Info for System Administrators

Information regarding deployment and compliance for Audacity in schools, businesses, institutions and enterprises

Deployment

Audacity does not come with any group policies or installers intended for institution-scale deployment at this time. However:

• Audacity is distributed through WinGet. You may be able to incorporate a WinGet config file into your deploy script.

• Audacity doesn't require installation; the standalone ZIP can simply be copied anywhere.

Compliance

Audacity by default only collects minimal data for update checking and crash reporting; details can be found in the privacy policy. Audacity's data is stored in the Netherlands; the only personal data stored is a UUID (which can be turned off in the preferences). This also is true for the AI plugins - those process all data on your own device, without sending them to some cloud server (hence why the installer downloads so much stuff).

In addition, it has an Audio.com (privacy policy) integration which needs explicit user action (sign up) to activate.

Disabling features via preferences

Both features can be turned off in preferences:

• To disable update checking, go to Preferences -> Application and disable the relevant checkboxes.

• To disable Audio.com features, go to Preferences -> Modules and disable mod-cloud-audiocom.

Note: Audacity's Preferences are stored per-user by default. If you'd like to set global settings or reset the state after logoff, create a folder called Portable Settings in the same directory as the executable (audacity.exe). Make sure that Audacity has read/write rights.

Permanently disabling features

You can compile Audacity from source with certain features disabled. You can download the source code from audacityteam.org/download. Compilation instructions are included within each source's BUILDING.md file. By default, no network features are enabled when compiling from source.

Note: You may also be able to delete library (.dll) files from Audacity's binary, eg mod-cloud-audiocom.dll. This only works for modules though.

The paperwork option

If you need a special compliance form or contract filled out to use Audacity, please follow these steps:

1. Read through the compliance form you need filled out. You may find that freely distributed open source software is exempt from the paperwork.

2. Pre-fill the form as best you can, keeping in mind the minimal data Audacity collects. If you need help, check with your own compliance officer - In general its your organization that knows best what is or isn't permissible. Audacity's legal entity is MuseCY SM Ltd., Spyrou Kyprianou 84, 4004 Cyprus

3. Send the pre-filled form to [e-mail].

In general, the more complete the form, the faster we can respond.

If you can, try finding a "tag-along" contract you can add yourself to. We currently have signed a Student Data Privacy Agreement with the Springfield School District No. 186 in Illinois, which other LEA can subscribe to.