Security & privacy
Your tax paperwork never leaves your computer
Tax documents are about as sensitive as personal records get. The simplest way to protect them is not to collect them, so that's the design: Falcon runs locally and keeps your information where it already is.
Your data stays on your machine
Statements, transactions, drafts, K-1s and archives are written to your own computer, in a folder you choose. They are never sent to us.
It works with the internet off
Falcon runs as a file on your computer. There is no account to sign into and no server call needed to prepare a return.
Licences verify offline
Your key is cryptographically signed when it's issued and checked on your own machine. Using Falcon does not phone home.
We hold as little as possible
The only thing stored on our side is the licence record: the email the key was issued to, its expiry, and the key itself.
What we store, precisely
- On your computer
- Bank and credit-card statements, extracted transactions, member details, capital accounts, draft Form 1065 and K-1s, the yearly zipped audit archive, and your licence key.
- On our side
- The email address a licence was issued to, the issue and expiry dates, and the signed key. Payment details are handled by our payment processor — we never see or store card numbers.
- Never collected
- Bank statements, account numbers, EINs, SSNs or TINs, transaction data, drafts, or any part of your return. There is no analytics or usage tracking inside the app.
Your part of the job
- • Because everything lives on your machine, backups are yours to keep. Copy the yearly archive zip somewhere safe — an external drive or your own encrypted cloud folder.
- • Turn on full-disk encryption (FileVault on Mac, BitLocker on Windows) and use a screen lock. That single step protects everything Falcon writes.
- • Treat your licence key like a receipt, not a password. It unlocks the app; it does not unlock your data.
What we don't claim
Falcon is a small independent tool, not an audited enterprise service. We hold no security certification, we are not an IRS e-file provider, and nothing here is a guarantee against loss or compromise of your own computer. What we can promise is the architecture above: we don't collect your tax data, so there's no store of it to lose.
Questions about any of this, or something you think we've got wrong? See the FAQ or the terms.