Elsk only reads a page when you ask it to, by pressing its shortcut or clicking its toolbar icon. When you do, the extension sends that page's address, title and text (or the file, for a PDF) to Elsk. If you ask Elsk to read a whole site, it fetches pages from that site.
Elsk keeps a history of the pages you used it on: the address, title, an identifier derived from the text, and what Elsk made from it (such as summaries, narration, slides and audio). It reuses what it already made so the same content is not processed twice. The extension also keeps your history in your browser.
To learn whether Elsk is useful enough to keep using, the extension also records a short list of usage events: when you open a page in Elsk, start a video and how far through it you get, click through to the original, turn auto-start on or off, open the feedback form, or see an error. Each event keeps the site's domain (such as example.com), never the page's address, title or text, along with the time, your account and a random ID for this browser that is created when the extension is installed. If you uninstall the extension, a page opens with one optional question about why; your answer is kept with that random ID.
Pages and PDFs you choose may contain personal, financial, health, authentication or other sensitive information. That information can be sent to Elsk and its service providers as part of the selected content. Avoid using Elsk on material you do not want processed by these services.
If you share a presentation, Elsk publishes a copy of it at an unlisted link: the slides, any note you add, the narration and links to the source, but not the page's text. Anyone with the link can view it, and the page asks search engines not to index it. Stopping the link deletes those files.
If you use "Log this" in the side panel, Elsk keeps what you send: the page's address and title, what happened, what you wanted and your note.
When you sign in, Elsk uses your IP address to limit repeated guesses of invite codes, and it limits answers to the uninstall question the same way. Its hosting providers also record IP addresses in their request logs.
Elsk uses third-party service providers to do this work, and they process data under their own terms.
| Type of provider | What it receives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| AI model providers | Page text, PDFs, narration text, and audio of videos that have no captions | Summaries, slides, narration, voice and transcripts |
| Web content services | Site and page addresses | Reading whole sites and fetching video transcripts |
| Cloud hosting, database and storage providers | Data sent to and stored by Elsk | Running Elsk and storing your history and generated media |
To get the current list of providers, email the address below.
We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use it for anything other than running Elsk for you and improving it. We do not use it to decide creditworthiness or for lending.
History and generated content may be kept until deleted. To request deletion or ask about this policy, email privacy@ithacaworks.xyz. Uninstalling the extension removes its browser-local data. During this beta, access requires an invite code. For each account Elsk keeps an account ID, a note on who the invite was for, the operating system name of each signed-in browser, and when each one signed in and was last used. It also keeps a credit balance and a record of which paid features (such as summaries, videos and site reads) the account used and when, without the page content. Deleting your account removes the account, its sign-ins, credits, "Log this" notes and share links. During the beta, history is not yet stored per account, so a deletion request may not cover everything right away; we will tell you what we can delete.
If this policy changes, the date above changes, and testers are told before the change affects data already collected.
To report a vulnerability, email security@ithacaworks.xyz.