Our position

At Start9 Labs, Inc (“Start9”, “we”, “us”, “our”), we believe privacy is a basic human right, and we build our products so that your data lives on hardware you own. We do not host your data, we hold no key to it, and we cannot read it.

Rather than claim we collect nothing, this page sets out exactly what does reach us and why. All of it is in our source code, so you can check this against the software instead of taking our word for it.

What your Server sends

When you open your StartOS dashboard, your server asks our registry whether a newer version of StartOS exists. That request tells us:

• a random identifier created on your server when you first set it up
• the StartOS version, platform, and CPU architecture
• your interface language, if you have set one

We keep the identifier, the architecture, the version, and the time. We use it to count how many servers are running and which versions they are on, so we know what still needs supporting. The identifier is randomly generated, is not derived from your hardware, and is not linked to your order, your email address, or anything else we hold. We cannot tell whose server it is.

We do not log IP addresses — not in the application, not at our proxy, and not at a CDN.

When you browse or install services from the Marketplace, we record which package was asked for and when. Those records contain no identifier of any kind. They are counts, not history, and they cannot be traced back to a server or a person.

StartOS never installs updates on its own. The check tells you an update exists; whether to install it is your decision.

What your Router sends

StartWRT checks for a newer version when you open its admin interface, and sends the OS version and platform. It sends no device identifier, and there is no equivalent of the count described above.

How your server learns its own IP address

To set up networking — port forwarding and remote access — your server needs to know its own public IP address, which it cannot determine by itself. It asks an outside service, by default ipconfig.io and ifconfig.co. Those services are not run by Start9 and will see your IP address, exactly as any website you visit does. You can change or remove them in your server's settings.

What we don't do

There are no analytics, tag managers, session recorders, crash reporters, or advertising technologies on any Start9 website or in any Start9 product. Our websites load their code and fonts from our own servers, so visiting them does not announce you to a third party. We have never sold or rented personal information, and we will not.

Visiting our websites

You can read start9.com without telling us who you are. If you choose to give us your name or email address — to join our mailing list, or to ask us something — we use it for that purpose and no other. You will only receive email from us if you asked for it, and you can stop it at any time.

Buying from us

To sell and ship you a device we need your name, email address, shipping address, and payment details. We use them to complete the order and get the hardware to you.

Card payments are handled by Shopify, and Bitcoin payments through BTCPay Server, which we run ourselves. Shipping requires giving your address to a carrier. Shopify and the carriers handle your information under their own policies, which we do not control. Paying in Bitcoin requires the least information, because there is no card processor involved.

Talking to us

Our community chat runs on Matrix. Messages in our public and support rooms are stored on our server and are visible to our team; they are not end-to-end encrypted. Some rooms are assisted by Dux, our AI helper, which is built on Anthropic's Claude — so messages in those rooms are also sent to Anthropic to generate a reply. Do not post private keys, recovery phrases, passwords, or anything else you would not want kept.

Messages you send through the contact form on this site reach our support system, and we keep them so we can answer you and refer back to the conversation.

Your information, and reaching us

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to support@start9.com and we will do it. Orders, and the tax and accounting records that come with them, we keep for as long as the law requires.

If we ever change what our products send us, we will change this page in the same release, not afterwards.