Privacy Policy
1. What we collect
We only collect what the app needs to work.
Account information
- Your email address (for email sign-up), or, if you use Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google, the identifier and email those services share with us (with Apple you may choose to hide your email via Apple's private relay).
- Your profile: display name, @handle, bio, and an optional profile photo.
Photos and the information attached to them
- The bird photos you upload, and the metadata you add or that we read from the image file (EXIF): camera, lens, ISO, shutter, aperture, focal length, the date the photo was taken, the species, your caption, and a place name.
- Location of a photo. If a photo's image file contains GPS coordinates, or you geotag it in the app, those coordinates are stored with the photo. You can set a photo's location precision to Exact, Obscured (coarsened to a general area), or Hidden — and for species that are sensitive (e.g. owls, nesting raptors, rare birds) Plumage defaults new uploads to a coarsened precision to help protect them.
Your activity in the app
- Who you follow and who follows you, likes and comments, accounts you block, and the notifications generated from these.
Device location (only if you allow it)
- If you grant location permission, we use your device's location to center the map on you and to help tag where you took a photo. We request “while using the app” access only. You can deny or revoke this at any time in iOS Settings; the app still works without it.
Purchases
- If you make a purchase — a one-time supporter gift, or a membership if we offer one — it is processed by Apple through the App Store. We never receive or store your credit-card number; we only learn from Apple that the purchase happened (and, for a membership, whether it is active).
We do not collect contacts, browsing history, or advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
2. How we use it
To create and run your account; to store and display your photos; to power the communal feed, search, map, and the social features (follows, likes, comments, notifications); to keep the service safe (e.g. enforcing blocks and removing content that violates our rules); and to honor your purchases. We do not use your information for advertising or profiling.
3. Who we share it with
We don't sell your personal information and we don't share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers (“processors”) to run the app:
- Supabase — our backend host (authentication, database, and profile-photo storage). Your account, photo details, and activity are stored on Supabase infrastructure in the United States (AWS us-west-2, Oregon).
- Cloudflare R2 — hosts and serves the photo image files you upload (Cloudflare, Inc., United States).
- Apple — Sign in with Apple, App Store payments, and core iOS services.
- Google — only if you choose Sign in with Google.
- Apple Maps (MapKit) — to display maps and to turn coordinates into place names. Location lookups are sent to Apple under Apple's privacy terms.
Open-data lookups the app makes for you. Two features fetch public data directly from third-party services when you use them. These requests contain no account information — just the query — though, as with any web request, the service can see your device's IP address:
- GBIF (gbif.org) — the “Where to find” screen asks GBIF where a species has been recorded. The request includes the species name and a general search area (never a precise photo location — coordinates are coarsened first).
- Xeno-canto (xeno-canto.org) — the “Listen” button fetches bird-song recordings by species name.
What other users can see. Plumage is a community. Your profile (name, handle, bio, avatar) and the photos you post — including their species, caption, place name, and, depending on your precision setting, their location — are visible to other birders in the communal feed, search, map, and on your profile.
4. Your choices and rights
- Delete your account. You can permanently delete your account and its data from inside the app: Edit Profile → Delete Account. This removes your profile, photos, and the photo files from storage, and cancels your access. (Manage an active subscription's renewal in the App Store; Apple controls billing.)
- Edit or remove content. You can edit your photos' details, delete individual photos, and change a photo's location precision at any time.
- Location. Grant or revoke device-location access in iOS Settings.
- Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data. Contact us at app.plumage@gmail.com and we'll honor applicable requests. We won't discriminate against you for exercising these rights.
5. Data retention
We keep your information for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete your profile, photos, and stored photo files, and the associated database records are removed by cascade. Backups and logs may persist for a short period before being overwritten.
6. Security
We use industry-standard measures, including encryption in transit and access controls scoped so that you can only modify your own content. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we work to protect your information.
7. Children
Plumage is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country), and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.
8. International users
We are based in New York, USA and process data on infrastructure located in the United States. If you use Plumage from another country, you consent to your information being transferred to and processed in the United States.
9. Changes
We may update this policy. We'll revise the effective date above and, for material changes, notify you in the app or by email.
10. Contact
Questions? Reach us at app.plumage@gmail.com.