SmartLog Privacy Policy
Effective 7 August 2026
The short version
Our vision is a genuinely free tool for filmmakers: one that keeps getting better because the community using it tells us what it needs. SmartLog is built to grow on the feedback of the crews who rely on it, not on selling anything back to them.
SmartLog is free forever. No subscriptions, no accounts, no ads, no paywalls, and no interest in your data. We make our money selling film hardware, not selling information about you. Nothing you log ever reaches us: your takes, your notes and your photographs stay on your device unless you choose to send them somewhere, and the whole app works with no internet at all. Exactly two things ever touch a network, and rather than round them down to zero we list them plainly below: an anonymous daily tally of app opens, and the optional team sync you switch on yourself, which goes to your own Google Drive and never through us.
What we collect: a count, and nothing else
SmartLog does not collect, transmit, store or sell any data about you or anything you log. Specifically, there are:
- No accounts and no sign-in. We never ask who you are.
- No advertising IDs, no device identifiers, no cookies, no tracking pixels, no fingerprinting.
- No location tracking of any kind.
- No crash reporting.
- Nothing you log. Not a take, a note, a photograph, a production name or a report. We have no server that could receive them, and we never have.
There is one exception, and we would rather spell it out than claim a round zero: once a day, an installed copy of SmartLog adds 1 to a public tally of app opens. That is the "free downloads, and counting" number on the SmartLog page, and it is the only reason we know anyone is using this. The request carries no data whatsoever: no identifier, no content, no device details, not even a timestamp we keep. The only thing stored at the other end is a single number that goes up by one. It happens once per calendar day per device, it fails silently when you are offline, and it can tell us how many people opened SmartLog without telling us anything at all about any of them.
Beyond that count, we cannot lose, leak or hand over your data, because we never have it in the first place.
SmartLog works offline
Once installed, SmartLog is fully functional with no internet connection: in a studio, on a remote location, deep inside a stage, or in airplane mode. Logging takes, building camera reports, exporting PDF and CSV files, and jamming to timecode all happen entirely on your phone or tablet. The app never requires a connection, never checks a license server, and never blocks a feature behind being online. Every change saves to your device the instant you make it, with no signal needed. The only features that need a network are the optional ones that inherently do, and they stay off until you turn them on.
Where your data lives
Your takes, camera reports, and settings are stored only in the app's own storage on your device. They are included in your device's normal backups (such as an encrypted iCloud or local backup you control), and they are removed if you delete the app. We recommend exporting a CSV or JSON backup at wrap. Sharing an export is the only way data ever leaves the app, and it only happens when you do it.
Your own cloud, if you want it
SmartLog can keep one up-to-date log across a whole camera team, and it does that through an account you own rather than one of ours. It is off until you switch it on.
When you connect your own Google Drive, SmartLog writes your backup file straight from your device to your Drive, and reads it back on your other devices. That connection is between you and Google. We have no server anywhere in the path, we never receive the file, and we could not read it if we wanted to: SmartLog only ever asks Google for permission to touch files it created itself, never the rest of your Drive. The permission token lives on your device alone, and it is deliberately never included in a backup, an export, or a transfer to another device.
Because SmartLog is registered with Google as the app doing the asking, Google's own dashboard shows us aggregate numbers, such as how many accounts connected on a given day and how many requests failed. That is a count, like the tally above. It does not include your files, your file names, your email address, your name, or anything you have logged.
Offline comes first even here. Your log always saves to the device first, instantly, whether or not there is signal, and the cloud copy only ever catches up afterwards when the device is back on a network. Disconnecting stops all of it immediately from inside the app, and the files already in your Drive stay yours. You can also revoke SmartLog's access from your Google account at any time.
Sending a log directly to another device, using the two QR codes, involves no cloud and no server at all. The codes carry only the information the two devices need to find each other; the log itself travels straight between them over the WiFi or hotspot you are both on, encrypted end to end, and on the same network it never touches the internet.
Permissions, explained one by one
SmartLog asks for very little, and only when you use the feature that needs it:
- Microphone: requested only when you tap “Jam to LTC input”. The audio input is read solely to decode SMPTE timecode from a cable or timecode generator. No audio is recorded, stored, or transmitted, and the microphone is released the moment sync completes.
- Camera: requested only when you attach a reference still or scan a QR code to send a log to another device. Frames are read on the device and go nowhere else.
- Local network: requested only when you connect to your own 3DFilmParts Digital Slate, or send a log to another device on your network. Communication happens between your own devices, and nothing is sent to the internet.
SmartLog never asks for your contacts, calendar, or location. It has no use for them.
Sharing and exports
When you export a report (PDF, CSV, or JSON), the file is handed to your device's share sheet and goes wherever you choose: AirDrop, email, or your files. That action, and where the file ends up, is entirely under your control. We are not part of that transfer and never see the file.
Third-party services
SmartLog contains no analytics kits, no advertising SDKs, and no social integrations, and there is no account system or backend of ours holding your work. Two third parties can see a request from SmartLog, in these situations only:
- Google Fonts. The version you open in a browser loads its two typefaces from Google's font service, so Google's servers see that request, as they do for a large share of the web. It carries nothing about you or your log. The copy you download to keep, and the copy served by the slate, use built-in fonts and make no such request.
- Google Drive, and only if you connect it yourself, exactly as described above.
That is the whole list. No cloud service holds your log unless you put it there.
The 3DFilmParts Digital Slate
SmartLog pairs with our 3D-printed digital clapperboard, currently in its testing phase. Pairing happens over the slate's own private WiFi access point: takes, timecode, and slate photos move directly between the slate and your device, and nothing about that link touches the internet. The same promise applies to the slate itself. What it records belongs to the production, stored on its own SD card.
Children
SmartLog is a professional production tool, but because it collects no data from anyone, it also collects no data from children.
Your rights
Privacy laws such as the Australian Privacy Act, the GDPR, and the CCPA give you rights over data that companies hold about you: access, correction, deletion, and portability. We support those rights in the most complete way possible. We hold nothing about you, so there is nothing to request. Every byte SmartLog creates is already in your hands, exportable in open formats (CSV, JSON, PDF) at any time. If you connect your own cloud account, that copy is in your hands too, in your own storage, and you can delete it there.
Changes to this policy
This page is updated before a change ships, not after. The team sync described above is the first feature in SmartLog's history that can send your log anywhere, and it arrived the way any such feature will: opt-in, off by default, pointed at an account you own, with no server of ours in the path. That is the standard the next change will be held to as well.
Contact
Questions about privacy, or anything else: info@3dfilmparts.com. A human reads it.
SmartLog in action
SWIPE: MUSIC VIDEO · COMMERCIAL STUDIO · NIGHT EXTERIOR
SmartLog: free camera reports by 3DFilmParts, for iPhone and iPad. No account, no subscription, free forever.