Legal

Privacy Policy

How Photo Explorer AI handles your photos and your information.

Version 1.10 ยท Effective 18 October 2026

Photo Explorer AI helps you rediscover the best photos in your library, including the moments, people, places, and shots worth keeping. It also helps you identify blurry, duplicate, and forgettable photos you may want to remove. AI helps rate and categorize eligible photos so the app can organize your library for you.

We've written this policy in plain language so you can understand what happens to your photos and information.

Contents

  1. Who this policy covers and who we are
  2. What we don't do
  3. Information you can choose to give us
  4. What the app reads on your device
  5. What leaves your device
  6. How AI analysis works
  7. Your consent to AI analysis
  8. Our backend and where processing happens
  9. What we store and for how long
  10. Location data
  11. Identity: there is no account
  12. Your choices and controls
  13. Children
  14. Contact
  15. Changes to this policy

1. Who this policy covers and who we are

This policy covers the Photo Explorer AI iPhone app and the backend services that support it. It explains what information the app handles, where it goes, how long it is kept, and the choices you have.

Photo Explorer AI is operated by the app's developer ("we", "us").

No account is required. You don't need to create an account, sign in, or provide your name, email address, or phone number to use Photo Explorer AI or make a purchase.

If you contact us for help, privacy questions, or feedback, we receive the information you choose to include in that message.

2. What we don't do

  • We do not sell or rent your data
  • We do not show advertising
  • We do not use advertising identifiers
  • We do not track you across other apps or websites
  • We do not ask for Apple's tracking permission
  • We do not use third-party advertising or tracking SDKs

We also do not require your name, email address, or phone number to use the app.

If you contact us, we receive whatever contact information and message content you choose to send.

Sharing a photo with another person or service happens only when you choose to use Apple's normal share controls.

3. Information you can choose to give us

Photo Explorer AI does not require your name or email address.

  • No name or email is required to use Photo Explorer AI.
  • No name or email is required to subscribe or make a purchase.
  • You may optionally provide a first name or nickname so the app can address you more personally, for example in your reports and in messages we send you. It is stored on your device and may be sent to our backend only to personalise those messages. It is never sent to our AI provider. You can change or remove it at any time in Settings.

Providing a name is entirely optional. You can use Photo Explorer AI fully without giving one, and providing it does not create a traditional account.

4. What the app reads on your device

With your permission, Photo Explorer AI reads your Photos library so it can organize your photos and show them back to you inside the app.

The app may read:

  • Your photos
  • Basic photo details, such as when a photo was taken, its dimensions, whether it is a screenshot, panorama, Live Photo, favourite, or hidden, and a photo's GPS coordinates if it has any

A few important things to know:

  • We ask for Photos access so the app can read your library and, when you choose to delete something, ask Apple to delete it
  • Videos and screenshots are not sent for AI analysis
  • We never modify your full-size original photos
  • When you choose to delete a photo, deletion goes through Apple's own confirmation and the photo is moved to Recently Deleted according to Apple's normal Photos behaviour

Visual labels for Search. To make Search work, the phone uses Apple's built-in image recognition to label your photos with what appears in them, such as a beach, a dog or a birthday cake. These labels are created on your device, stay on your device, and are not uploaded to our backend or AI provider.

Private photos. If AI identifies a photo as private, Photo Explorer AI excludes it from its photo displays, suggestions and counts. The original stays in Apple Photos for you to manage. A photo already identified as private is not sent again for another AI task. The first AI analysis may have required a reduced copy of that photo before the app knew it was private.

Most photo details stay on your device. The information that can leave your device is described next.

5. What leaves your device

When an eligible photo is sent for AI analysis, Photo Explorer AI sends a small reduced copy of that photo rather than the full-size original.

The reduced copy is created specifically for analysis and has embedded photo metadata, including GPS information, removed before it is uploaded.

Photo Explorer AI may also send a limited amount of technical information needed to process the analysis and match the result back to the correct photo. This can include the date and time the photo was taken. That capture timestamp is sent as a separate text field, not as metadata embedded in the reduced image, and may be used to group photos taken close together.

To reconnect your results with the same photos after a reinstall or on another device, the app separately sends our backend an opaque photo identifier supplied by Apple's Photos library. It contains no photo image, filename, GPS coordinates or Apple Account identity. We do not send this identifier to the AI provider.

When we use choices you make in the app as context for AI results, as described in How AI analysis works, we send the choice itself, such as the fact that you kept a particular photo, along with a short summary of that photo's existing AI analysis. No image, GPS coordinates or filename is sent with it.

