Privacy Policy

Flowist is a flower-identification and collecting app. This page explains exactly what data moves when you use it, why, and where it goes — written to match what the app actually does, not a generic template. If anything here is unclear, get in touch.

What Flowist collects

Data	What happens to it
A cropped photo of the flower you scan	Sent once, over an encrypted connection, to our identification partner. The copy on our server is deleted immediately after a result is returned. The photo is never used to train any model and never sold.
Your location	Captured on your device, then coarsened to an area before it is saved. It normally stays on your device. Only when you explicitly create a private Bloom Invite is that area sent to Flowist, where it is coarsened again and the link becomes inaccessible after seven days.
An anonymous device account	Created automatically so your petals and collection can be scored, with no name, email, or sign-up required. It cannot be traced back to you personally.
A species' scientific name (not your photo)	Sent to a language model to write a short story about that species — generated once per species and shared by every gardener. Your photo and location are never part of this request.
A gardener name (optional)	If you choose to join the Meadow leaderboard, the name you pick and your petal count are visible to other gardeners. Nothing else about you is — no location, no device details, no real name unless you choose one yourself.

How a scan actually works

When you point the portal at a flower and tap:

• The app crops the frame down to just the flower — the rest of the photo (your surroundings, anyone nearby) never leaves your device.
• That crop is sent once, over HTTPS, to our identification partner.
• A name and a confidence score come back, and the server-side copy of your photo is deleted immediately afterward.
• The very first time you scan, Flowist asks your permission before any photo is ever sent. Decline, and identification is paused until you turn it back on in Settings.

Location, specifically

Flowist's whole point is remembering where you found something — so we built location handling to be worth trusting:

• Coarsening happens on your device, before anything is saved — a precise GPS fix is snapped to a rough area (about 500m, wider for rare species) and only that coarsened area is ever written down. The precise coordinate is discarded, not just hidden.
• You can choose Approximate area (default), Exact spot, or Don't save per your comfort, in Settings.
• This data lives in your local Bloom Book and is never used by the Meadow leaderboard. If you explicitly tap Invite a friend, Flowist previews exactly what will be shared, uploads a further-obscured search area behind an opaque private link, and expires it after seven days.
• Bloom Invites never contain your saved exact coordinate. Ordinary flowers use at least a 500m search area; rare and legendary flowers use at least 2km.

Who else sees your data

Flowist is built on a small number of service providers, each given only what they need to do one job:

• Our identification partner receives the cropped flower photo for that single request, and deletes it after responding.
• Our language-model provider receives only a species' scientific name — never a photo, never your location — to write that species' story.
• Our backend provider hosts the anonymous account system, Meadow leaderboard, species-story cache, and any private Bloom Invite you explicitly create. An invite stores only its expiring, approximate search area—not an exact coordinate.

We do not sell data. We do not run ads. We do not share your information with data brokers.

Your choices

• Delete everything — Settings → Delete all my data removes your entire Bloom Book from your device instantly and forgets your local Meadow session. Because your Meadow account is already anonymous, we can also remove it from our servers on request — just contact us.
• Location precision — change or turn off location saving anytime in Settings; it only ever affects what's written going forward.
• Bloom Invites — nothing is shared automatically. You preview and create each private link yourself; links expire after seven days.
• Pause identification — revoke cloud-identification consent in Settings at any time.

Children

Flowist is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

How long we keep things

• Flower photos: deleted immediately after identification — not retained at all.
• Species stories: cached indefinitely, but they're botanical descriptions, not personal data — the same story is shared by everyone who finds that species.
• Your Bloom Book: stays on your device until you delete it or delete the app.
• Your anonymous Meadow account: retained until you ask us to remove it.
• Bloom Invites: automatically expire after seven days.

Security

All requests travel over encrypted connections. Each of our backend functions is scoped to see only the minimum it needs for that one call — the identification service, for instance, has no way to read your Meadow petals, and vice versa.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, let you know inside the app.

Contact

Questions, or want your data removed? Reach us at laxmanshah45@gmail.com or through the support page.