Privacy Policy

Data Controller

PlantPlotter is operated by Ed Haswell. For any privacy-related enquiries, a contact address will be published here before launch.

What data we collect

Free tier

No user account is required for the free tier. All garden data you create — including beds, plants, placements, and harvest records — is stored locally on your device using SQLite. This data never leaves your device and is not transmitted to our servers. We do not collect your name, email address, or any other personal information directly.

Paid tier (cloud backup & sync)

If you subscribe to PlantPlotter's paid tier, you can optionally enable cloud backup and sync. This allows your garden data to be securely stored and accessed across multiple devices. When you use this feature, we collect and store the following:

• Account credentials — your email address and a securely hashed password, managed via AWS Cognito. We never store your password in plain text.
• Garden data — your beds, plants, placements, and harvest records, backed up to our secure cloud storage so you can access them from any device you log in to.
• Approximate location (optional) — if you choose to provide it, a rough location (such as your country or region) to help tailor growing recommendations. This is entirely optional and can be omitted or removed at any time.
• Other optional profile data — we may offer additional optional fields in future (for example, climate zone or preferred growing style). These will always be clearly marked as optional and covered by an updated version of this policy.

All optional data can be removed by editing your profile or deleting your account at any time.

Advertising

The free version of PlantPlotter displays advertisements served by Google AdMob. AdMob may collect and use your device's advertising identifier to serve personalised advertisements:

• iOS: Before accessing your device's IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers), you will be asked for permission via Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework. You can choose to allow or decline. If you decline, you will still see ads but they will not be personalised.
• Android: In regions where consent is required (including the UK and EU), a consent form will be shown before personalised ads are served. You can opt out at any time in your device settings under Google → Ads → Delete advertising ID.

Upgrading to PlantPlotter's paid tier removes all advertising.

For more information on how Google uses data when serving ads, please see Google's Privacy Policy.

Third parties

We use the following third-party services. We do not sell your data to any third party.

• Google AdMob — serves advertisements in the free tier. May collect your device's advertising identifier as described in the Advertising section above.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — used by the paid tier for account authentication (AWS Cognito) and secure cloud storage of your garden data. AWS processes data on our behalf as a data processor and is contractually bound to handle it in accordance with UK GDPR. See AWS's Privacy Notice for details.
• RevenueCat — manages subscriptions. Receives an anonymous account identifier and your purchase history so we can tell whether your subscription is active. It never receives your email address or any garden data. See RevenueCat's Privacy Policy.
• Expo — delivers over-the-air app updates. Your device contacts Expo's update service when the app starts, which means Expo sees your IP address and basic device and app-version information. It receives no account or garden data. See Expo's Privacy Policy.

Data retention

Free tier: your garden data is stored only on your device. You can delete it at any time from Profile → Account → Delete local data, or by uninstalling the app. We hold nothing on our servers.

Paid tier: your account data and backed-up garden data are retained on our servers for as long as your account exists. You can delete your account at any time — see Delete your account.

Account deletion

You have the right to delete your account at any time. Full instructions, including what is and is not removed, are on the Delete your account page.

In the app, go to Profile → Account → Delete account. This removes your sign-in credentials, your profile and all cloud-backed garden data immediately and permanently, along with the local data on that device. An email route will be offered too, once a contact address will be published here before launch; we will complete any request made that way within 30 days.

Plant suggestions you submitted to the shared catalogue are kept but unlinked from you, so that contributions other people have built on are not lost. Once unlinked, nothing connects them back to you.

Backups: our database keeps point-in-time backups for up to 35 days so we can recover from a failure. Deleted data can persist in those backups until they expire, after which it is gone for good. Nothing from a backup is used to rebuild a deleted account.

Your subscription is not cancelled by deleting your account, and we cannot cancel it for you. Cancel it in the Google Play Store under Payments & subscriptions, or you will continue to be billed.

International data transfers

If you use the paid tier, your data is processed by Amazon Web Services. AWS operates data centres globally. Where possible we use AWS regions within the UK or European Economic Area, however some processing may occur in other regions.

Any transfer of personal data outside the UK is carried out under appropriate safeguards, including AWS's standard contractual clauses approved for use under UK GDPR. For more information, see AWS's GDPR compliance documentation.

Free tier users are not affected by international data transfers as no personal data is transmitted to any server.

Your rights under UK GDPR

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, you have the following rights:

• Right of access — you can request a copy of any personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification — you can ask us to correct inaccurate personal data.
• Right to erasure — you can ask us to delete your personal data.
• Right to restriction — you can ask us to restrict how we process your data.
• Right to data portability — you can request your data in a portable format.
• Right to object — you can object to our processing of your personal data.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us — a contact address will be published here before launch. We will respond within 30 days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK's data protection authority, the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk.

Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time, for example when we introduce new features or in response to changes in applicable law. The date at the top of this page will always reflect when it was last updated.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle data, a contact address will be published here before launch.