Legal
Privacy notice
Last updated 12 Nov 2026
HamTEK Ltd is the controller of the personal data described here. Our company details, address and email are on the contact page, which is also the way to reach us about your data. Our servers are in the UK and the European Union. The few companies that help us run the service are described under "Who else sees your data", with where they work.
Your account
Accounts are held by HamTEK's licence server at account.arcturussdr.com, which also holds your password, your licences and your orders. For each licence it records the computers it is activated on: an identifier the app makes for each computer, the computer's name and operating system, and whether that computer has had a trial. This is what enforces the number of computers your plan allows and the one-trial rule. The licence server also records each browser and application signed in to your account (which browser or application it is, its IP address and when it was last used); you can see them and sign any of them out at account.arcturussdr.com, where you can also turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app or a passkey. This website keeps a copy of your email address, name and country, refreshed each time you sign in, and any profile details you add, such as a callsign. We use all of this to run your account and the services below (contract).
When you buy, the payment is taken on the secure checkout of our reseller, which sells you the licence (see the terms of sale). Neither this website nor the licence server sees your card details.
The beta programme
If you ask to join the beta programme, we keep what you tell us (how you would use ArcturusSDR, and the computers, radios, linear amplifiers and rotator controllers you would test with) with your account, to choose testers who cover as many radios and computers as we can, and to tell you our decision (legitimate interests). Requests are seen only by HamTEK staff.
Issues you report
Issues, comments and attachments you add to the issue tracker are kept to deal with the problem and to improve the software (legitimate interests). What you write in an issue is seen only by you and HamTEK staff. Staff may publish a summary of the issue to other signed-in members, written by HamTEK in its own words, with the month you reported it; your name, your words and the details of your computer and radio are never shown. Comments on a published issue are seen by other signed-in members, except private ones: HamTEK's questions to you about your report and your answers, which only you and HamTEK staff see. When someone comments on an issue you reported or follow, you are emailed the comment if you can read it, as your notification settings allow. Other members never see who reported, commented on or followed an issue. Attachments stay private unless staff publish them after checking them.
Crash reports
When ArcturusSDR crashes, or when you use Report a Problem, the app offers to send a report. Nothing is sent unless you choose to send it. A report holds:
- the app's version and build, your operating system and processor, your radio's model and firmware, and what you typed about the problem;
- the app's settings, with your callsign, locator, keyboard macros, QSO log entries, passwords, tokens and email address taken out by the app before sending;
- the app's recent log, which may include frequencies and decoded text;
- a crash dump: a snapshot of the crashed part of the app's memory at the moment it closed, which may hold a frequency or text that was on screen.
- with Report a Problem, any files you choose to add: videos, pictures, PDFs or text files.
We use reports to find and fix faults (legitimate interests). Each report becomes a private issue in your name, which only you and HamTEK's developers can see; a crash issue is never published. The crash dump, logs, settings and the files you added are readable only by HamTEK's developers and are deleted automatically after 90 days; the issue keeps its text and the crash's stack trace. You can see your reports under your account and delete their files at any time.
Remote support sessions
If you start a remote support session from the app, HamTEK staff can look at the app's state, settings and logs through our relay, and change settings only if you allow it for that session. Nothing can be transmitted over a session, and you can end it at any time. The relay keeps a log of each session: when it started and ended, who joined, and each action taken with the size of its result. Files you choose to send during a session (such as a recording or a log) are kept for 90 days, or until you delete them. The relay keeps nothing else of what passes through it. The log is shown to you in your account and kept with the issue it belongs to (legitimate interests).
A member of staff may bring an AI assistant into a session to help read the app's state and logs; the app's session banner shows when one is attached and for which member of staff. For a session you start for a support request, our AI support agent may also ask to join by itself. The app asks you first and tells you it is an AI, and lists each thing it does as it does it; it changes settings only if you allow it, and it saves what it finds as a note for our staff on your support request. What an AI assistant is shown is processed by its provider under a data processing agreement, with the safeguards for transfers outside the UK described below, and is not used to train its models.
