FiregroundScribeSecurity & privacy
Your radio traffic stays yours
What stays at your station, what reaches us, and how the record is protected. Written for chiefs and for the IT person who has to sign off.
How the data flows
What reaches us
| What | When |
|---|---|
| License, installation ID, version, the agency details you enter, IP address | A daily check-in from FiregroundScribe Manager. Never audio, transcripts or incidents. |
| Your database and recordings | Only with Cloud backup (an add-on you turn on): uploaded nightly to private storage. |
| Diagnostics: status, sources, errors, logs, settings with passwords hidden | Only with Remote support, while an admin at the station allows it (up to 24 hours). Read-only; nothing connects into your network. |
| A health summary: sources, recording gaps, disk, transcription backlog | Only with Monitoring. No transcripts, audio or incident details. |
| Audio or transcript text | Only if you choose an online speech or AI engine, and then to that provider. EMS channels are never sent to an AI. |
Who can see what
- Individual accounts with admin, officer and viewer roles.
- Single sign-on with Microsoft 365 (Entra ID), Google Workspace or any OpenID provider, if you use one.
- EMS channels are off by default and need an explicit privacy acknowledgement.
- Settings are changed only on the station PC, in FiregroundScribe Manager.
- Remote access to the web page through your own VPN, or Cloudflare Tunnel and Cloudflare Access: no open ports on your network.
Protecting the record
- The original transcript is kept exactly as the engine produced it; corrections are stored alongside, with who made them and when.
- Every change to transcripts, events, incidents and settings is written to an audit log that is hash-chained, so an edit or deletion in the log can be detected.
- Retention rules by incident type or flag, and legal hold. The Evidence & Legal pack adds case folders and signed evidence packages; the Records Request pack adds redaction of transcripts and audio.
- Licenses and updates are signed; the software only installs updates we signed.
- Backups in FiregroundScribe Manager, and restoring them, on your own PC.
Good to know
- Recording keeps going when the internet is down; the license works offline for up to 30 days.
- We don't claim CJIS certification. If your radio traffic falls under CJIS policy, your agency decides how to deploy it; the station-only setup above keeps everything on your hardware.
- Questions from your IT or legal team? Ask us: we answer security questionnaires.
FiregroundScribe is a documentation tool. It is not a life-safety system.