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My antivirus or security software reports Keyman is a potential key logger, trojan or spyware

Most importantly, Keyman is not a trojan, key logger, or spyware.

Keyman do not and will never engage in deceptive software practices, such as spyware, malware, viruses or trojans.

Keyman uses advanced technology to remap your keyboard by trapping keystrokes as they are typed. Unfortunately, some spyware applications use the same basic method of trapping keystrokes as Keyman. Understandably, some security software companies have decided to warn their users when they are using a program that traps keystrokes. This then means that Keyman is falsely identified as spyware by some security software.

We are working with antivirus and security software companies to remedy this. If you come across this situation, please reach out to us at SIL Keyman Community, with details of the antivirus or security program that is causing the problem, and we will contact the developer of that software in order to come to a resolution.

You may also add Keyman to your security software whitelist.

The full source code of Keyman can be audited at https://github.com/keymanapp/keyman.

Keyman never transmits any data about what you type from your computer. These are modules in Keyman that include Internet connectivity:

• Automatic Software Updates: Periodically, Keyman checks online at our website for an updated version. Keyman does not send any personally identifiable details in this process. Keyman sends only the following details to the website:

  • The application name - e.g. Keyman or Keyman Developer
  • The current version you are running
  • The set of installed keyboard identifiers and their versions

  If you would prefer not to have Keyman check for updates automatically, you can turn off automatic updates in the Options tab of Keyman Configuration.

• Crash Reports: If Keyman encounters an error condition, then it may send a crash report to our error management service, keyman.sentry.io. These reports include technical details of the error, and details on the version of the operating system and the file that caused the problem.

  These reports do not contain user data, apart from sometimes including a file path (e.g. C:\Users\...).

  Crash reporting can be switched off at installation time, in the Setup Options dialog, or in Keyman Configuration. It is switched on by default.

  A sample report is shown below:

  

• Anonymous usage statistics: Keyman for Windows as of version 17 does not collect anonymous usage statistics, even though there is an option in Keyman Configuration to disable this. Collection of anonymous statistics on which functionality in Keyman is in use is on the Keyman roadmap. The information that is planned to be collected would be: the modules that are accessed, e.g. which tabs of Keyman Configuration are opened, and which options are turned on or off. This data would be anonymous and aggregated.

• Diagnostics: Keyman Configuration includes a diagnostic tool that you can use in order to track down conflicts if they occur. The diagnostic tool collects a number of details about your computer, and presents them on-screen. You can then choose to send these details to Keyman team for further assistance. The details of the report include the basic hardware configuration of your computer, the current configuration of Keyman, a list of currently running applications, a list of applications that are configured to start with Windows, and details about which languages you have installed in Windows. This system information report will never be sent to us without your express approval. Keyman will keep this system information report confidential and will destroy it upon request.

Please also see our Privacy Policy for further information.

Applies to:

• Keyman for Windows 14.0+
• Keyman Desktop 5.0 - 13.0