Never sent

We do not send:

  • your full-size original photo
  • GPS coordinates or embedded camera and location metadata from the reduced copy
  • your photo filename
  • your Apple ID
  • your optional first name or nickname
  • your email address or phone number as part of photo analysis

Videos and screenshots are not uploaded for AI analysis.

Creating a report may require Photo Explorer AI to send the same approved provider a fresh small, metadata-stripped copy of a photo it analyzed earlier. This happens because the earlier reduced copy is deleted after its original analysis. The report-time copy is limited to the photos selected for that report; it does not include GPS coordinates, a filename, or your optional name.

6. How AI analysis works

Photo Explorer AI uses AI to rate and categorize eligible photos so the app can organize them for you. To do this, a small reduced copy of an eligible photo is sent to the approved AI provider for analysis.

The same provider also uses small reduced copies to create your Reports.

Your approval also covers personalization. Choices you make in the app, such as which photos you keep, can provide context so that AI results better reflect the kind of photographs you value. This shapes the instructions and context used for your own analysis. It does not mean your photos or your choices are used to train an AI provider's general models.

What the app sends today for analysis is the reduced copy of an eligible photo described above. If we begin sending choices you make in the app as context, that use goes to the same approved provider for the same purpose and is covered by the approval described in Your consent to AI analysis.

AI analysis may be performed by:

  1. a disclosed third-party AI provider
  2. infrastructure we control in the future
  3. on-device AI in the future

If AI analysis moves to a method that keeps more processing on your device or under our direct control, we may update this policy to describe that change.

The AI does not delete your photos. It provides analysis results. Any deletion from your Photos library is something you choose and confirm through Apple's own system prompt.

Who receives a reduced copy of your photos

We use one third-party AI provider at a time to analyze the small reduced copies described above. The provider is always one of the following companies: Anthropic, PBC (Claude models), OpenAI (GPT models), xAI (Grok models) or Google LLC (Gemini models). The current provider is Anthropic (Claude) and is always shown in Settings under AI provider.

We may also use open source AI models run by a hosting service. If we do, Settings shows the model and the hosting service by name under AI provider. A hosting service is handled in the same way as the providers above: it receives only the small reduced copies described below, processes them only on our instructions as our service provider, does not use them to train AI models by default, and keeps them only as long as its own terms allow, within the same 30 day limit.

Each of these providers processes your photos only on our instructions, as our service provider (a processor under GDPR and a service provider under the CCPA), to return an analysis result. Under each provider's published business terms, content sent through its API is not used to train its AI models by default, and inputs and outputs are deleted within 30 days unless a shorter or longer period is required by law or for safety and abuse prevention. Each provider is contractually required to protect your data to a standard at least equal to this policy.

  • What we send: a small reduced copy of an eligible photo and the instructions needed to analyze it and, where we use it, the choice context described in What leaves your device
  • What we do not send: your full-size original photo, GPS coordinates, embedded camera or location metadata from the reduced copy, filename, Apple identity, or account details. The limited technical information described in What leaves your device can include the separate capture timestamp
  • Our storage: our own reduced copy is deleted from our backend storage after the AI analysis result is returned

Links to each provider's terms:

Our AI providers may process reduced copies of your photos outside Canada and, if you live in the EU or UK, outside the EEA and UK, where they may be accessible to local courts and law enforcement under that country's law. For EU and UK users, transfers rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and otherwise on Standard Contractual Clauses.

We may switch between these providers, including to an open source model run by a hosting service, without asking you to approve again, provided the provider acts only as our processor, does not use your photos to train its models by default, and deletes them within 30 days. When we switch, we update this policy and the Settings line and show you a one-time notice in the app. We will ask for your approval again before sending photos to any provider outside this list, before sending any new kind of data, before using your photos for any new purpose, or if a provider's terms change so that your photos could be used to train its models.

For California residents, the category of third parties to whom reduced copies of your photos are disclosed for a business purpose is: AI model providers acting as our service providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Google, and any hosting service that runs an open source AI model for us). Disclosure to a service provider is not a sale or sharing of personal information.

We identify these providers because you should know who may receive a reduced copy of your photos.

AI analysis is opt-in.

Before any eligible photo is sent to a third-party AI provider, Photo Explorer AI tells you which providers may receive it, names the current one, and asks you to approve that use.

That one approval, scoped to the named provider set, covers using small reduced copies to organize your photos and create your Reports, together with the limited choice-context personalization described above. It does not add a second Reports approval, a prompt for each report, or a prompt for each photo while the provider and material data-use terms remain the same.

You can decline and still explore the app using sample photos.

