Privacy policy

You do not need an account, and we never ask for your name, email, or payment details. The photos you upload are stripped of their metadata, resized, and sent to Google's Gemini API to be identified. We do not keep the photos themselves.

The rest of this page explains that in full, including the parts that are less convenient.

In this order, every time:

• Metadata is stripped. Phone photos usually carry EXIF data including the GPS coordinates where they were taken. That is removed before anything else happens, so your location never leaves your device with the image.
• The image is resized to a maximum of 768 pixels on its longest side.
• A fingerprint is calculated. This is a 64-bit number derived from the image — enough to recognise the same photo again, not enough to reconstruct it.
• The fingerprint is checked against recent results. If someone has already identified a near-identical photo, you get that answer and your image is never sent anywhere.
• Otherwise the resized image is sent to Google's Gemini API for identification, and the answer is returned to you.

Not your photos. The uploaded image is held in memory only for as long as the request takes, and is then discarded. It is never written to disk.

What we do keep:

• The image fingerprint and the identification result, for up to 30 days. This is what lets a repeat upload be answered instantly. The fingerprint cannot be turned back into a picture.
• A session identifier, stored in a cookie called pid_session. It is a random value with no personal information in it, it cannot be read by JavaScript, and it expires after 24 hours. Its only purpose is counting how many identifications one visitor has run in an hour so the service is not exhausted by a single user.
• Ordinary server logs, which include IP addresses, as any web server does.

Google (Gemini API). Your resized, metadata-stripped photo is sent to Google to be identified. This service currently runs on Google's free API tier, and under Google's terms for that tier content submitted may be used by Google to develop and improve its products and machine-learning technologies. If that matters to you, do not upload photos you would not want used that way. Google's handling of the data is governed by their own privacy terms.

GBIF. Once a species name is proposed, we check it against the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to confirm the species actually exists. Only the proposed name is sent. No image, and nothing about you.

No advertising. The site currently carries no ads and no advertising trackers, so no third-party advertising cookies are set. If that changes, this section will name the provider and link to their policy before any ad is served.

We do not sell your data, and there is nothing to sell — we do not collect anything that identifies you.

This site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. Because no account is required and no personal details are requested, there is nothing for a child to submit beyond a photograph of a plant.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete personal data held about you, and to object to its processing. In practice we hold no data that identifies you: there is no account, no email address, and no profile. If you believe we hold something about you, write to us and we will look.

To clear the session cookie yourself, delete cookies for this site in your browser. The cookie expires on its own after 24 hours in any case.

If what we do with uploads changes — a different identification provider, a paid tier with different data terms, or the introduction of advertising — this page will be updated and the date at the top will change.

Questions about this policy go to hello@example.com, or through the contact page. The site is operated by the operator of this site.