Privacy Settings
System-level privacy controls are in the Settings Modal → Privacy tab.
Aegis AI is designed with a local-first privacy model — everything runs on your machine. These settings give you additional control over the minimal external communications that exist.
Crash Reporting
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Crash Reports | Toggle on/off. When enabled, anonymous crash reports are sent to help diagnose issues and improve the application. |
What crash reports include:
- Stack traces and error messages (technical error information)
- Operating system and hardware summary (e.g., "macOS 14.2, Apple M2, 16GB RAM")
- Application version number
What crash reports never include:
- Camera footage or screenshots
- AI analysis results or clip descriptions
- Agent conversations or chat history
- Memory contents
- API keys, passwords, or credentials
- Camera names, IP addresses, or network configuration
- Any personally identifiable information
If you're uncomfortable with any external communication, disable crash reporting. Aegis works exactly the same either way.
Blind Mode
Blind Mode hides all camera feeds in the Monitor view. Cameras continue to record in the background, but no visual content is displayed on screen.
Toggle Blind Mode from the sidebar or from ⚙️ Settings → System → Privacy.
When active:
- Camera tiles show a privacy overlay instead of live feeds
- Recorded clips are still accessible in the Timeline
- All AI analysis continues to run normally — the VLM still processes frames
- Alerts still fire based on AI descriptions
- The agent still knows what's happening (it reads descriptions, not pixels)
When to use Blind Mode:
| Scenario | Why Blind Mode Helps |
|---|---|
| Visitors or guests | Prevent guests from seeing your camera feeds on the screen |
| Office or shared space | Keep monitoring active without displaying footage to passersby |
| Children present | Hide footage that might be disturbing (e.g., front door at night) |
| Privacy-sensitive areas | Monitor a room (e.g., nursery) without visual access from the main screen |
| Demonstrations | Show the app to someone without revealing your actual camera feeds |
| Overnight monitoring | Prevent the screen from showing footage while you sleep (glare, burn-in) |
Blind Mode vs Disabling Cameras
| Blind Mode | Camera Disabled | |
|---|---|---|
| Recording | ✅ Continues | ❌ Stopped |
| AI Analysis | ✅ Continues | ❌ Stopped |
| Alerts | ✅ Still fire | ❌ Stopped |
| Visual Feed | ❌ Hidden | ❌ Hidden |
| Best For | Privacy without loss of security | Completely stopping a camera |
Data Handling
All data in Aegis AI is stored locally:
| Data Type | Storage Location | Cloud Exposure |
|---|---|---|
| Camera footage | Your configured storage path | Never — unless you send a clip via messaging |
| AI models | Application data folder | Downloaded from HuggingFace at install time only |
| Agent memory | User data directory | Never |
| Chat conversations | User data directory | Never |
| Event handler configs | User data directory | Never |
| VLM analysis results | Stored with clip metadata | Never |
| LLM interactions | Sent to cloud only if using a cloud LLM (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) | Only the text prompt — never footage |
| VLM analysis | Sent to cloud only if using a cloud VLM provider | Only extracted frames — not stored remotely |
Cloud Provider Details
If you choose to use a cloud LLM or VLM provider:
- What is sent: text prompts (LLM) or individual image frames (cloud VLM)
- What is NOT sent: video files, camera streams, agent memory, credentials, or personal information
- Retention: subject to the provider's privacy policy (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google each have their own data retention policies)
- Alternative: use a local model for zero cloud exposure
See the privacy policy for full details.