You can withdraw AI approval at any time using the AI Access control in Photo Explorer AI's Settings. After you withdraw approval, new photos will not be sent for AI analysis, and choices you make in the app will not be used as context for new AI results. If reduced copies are waiting for an unfinished Report, those copies are deleted and that unfinished Report is cancelled. Reports already completed remain available. Approving AI again later does not recreate the missed Report; reporting can resume with the next eligible period.

Withdrawal also stops any new report-time photo upload. A report job that cannot confirm current approval and eligibility must not upload a photo.

If the AI provider changes

Your approval covers the closed set of AI providers named on the approval screen and in How AI analysis works: Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Google, or open source AI models run by a hosting service. If we switch between those providers on the equivalent terms described there, we do not ask you to approve again; Settings shows the current provider and we show you a one-time notice in the app.

Before any of your photos are sent to a provider outside that set, or before any of the other changes listed in How AI analysis works, Photo Explorer AI will show you the approval screen again and ask you to approve.

8. Our backend and where processing happens

Photo Explorer AI uses Supabase for backend services such as secure storage, database functions, and processing coordination.

The reduced photo copy passes through our private backend as part of AI analysis and is deleted from our storage after analysis finishes.

The AI results are stored so Photo Explorer AI can continue to organize and display your photos without analyzing the same photo again unnecessarily.

Community ranking. To show your community ranking, our backend compares your share of Best photos rated 8.0 or higher over the last 60 days with the same share for other users. It uses the AI ratings already stored for your photos. Only your own rank is shown to you. No other user's photos or numbers are ever shown to you, and your photos and numbers are never shown to other users.

Our primary Supabase database is hosted in Canada (Central).

Our backend and our AI provider may operate in different countries. This means reduced photo copies and AI results may be processed outside the country where you live.

Where information is processed outside your country, we take reasonable steps to protect it in accordance with this policy and applicable law.

9. What we store and for how long

On your device

Photo Explorer AI stores information needed to run the app, including:

  • AI results associated with sorted photos
  • basic photo details used by the app
  • photo GPS coordinates used for on-device location features
  • visual labels used for Search
  • review progress and app settings
  • an optional first name or nickname used to personalise your reports and messages
  • cached thumbnails

Some securely stored information may persist after reinstalling the app so the app can recognize purchases or restore access to things you have paid for.

To keep the free first sort to one per iPhone, the app stores a single flag in this iPhone's Keychain. It contains no personal data, is never sent to us, and stays after you delete the app or your account.

In our backend

  • Reduced photo copies: deleted from our storage after AI analysis finishes
  • Report-time reduced copies: a successfully completed report deletes its staged reduced copies when the report is created. Withdrawing AI approval

deletes reduced copies waiting for unfinished Reports immediately and cancels those Reports. Otherwise, abandoned or interrupted Report staging is deleted 72 hours after the newest reduced copy for that Report was staged

  • AI results for photos you keep: retained so the app can continue to organize and display them
  • AI results for photos you delete: the photo's AI analysis is deleted from our backend after a 31-day grace period
  • Photo and recovery identifiers: our backend stores the opaque photo identifiers described above and a public recovery key so your own photo history can be found after a reinstall or device change. The matching private recovery key stays in your private iCloud database. These identifiers are not sent to the AI provider
  • Records of choices you have already made: our backend may hold a record of a choice you made about a photo. This can include a photo you chose to keep, a short summary of the AI's assessment at the time, and an explanation you chose to write. We keep that record beyond the 31-day window, including if you later delete the photo, so the app can remember your past activity and photo preferences. These records contain no image, GPS coordinates or filename. Results that describe a group of photos together are also kept while the group still includes photos you have
  • Service and purchase records: limited records may be retained as needed to operate the service, prevent duplicate processing, restore purchases, and maintain transaction history

You can request deletion of your Photo Explorer AI data through the app or by contacting us. When you make a deletion request, we delete the data associated with your anonymous identity, except information we are legally or operationally required to retain. When you delete your account in the app, Photo Explorer AI also erases everything it keeps on this iPhone, including your AI results, settings and preferred name, and starts again from the beginning. The only thing it keeps is the free first sort flag, so the free first sort is not given again. Photos in your Photos library are never touched.

10. Location data

Photo Explorer AI does not use your phone's live location and does not request location permission.

There are two kinds of location information that may be associated with photos:

  1. A photo's GPS coordinates

If a photo already contains GPS information, Photo Explorer AI may read it for on-device features such as the map. Those coordinates stay on your device and are not sent to our backend or AI provider as location metadata.

  1. A place name inferred from the picture itself

The AI may recognize a visible place or landmark and return a text place name as part of the photo's analysis. That is derived from what appears in the image, not from your phone's live location or the photo's GPS coordinates.

