Security & Privacy

What your cameras see stays yours

A camera in your home should answer to you and nobody else. OdinCam is built so that your pictures, your video and even what the camera noticed can only be opened on your own devices. Not by the server that carries them, and not by us.

True of OdinCam 0.1.61, the version people can use today.

Only your devices can see your cameras

When something happens, the camera locks the picture before it leaves the device, so that only the iPhones, iPads and Macs in your household can unlock it. The same goes for:

• every clip and the day's timeline;
• Live View, picture and sound;
• the still in each camera tile and the motion heatmap;
• your voice when you hold to talk through a camera.

Our server passes these along between your devices, but it holds none of the keys. It can't see your pictures or video, and neither can we.

What the camera noticed is private too

"Rex barking" or "a person at the left of the picture" is locked the same way, and so is a camera's battery level. The server only knows that something moved or made a sound, and when.

Your settings are private too

Recording schedules, the part of the picture each camera watches, Home & away and spoken warnings are locked for your household and signed by the device that changed them, so the server can't read them or change them. So are the names you give a Mac's extra cameras, and the camera's name on each alert.

Only your devices can switch your cameras

Turning monitoring or recording on or off is signed by the iPhone or iPad that asks, and the camera checks the signature before it does anything, so the server can't switch a camera off. Your iPhone shows "Monitoring" only when the camera itself says so, and each picture and alert detail is signed by the camera that took it, so nobody else can pass one off as your camera's.

Until all your iPhones and iPads are updated, or until December 1, 2026, a camera still accepts requests from older versions of OdinCam.

Nothing is analysed anywhere else

Spotting motion and sound, telling people from dogs and cats, and recognising which of your pets it is all happen on the camera itself, using Apple's built-in tools. No photo, clip or sound is sent to us or to anyone else to be analysed. The photos you use to teach OdinCam your pets stay on your Mac.

Your recordings stay with you

Clips are saved on your Mac, in the folder you choose, or on the iPhone or iPad you use as a camera. When you watch one from elsewhere, it streams through the server locked and is never kept there. At home on the same Wi-Fi, it comes straight from your Mac.

Beside each clip is a small file listing what the camera noticed during it (a person, a dog, which of your pets, a sound, and where in the picture), so you can find the moment later. It stays in the same folder as the clip and is never sent anywhere.

While a camera is on, it asks our server for the time about every half hour to check that its clock is right, so recordings show the true time. That request carries nothing about you or your recordings.

Your location never leaves your phone

OdinCam uses your location only if you turn on Use This iPhone to Tell When I'm Home for Home & away. The phone works out for itself whether you're home or away, and sends only "home" or "away", locked for your household like everything else. Where you are, and where home is, never leave the phone.

Nobody joins without you

A new phone, iPad or Mac joins your household only when you confirm that the six-digit codes on both screens match, so a stranger can't slip in between. A phone connects to your cameras only with a short code from your Mac that works once and expires within minutes.

Take a lost or sold device out of the household and it's signed out: it can't open new pictures or video, see your events, get alerts or turn monitoring on or off. Your Macs do this as soon as they hear of the change, usually within a minute. Only a Mac can sign a device out, so keep at least one Mac in your household.

We don't collect anything about you

• No advertising and no tracking.
• No analytics and no crash-reporting services in the apps.
• No account with your name or email address. Your household is just your devices.
• If you set up email alerts, your mail details stay on your Mac.
• This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or trackers.

Safe on every device

• Passwords and keys are kept in the Keychain on each device and never go into backups.
• Every connection to our server is encrypted, and OdinCam refuses an unencrypted one.
• On your own Wi-Fi, your devices prove who they are to each other before anything is sent.
• On the Mac, OdinCam runs in Apple's app sandbox: it can reach the camera, the microphone, the network and the folders you give it, and nothing else.
• On iPhone and iPad, clips recorded or opened for watching, and warning recordings, can't be read while the device is locked. Camera-mode recordings, warning recordings and your home's location are kept out of backups.
• Email alerts, if you turn them on, leave your Mac over an encrypted connection to your own email account.

Exactly what our server can see

We'd rather tell you than have you wonder:

• The names of the devices in your household. Each device's name is part of the signed household list that keeps strangers out.
• When each event happened, and whether it was motion, sound or both.
• Whether each camera is monitoring, and when it was last online.
• When a device last changed a camera's settings, but not what they are.

Alerts on your phone travel through Apple's notification service. It sees that an alert arrived and a general wording, "Something happened on a camera.", but not the camera's name, whether it was motion or sound, the picture or what was seen; your iPhone fills those in. (A camera still on an older version of OdinCam puts its name and "Motion detected" on the alert until it's updated.)

Email alerts are your choice

Email alerts are the one thing not locked to your devices. They go out through your own email account, so your email provider can read them like any other email. That's why they carry no picture unless you ask for one: turn on Include a picture from the camera and each email carries a single still picture, which your email provider can see too. Clips and Live View are never emailed. You can turn the picture on or off, or email alerts off altogether, in the Mac's Settings › Alerts.

Delete it whenever you like

• A recording: delete it on your Mac and it goes to the Trash. OdinCam also clears out old recordings for you, by age or by space used.
• An event: swipe it away (or Clear All) on your iPhone or iPad and it's deleted from the server, so it disappears on all your devices.
• Automatically: the server deletes events by itself after 7 days. It never keeps clips or Live View at all.
• A pet: remove it on your Mac, and its photos go with it.
• A device: take it out of your household from any device that's still in it.

Step-by-step instructions are in the help: Deleting your recordings and data.

Checked, regularly

We review OdinCam's apps and server for security problems on a regular rotating schedule, alongside our other products. A serious problem holds up the next version until it's fixed, and every fix comes with a test so the problem can't quietly come back.

Who "we" are

OdinCam is made by Abizander Software. Wherever this page says "we" or "us", that's who it means. Our privacy policy says the same things in policy form.