Fermi privacy policy

Revision 13

What we collect

Nothing. The software contains no analytics, no telemetry, no advertising or tracking software, and no crash reporting that sends anything to us on its own. We receive no name, no email, no device identifiers, and no information about your documents or your questions.

We do not sell, share, or transfer information about you, because we do not have any.

Where your data lives

Your documents stay where they are. Fermi reads the folders you point it at and never writes to them: it creates, renames, moves, and deletes nothing in them.

What Fermi reads from your documents, the index it builds, the conversation you have with it, the notes you ask it to keep, the reminders you ask it for, the record of what it did with your approval, its settings, its logs, and the language model it runs all live in Fermi's own state folder on your computer, never beside the program and never in a folder of your documents. Nothing in it is uploaded.

Fermi keeps what you and it say to each other, typed or spoken, as text in that folder, so it can pick up where you left off when you come back, when you speak to it, or when you sign in from another device on your network. You can turn this off in Settings, under Memory, and a conversation then lasts only while its page is open. There you can also forget everything said: Fermi deletes it and rewrites the file it was in, so the words do not stay behind in it.

When you ask Fermi to remind you of something, it keeps the reminder in that folder and brings it at its time, on this computer: in your conversation while that is kept, and aloud when Listening is on, at the hour you asked for. With neither, it is shown in the list in Settings alone. No reminder is sent anywhere. Settings lists your reminders, and there you can put one off or take it back.

You can also ask Fermi to bring something up when a subject comes up, and not at a time. It keeps what you asked, and the words that name the subject, in that folder. Whether the subject came up is decided on this computer by comparing words; no model is asked. When it comes up, Fermi gives the language model the words of your reminder with that question, so the model can say it in its own words. With the model on this computer, nothing leaves it. With a cloud provider chosen, those words travel with your question only if you have turned on Allow private information to reach the cloud model in Settings, which is off by default; with it off, Fermi says the reminder itself after the answer and the model is not given it. It comes up once a day at most, three times in all, and never after ninety days. Settings lists these under Reminders, and there you can take one back.

Fermi listens on this computer only. It accepts connections from your network only after the administrator opens it to your network in the console, and then it checks the host and origin of each request. Uninstalling Fermi keeps that folder unless you choose to remove it too; deleting the state folder removes everything Fermi kept.

Fermi's microphone stays closed unless you turn Listening on in Settings. With it on, the computer's own microphone is open and Fermi waits for the words "Hey Fermi", hears the question that follows, and answers aloud. The sound is turned into words on this computer and then discarded, and the words are written to no log; they are handled exactly as a question you typed, so they leave this computer only if a cloud provider is turned on. While Fermi itself is speaking it does not listen. Turning Listening off closes the microphone. The face page has a Talk button of its own. Pressing it opens the microphone in the browser showing the page, which a browser allows only on this computer or over a secure connection; what it records goes to Fermi on this computer, from another device across your network inside that secure connection, and is turned into words there and discarded in the same way.

When Fermi answers aloud, the device you are using speaks: at this computer, the operating system's own speech, and on the face page, the browser's own voice. The page uses only a voice the device carries itself and never one a speech service supplies, so the words are not sent anywhere to be spoken. If you choose the natural voice in Settings, Fermi downloads a speech engine and one voice for it, and that sound is made on this computer.

What the software connects to

Fermi contacts only what you choose or ask for:

• The language model and its engine, when you choose to install them. Fermi downloads the model from Hugging Face and its engine from GitHub only when you choose to install them, or installs both from a folder you prepared. Each download is checked against its checksum. After that, no connection is needed to answer questions.
• The natural voice, only if you choose it. When you choose the natural voice in Settings and install it, Fermi downloads the piper speech engine from GitHub and one voice from Hugging Face. Each download is checked against its checksum. The voice of the device itself needs no download.
• GitHub, for update checks. Once a day the tray asks the public fermi-releases page whether a newer version exists, the same anonymous request a browser could make. Nothing about you or your documents is sent, and no update is installed without your say-so. Turning auto-update off stops the check; a check you start from the menu still works.
• Your mail server, only if you add a mail account. With an account set up in Settings, Fermi connects to that IMAP server with the app password you gave it, reads your Inbox and Sent folder when you ask about your mail, and leaves any reply it writes in your Drafts folder for you to send. If you also name an outgoing server, Fermi sends a message from your account through it only when you say yes to that exact message, or inside the rules you set or a mandate you gave in your own words for one address, and it shows you afterwards what went. Nothing it reads leaves this computer unless a cloud provider is turned on.
• Your calendar and contacts servers, only if you add that account. With an account set up in Settings, Fermi connects to the CalDAV and CardDAV servers you named with the app password you gave it, reads your calendars and address books when you ask, and adds an event only with your yes, or inside the rules you set or a mandate you gave. It changes and deletes nothing there, and nothing it reads leaves this computer unless a cloud provider is turned on.
• Another Fermi on your own network, only if you ask or allow it. When you ask Fermi to settle a meeting with another Fermi, and say yes to what would be sent or have given a mandate naming that Fermi's address, it sends the meeting's title, the name you gave and the times on offer to that one address on your own network, and to no address outside it. While the administrator has opened Fermi to your network, another Fermi there can ask yours for a meeting: yours answers from your calendar only within a mandate you gave for that Fermi's address, and otherwise tells it only that you must be asked.
• Cloud pass-through, only if you turn it on. It is off by default. If you turn it on and choose a provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, xAI, DeepSeek, Groq or OpenRouter), Fermi sends your question and the passages it retrieved from your documents to that provider, and shows you the answer. Your reminders, notes and the kept conversation go with it only if you also turn on Allow private information to reach the cloud model in Settings, which is off by default. With it off, a cloud model is given only the question you typed and the documents it searches; with it on, your reminders, notes and the kept conversation may travel with it. That provider handles them under its own terms. It is a provider you picked and pay directly, not a vendor of ours, and we never see what you sent. Turn it off and nothing leaves your computer.

Every request Fermi makes names the program and its version, the way a web browser does. It carries no name, account, or device id of yours.

Answers are generated

Answers are written by a language model and are marked as AI-generated in the product, with the passages they came from. They can be wrong. Your documents, questions, and answers are never used to train any model.

Connecting an AI tool

Fermi serves the Model Context Protocol on your computer. An AI tool you point at it can search your documents, and what that tool does with the passages it receives is governed by that tool's terms, not ours.

Children

Fermi collects no name, email, or account from anyone, including children. It is a tool for documents that you supply.

Accounts and deletion

There is no Ayers Electronics Inc account, so there is no profile on our side to delete. To delete everything Fermi kept, quit the tray and delete the state folder; uninstalling Fermi keeps that folder unless you choose to remove it too. Neither action involves Ayers Electronics Inc, and neither is something we can perform for you, because we have no access to your computer.

Third-party processors

There are none. Ayers Electronics Inc uses no analytics vendor, no crash reporting vendor, no advertising network, and no attribution network. If you turn on cloud pass-through, that provider is one you picked.

Nothing on this page is legal advice.

Changes

If this policy changes, the revised version is published with a new revision number and distributed with the software.