Chrome Extension Privacy Policy

Recourse ("we", "us", "our") operates recoursehq.com and the Recourse Screen Recorder Chrome extension. This policy explains what the extension collects, when it collects it, and where that data goes. It covers the extension only — see the Privacy Policy for the web app.

Video and audio

• Screen video. The screen, window, or browser tab you pick in Chrome's own screen-share picker. The extension never picks for you, and cannot start capture without you choosing a source in that native dialog.
• Microphone audio — only if the microphone toggle is on when you start. If it's off, no microphone audio is captured.
• Tab or system audio, when Chrome makes it available for the source you picked. Microphone and system audio are mixed into one audio track.
• Capture details — the surface type (tab, window, or screen), its resolution and frame rate, and the extension's version number.

Clicks — on any recording surface

Every click you make in a Chrome tab while recording is recorded as:

• click position, viewport size, device pixel ratio, browser window position and size, and scroll position at the time of the click;
• the URL of the page where the click happened;
• a screenshot of the tab you clicked in (see Click screenshots).

Interaction detail

Interactions in a captured tab carry considerably more. This is how Recourse works out what each step of your course actually is.

• The element you interacted with: its tag name, id attribute, ARIA role, an accessible name of up to 80 characters, its position and size on the page, and a CSS selector path to it.
• The page title, alongside the URL.
• Surrounding text: up to 200 characters of the static text around the element, and the labels of up to three enclosing regions (a dialog title, a form legend, a landmark label). For a table cell, the row and column header text.
• Element state: checked, expanded, or selected state, and for a dropdown, the label of the currently selected option.
• Text you type, while a recording is running. When you leave a field you typed in — or when you stop the recording while still in it — we record the field's contents, up to 10,000 characters, together with the field's label. This covers <input> fields, <textarea> fields, and contenteditable regions such as rich-text editors and comment boxes. It is the field's whole value at that moment, not only the characters you added, and it can therefore include text that was already there when you started typing. Password, one-time-code, and payment-card fields are excluded (see below). Nothing you type while the recording is paused is uploaded.
• Dropdown selections — the label of the option you chose.
• Form submissions — that a form was submitted, plus the form element's own label and position. Field values are not read from the form itself.
• Page navigations — the URL and page title of pages actually displayed during the recording: a captured tab's URL is recorded only while that tab is the one on screen, checked about once a second while the recording runs. A tab sitting in the background contributes no navigation until you switch to it.

Fields we never record the contents of

A field is skipped — the event notes that you typed, never what — when it is:

• an <input type="password">;
• marked autocomplete="current-password", "new-password", or "one-time-code";
• marked with any cc- autocomplete value (cc-number, cc-exp, cc-csc, cc-name, …), which is how sites label payment-card fields.

Click screenshots

Each click in a captured tab also triggers a JPEG screenshot of that tab's visible area. Chrome limits how often a tab can be captured, so rapid clicks are coalesced — at most one screenshot every 0.6 seconds, and clicks that miss that window simply get no screenshot. A screenshot is taken only if the tab you clicked in is still the tab on screen when the capture runs; if you have moved on to another tab, that click keeps its position and URL but gets no image. No screenshots are taken while the recording is paused.

Screenshots and interaction data are both uploaded to your Recourse account as part of the recording.

Which tab we capture from

Chrome's screen-share dialog does not tell the extension which tab you picked. What the extension knows is the tab you started from — the tab whose recorder panel or Record button you used — and that is the tab a single-tab recording collects from.

• Recording a window or your whole screen: everything described above — clicks with element detail, typed text (minus the fields listed under Fields we never record the contents of), dropdown selections, form submissions, page navigations, and click screenshots — is captured from any Chrome tab you use while the recording runs, including a tab in a Chrome window other than the one you are recording.
• Recording a single tab: typed text, element detail, selections, submissions, navigations, clicks, and click screenshots all come from the tab you started the recording in — and only that tab. If you start in one tab but pick a different tab in Chrome's share dialog, capture follows the tab you started from, not the one in the video; the recorded tab contributes no interaction data at all.
• If the extension cannot identify the starting tab of a single-tab recording, it collects nothing rather than collecting from everywhere: no clicks, no typed text, and no screenshots from any tab. The video and audio are unaffected.

Interaction data from tabs outside the recording's scope is discarded inside the extension before anything is uploaded.

Pause means nothing from that stretch leaves your machine. While a recording is paused:

• video and audio capture stop, and no click screenshots are taken;
• clicks, dropdown selections, form submissions, and text you type during the pause are not uploaded. They never leave your device, and they never reach your Recourse account;
• the moment you pause, any field you are part-way through typing in is closed off and read as it stands at that instant (that text was entered while recording). From then until you resume, nothing you type is read.