The support assistant
If your licence includes the support assistant, you can ask it about ArcturusSDR on this website. It is an AI. What you write, the app version, computer and radio you give, and the help pages and published issues it reads to answer you are sent to our AI assistant provider, which processes them under a data processing agreement, with the safeguards for transfers outside the UK described below, and does not use them to train its models. We keep your conversations so that you can come back to them (legitimate interests), and delete them 90 days after the last question, or sooner if you delete them yourself. HamTEK staff read a conversation only if you send it to us as an issue, which adds the conversation to that issue, or rate one of its answers.
If you have remote support, the assistant can also ask to look at ArcturusSDR on your computer, to see why something is not working. It does so only if you choose Allow in the conversation and then let it in when the app asks, and you can stop it at any time. It then reads the app's state, settings and log through a remote support session, as our AI support agent (see Remote support sessions), and what it reads is sent to our AI assistant provider in the same way. It changes a setting only if you allow control in the app, and it can never transmit. A summary of what it found is kept with the conversation.
Update checks
The app asks this website whether a newer release exists, sending its version, your operating system, processor type and update channel, and, when you are signed in, your sign-in token so the answer can follow your licence. It also reports how an update went: downloaded, installed, or failed and why. We use these reports to see how well each release installs and to find faults (legitimate interests). You can turn automatic checks off in the app.
The community forum and the knowledge base
Our community forum is on Discord, a separate service with its own privacy notice. When a question there is marked Solved, we may use the thread to write an answer for the knowledge base on this website, in our own words. Answers never name, quote or describe the people who asked or answered, and leave out callsigns, email addresses and other personal details. To draft an answer, a member of staff may give the thread's text to our AI assistant provider. It processes the text under a data processing agreement, with the safeguards for transfers outside the UK described below, and does not use it to train its models. A member of staff checks every answer before it is published. We keep the thread's address with the answer, seen only by HamTEK staff (legitimate interests: helping others with the same problem). If you would rather a thread of yours was not used, tell us through the contact page and we will not use it, or will take down an answer drawn from it.
If you tell us whether an answer helped, we keep the count and any comment you add. We keep nothing that identifies you.
The ArcturusSDR Reporter
If you tick Report my station in ArcturusSDR while signed in, your station is listed on the Reporter for as long as it reports: the callsign on your profile, the locator you entered in the app, the frequency and mode you are on, whether you are transmitting, the last station you heard, any message you add and the version of ArcturusSDR. Anyone who opens the Reporter, on this website or in the app, can see them (consent: you choose to report, and stop by unticking it or closing the app). Nothing is kept: your station leaves the list when you stop, and this website keeps no record of it.
While your station is on the Reporter, other stations on it can send you messages, each with a recording or a video if they attach one, unless you switch off Accept messages in ArcturusSDR (it is on to start). You can send messages to stations that accept them. A message passes from one copy of ArcturusSDR to the other through this website and is not kept here: it is delivered at once or refused. A recording or video sent with it is held here only while it is delivered: the recipient's copy of ArcturusSDR fetches it at once, and it is deleted as soon as it has been fetched, or after 10 minutes if it never is. So that only those you accept can reach you, we keep, against your account, whether you accept messages, the accounts you add as contacts and the accounts you block (legitimate interests: letting you control who can message you). Others see only that you are not accepting their messages, never that you blocked them. If you delete your account, your setting, contacts and blocks are deleted, and you are taken off others' lists.
Remote stations
If your licence includes Remote station, you can operate your station over the internet and share it with other members. While ArcturusSDR at your station is set to be reached through arcturussdr.com, this website keeps a record of the station: the name it gives itself and any name you give it here, the radio's model and number of receivers, the version of ArcturusSDR, a key the app makes to recognise the station, and when it was last online. If you share it, we keep whose account you shared it with and whether they may listen, operate or transmit. They see your name and callsign beside the station, and you see their name or email address and callsign in your list of shares.
When someone connects, this website introduces the two ends. It passes each end's network addresses (IP addresses and ports) to the other, so that they can reach each other directly, and tells the station who is connecting, by name and callsign, and what they may do. The addresses are not kept. What is heard, said or sent passes between the two ends, encrypted, and never through this website. Where no direct path can be made, it may go through HamTEK's relay, which cannot read it and counts only how much it carries.
