settings. Revoking stops future sync; mail already on your disk stays there until you delete it.

Lisa OS'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. We do not use Google user data for advertising, we do not sell it, we do not allow humans to read it, and we do not use it to train any model.

This website

These pages are static and carry no analytics, no advertising and no third-party trackers. The server that serves them keeps ordinary access logs, which include IP addresses, for operating and securing the site.

Children

Lisa OS is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the date above and note the change in the repository, where its whole history is public.

Contact

Questions, or a privacy problem you have found: open an issue on GitHub. Issues are public; for something you would rather not post, use GitHub's private vulnerability reporting on the same repository.

Lisa OS is free software under the GPL-2.0 and is supplied without warranty. This page describes what the software does; it is not legal advice, and it does not replace the licence.