Like other app data stored on your device, on-device information may be included in Apple device backups depending on your Apple settings. Those backups are handled by Apple, not by Photo Explorer AI.

11. Identity: there is no account

Photo Explorer AI does not require a traditional user account.

The app creates an anonymous identity so the backend can keep your data separate from other users' data and recognize information associated with your installation and purchases.

After a reinstall or device change, the app can connect your new anonymous identity to your earlier results by verifying that you hold the same recovery key. It restores only your own photo history. Sharing an Apple account for purchases does not combine two people's photo histories.

That anonymous identity is not tied to your Apple ID, name, email address, or phone number.

The app's recovery identity uses a private cryptographic key stored in your private iCloud/CloudKit database so it can restore across an app reinstall or another device using the same iCloud account. The private key is not sent to Photo Explorer AI's backend; only its public key is sent. Apple operates iCloud and handles that private database under your Apple account and settings.

12. Your choices and controls

You control whether Photo Explorer AI can use AI with your photos.

You can:

  • Decline AI analysis and explore with sample photos
  • Withdraw AI approval at any time from the AI Access control in Settings, so new photos are no longer sent for analysis
  • Choose which photos to delete, with every deletion going through Apple's own confirmation
  • Request deletion of your Photo Explorer AI data through the app or by contacting us (see Contact); we delete data associated with your anonymous identity, except information we are legally or operationally required to retain
  • Contact us with privacy questions or requests

Deleting Photo Explorer AI from your phone removes most local app data. Some securely stored purchase-related information may remain on the device so reinstalling the app does not cause you to lose access to things you have paid for. The free first sort flag described in What we store and for how long also remains, so the free first sort is not given again.

Depending on where you live, you may also have legal rights to access, correct, delete, or object to certain processing of your personal information.

13. Children

Photo Explorer AI is intended for users aged 14 and older and is not designed for children under 14.

If you believe a child under 14 has used Photo Explorer AI in a way that raises a privacy concern, please contact us.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data can be sent to:

Privacy contact: PhotoExplorerAI@gmail.com

You can also contact us using the feedback option inside Photo Explorer AI. The feedback flow may include basic app and device information that you can review before sending.

15. Changes to this policy

If we change how Photo Explorer AI handles your information, we may update this policy and its version number.

We will ask for your approval again before a material change takes effect. Material changes include sending photos to an AI provider outside the named set of Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Google, and open source AI models run by a hosting service, sending a new kind of data, using your photos for a new purpose, or a change in a provider's terms that could allow it to use your photos to train its models. A switch between the named providers, including to an open source model run by a hosting service, on equivalent terms is not a material change. For such a switch, we update this policy and the Settings line and show you a one-time notice in the app.

Version 1.3 (21 September 2026): the approval and this policy now name the closed set of AI providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Google) rather than a single provider, and describe when a switch between them does and does not require fresh approval. Every existing user is asked to approve this disclosure once.

Version 1.4 (25 September 2026): adds the community ranking, which compares your share of Best photos rated 8.0 or higher with other users' to show only your own rank, and the on-device visual labels that make Search work, which stay on your device.

Version 1.5 (26 September 2026): the approval and this policy now say we may also use open source AI models run by a hosting service, handled in the same way as the other providers, with Settings naming the model and the hosting service when one is in use. A provider no longer has to be located in the United States to be switched to without fresh approval, and the policy no longer says where providers process your photos; the transfer statement now covers processing outside Canada, the EEA and the UK in any country. Every existing user is asked to approve this disclosure once.

Version 1.6 (27 September 2026): Reports are now part of Photo Explorer AI, so the policy now describes them as available rather than switched off. How Reports use your photos is unchanged, and you are not asked to approve again.

Version 1.7 (27 September 2026): the free first sort is given once per iPhone. A single flag in this iPhone's Keychain records it; the flag holds no personal data, is never sent to us, and stays after you delete the app or your account. Deleting your account in the app now also erases everything else the app keeps on this iPhone. You are not asked to approve again.

Version 1.8 (2 October 2026): your optional first name or nickname is now used to address you in your reports and in messages we send you. It is stored on your device, may be sent to our backend only to personalise those messages, and is never sent to our AI provider. You are not asked to approve again.

Version 1.9 (18 October 2026): explains the opaque photo identifier and recovery ownership used to restore your own history, and clarifies how photos identified as private are handled. These descriptions do not add a new kind of collection or change your AI approval.

Version 1.10 (18 October 2026): uses the full app name and explains account-free recovery in plain language. This wording does not change what we collect or your AI approval.