We keep a record of each connection: who asked, to which station and in what role, when, whether the station accepted, when it connected and ended, and whether it went directly or through the relay, with how much the relay carried. The station's owner and the person who connected see it under Account › Stations, and HamTEK staff see it to run the service and stop misuse. We use all of this to provide the remote station you asked for (contract), and keep the connection records to deal with faults and misuse (legitimate interests). Removing a station deletes its record and its shares. If you delete your account, your stations and shares are deleted, and connection records no longer show who you are.
Contact messages
Messages sent with the contact form are kept to answer them (legitimate interests). If you are signed in, your message becomes a private support issue.
Release news
If you ask for release news, we keep your email address until you unsubscribe (consent). We confirm the address before sending anything, and every email has a link to unsubscribe in one click.
Visitor statistics
This website counts how often each page is viewed each day, and which websites visitors came from. It uses no cookies for this, keeps no IP addresses and records nothing that identifies you. We use no advertising or third-party tracking of any kind.
Security records
To keep the service secure we log sign-ins and staff actions, with the IP address they came from, and every email the site sends (legitimate interests).
Who else sees your data
Only HamTEK staff see your data in the course of their work. These companies also have a part in running the service:
| Who | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Our hosting provider | Running our servers and sending our email, on our instructions only | UK and the European Union |
| Our reseller, named in the terms of sale | Selling you a licence: taking the payment, and handling sales tax, receipts and refunds. As the seller, it uses your name, email address, country and payment details under its own privacy notice | UK, the European Union and the United States |
| An AI assistant provider | The support assistant, remote support sessions (helping staff when a member of staff attaches it, or as our AI support agent in a session for your support request when you let it join), and drafting knowledge base answers from solved forum threads; on our instructions only | United States |
Where data goes outside the UK, it is protected by the UK's international data transfer agreement or its addendum to the standard contractual clauses, or by the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the company is certified under it. You can ask us through the contact page for the names of these companies. We do not sell or share your data for marketing.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Crash dumps, logs and settings | 90 days |
| Files sent during a remote support session | 90 days |
| Support assistant conversations | 90 days after the last question |
| Comments on knowledge base answers | 2 years |
| A forum thread's address, kept with the answer drawn from it | While the answer is on the site |
| Security records and staff action log | 2 years |
| Record of emails sent | 1 year |
| Update check reports | 1 year |
| Remote station connection records | 1 year |
| Your remote stations and who they are shared with | While your account is open, or until you remove the station |
| Your Reporter message setting, contacts and blocks | While your account is open |
| Contact messages | 2 years |
| Release news address not yet confirmed | 7 days |
| Read notifications | 6 months |
| Account, profile, beta programme request, issues and session logs | While your account is open |
| Your purchases and licences on the licence server (orders, payments, each licence key's record and the computers it was activated on), with your name and email address | 6 years after the later of your account's deletion and your last payment |
| Release news address | Until you unsubscribe |
When you delete your account, there is a 14-day period in which you can change your mind. After it, your name, email address, callsign and country are removed, and your crash files, support files, support session logs, beta programme request, notifications, follows and votes are deleted. Issues and comments you wrote stay on the tracker without your name, so the history of each problem stays complete; if you put something personal in one, ask us and we will remove it. Security and email records run out on the schedule above.
Your licences, purchases and the account you sign in with are held by the licence server, and you delete them from your account at account.arcturussdr.com, again with 14 days to change your mind. Your licences are then revoked, any subscription is cancelled, your password, sign-ins, two-step sign-in and passkeys are deleted, and your email address can be used for a new account. We keep the record of your purchases and licences (orders, payments, each licence key's record and the computers it was activated on), with your name and email address, for 6 years after the later of the deletion and your last payment: so that a licence key that is misused can be traced to the person who bought it, and for our tax records. After that the record is anonymised. If you never had a licence or an order, nothing is kept.
Children
This website and the software are not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly hold an account for anyone under 16.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, have it corrected or deleted, object to how we use it, or withdraw consent. You can download your data and delete your account yourself: what this website holds from your account page here, and your licences, purchases and sign-in account at account.arcturussdr.com, as JSON or as CSV files. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).