Privacy FAQ

From OpenELEC version 3.1.0 onwards the configuration/settings addon contains a shiny new auto-update feature. To make this work your OpenELEC box queries our update system to see if there is an updated release available. In making this check it passes some information to us so that we can evaluate what you are currently running and give the correct update response for your specific system. It also allows us to gather some basic operational statistics on the OpenELEC user-base and we use this information to guide development and update/release decisions.

The exhaustive list of information your OpenELEC system passes to us is:


 * SYSTEMID: An MD5 hash of the primary MAC address
 * DISTRIBUTION: OpenELEC is the sole distribution but who knows, there may be others in the future
 * PROJECT: The build-system project name, e.g. Generic or ATV
 * ARCH: The CPU architecture, e.g. i386, x86-64 or arm
 * VERSION: The current release you are running, e.g. 3.1.0 or a development build number

The SYSTEMID allows us to distinguish unique systems which is useful because web download stats and page hits do not give a clear picture on the size of our active userbase. It also allows us to create system groups. Groups functionality allows us to restrict an update to a specific group of known volunteers or test boxes without forcing a change to all systems. As the project grows in size it becomes more important to have this kind of selective testing capability.

In the back-end database we also track a last activity date/time (only one entry, there is no activity history). This is captured so we can look at stats for "active" users (e.g. active in the last 30 days) instead of all-time users. We do not capture your IP address, or anything related to the plugins you run or usernames and passwords that you use, and we do not generate webserver logs that could be used to correlate any additional information on you. The project team members are all strong advocates of your privacy.

For tranparency, the screenshot below shows what we can see about your system:



The code for the settings addon is published on github here: https://github.com/OpenELEC/service.openelec.settings

Please raise any privacy related questions with the project team via the forums.