Anything that reaches the extension anyway — from a tab that missed the pause signal, say — is dropped when the recording is assembled, before upload.

• Keystrokes. We record a field's contents when you leave it, not a live key log, and we never record what you press outside a field.
• The contents of the sensitive fields listed above.
• Editable text used as a label. The routines that build element names, surrounding text, and table headers skip inputs, textareas, selects, and contenteditable regions outright, and extract nothing at all from a page in designMode. Page labels can't smuggle in someone's draft.
• Anything, of any kind, when no recording is running.
• Analytics, telemetry, crash reports, or usage statistics — at any time. The extension's only outbound requests are the recording API calls and uploads described below.
• Your general browsing history. URLs and page titles are recorded only for clicks and navigations inside a running recording.

Only between the moment a recording starts and the moment it stops, and only for a recording you started yourself.

The extension's content script does load on every page you open, because the recording controls have to be able to appear in whichever tab you're in. Listeners for clicks and typing are attached so capture can start the moment a recording begins, but they do nothing until then: when no recording is running the script reads a small status flag from the extension's own local storage, sees that nothing is recording, and stops. It reads no page content and sends nothing anywhere. That storage read never leaves your device.

Recordings, click and interaction data, and click screenshots are uploaded over HTTPS to Recourse's own services — api.recoursehq.com and the cloud storage it hands us a one-time upload URL for — so your recording can be processed into a course in your account. That's it:

• We do not sell your data.
• We do not share it with third parties, other than the infrastructure providers that host Recourse's servers and storage on our behalf, who process it solely to provide that hosting to us.
• We do not use it for advertising.
• We do not use it for any purpose unrelated to providing the Recourse product you asked for.

This extension's use of data is limited to providing and improving its single purpose — turning your recording into a course — consistent with the Chrome Web Store's Limited Use requirements.

Authentication

Checking that you're signed in, and starting a recording session, use your existing recoursehq.com session cookie — the same login you already use on the web app. The extension's code never reads the cookie itself. Everything after that (uploading video parts, events, and screenshots) uses a short-lived, per-recording upload token issued by that session, which is dropped once the recording finishes, fails, or is discarded.

Held locally, and never uploaded:

• Your preferences — capture surface, microphone on/off, and the recording controls' visibility, position, and collapsed state.
• The state of an in-flight recording, including its upload token, so a recording survives Chrome shutting down the extension's background process mid-session, plus the result of the last upload.
• Whether the microphone prompt has already been answered in this browser session.
• Video data in progress — spooled to the extension's private on-disk storage in rolling chunks while you record and while it uploads.
• Click screenshots, briefly, in a browser database (IndexedDB) with the upload token needed to send them, because the upload continues in the background after you press Stop.

• Locally: the video spool is deleted when the upload finishes, when you discard a recording, and on startup after a crash. Each stored screenshot is deleted as soon as it uploads; screenshots belonging to a discarded recording are deleted immediately and never upload, and any screenshot whose upload token has expired is deleted unsent. In-flight recording state is cleared when the recording reaches a final state.
• In your Recourse account: a completed recording and its interaction data and screenshots are kept until you delete them. A recording you discard before it finishes is never uploaded and is marked discarded server-side.

Uploads happen over HTTPS. Access to your recordings in your Recourse account is protected by your account login. Upload tokens are short-lived and scoped to a single recording, and upload URLs are requested only at the moment each piece of data is sent, so a discarded recording leaves no usable upload URL behind.

• Stop or discard anytime. You can pause, stop, or discard a recording at any point from the on-page recording controls. A discarded recording — video, interaction data, and screenshots alike — is never uploaded.
• Pause before anything sensitive. While paused, nothing you type or click is uploaded or otherwise leaves your machine. Bear in mind that resuming and editing the same field again records that field's whole contents, including text still sitting in it from the pause; stop or discard if you'd rather not rely on that.
• Microphone is opt-in and revocable. Turn the mic toggle off before recording, or revoke the extension's microphone permission in Chrome at any time.
• Delete your recordings from within the Recourse app whenever you like.
• Questions or requests about your data — including access or deletion requests — can be sent to the contact below.

Recourse is a workplace tool for adults. You must be at least 18 to use the Recourse Screen Recorder. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we will delete it. If you believe a minor has used the extension, tell us at hello@recoursehq.com.

If we make material changes to this policy, we'll update the effective date above and, where appropriate, note the change in the extension's Chrome Web Store listing or in-app.

Questions about this policy or your data? Email hello@recoursehq.com.