privacycommand updates through two channels that ship the same DMG.

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Homebrew

When privacycommand detects it’s running from a Homebrew Caskroom, it disables its own installer. brew stays authoritative for the on-disk version, and you never get two updaters disagreeing about what’s installed.

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Sparkle

Direct downloads update in-app via Sparkle 2. Automatic checks are off by default. Opt in under Settings → Updates. A privacy tool that phones a server on a timer without asking would be a poor advertisement for itself, so it asks. The appcast is published at https://privacykey.github.io/privacycommand/appcast.xml and signed with EdDSA. Sparkle verifies the signature before applying anything, so a tampered or substituted response can’t push an update.

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What an update can change

privacycommand is pre-1.0 and says so in its own README. Between releases, expect:
  • New and changed detectors. Findings can appear on an app that previously showed none — usually because detection improved, not because the app changed.
  • Report-format shifts. The JSON export shape is not yet stable.
If you keep audits as a record over time, export JSON and store it with the app version and audit date. A finding that appears after an update is otherwise indistinguishable from a change in the app itself — and Compare runs is only meaningful when you know which privacycommand version produced each side.

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Checking your version

The version is in privacycommand → About. When filing an issue, include it along with your macOS version and whether the helper is installed.