Privacy Policy
Short version: your photos are processed in memory and never stored, we don't ask for an account, and we don't run ads. With your permission we count visits with Google Analytics, which never receives your photos or results.
Your Photos
When you identify a plant, your photo is resized in your browser and sent securely to our server. The server forwards it to a third-party AI image-analysis service that produces the identification. That service processes the photo under its own terms and data policies. The server then checks the returned scientific name against the GBIF species database and sends the result back to you.
Photos are processed in memory for the duration of the request and are never written to disk or a database. We do not build a photo library, and we cannot recover your photos after the request completes. To make re-uploading the same photo quicker, we cache the identification result (never the image) against a one-way hash of the photo for up to 24 hours.
The share options after a result are plain links. They open the network or app you choose only when you tap one, and share just the plant's name and a link to this site, never your photos.
Cookies and Local Storage
We set one cookie: an anonymous, random visitor ID used solely to apply fair-use limits (10 identifications per day, 6 per hour). It contains no personal information and is not shared with anyone.
With your permission, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used in aggregate: which pages are visited, roughly where visitors come from and what kind of device they use. It sets its own cookies (named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID) and receives the page address and standard technical details from your browser. These cookies are optional: they are only set if you tap Accept in the cookie banner, and you can change your mind any time with Cookie Settings in the footer. Declining changes nothing about how the identifier works. Google Analytics never receives your photos, your identification results. Google processes this data under its own policies.
Your scan history (each result with a small thumbnail of your photo) is kept only in your own browser's storage so you can revisit it. It never leaves your device, and you can clear it any time from the History panel or by clearing your browser data. Your remaining free scans are also remembered in your browser so the counter appears instantly.
What We Don't Do
No accounts, no sign-ups, no email collection. No advertising. We don't sell, share, or analyze your photos or results for marketing, and we don't build user profiles.
Like any web host, our hosting provider (Vercel) processes standard request data (such as IP address) for security, rate-limiting, and operational logs. To enforce the fair-use limits, we also keep per-visitor and per-IP request counters for up to 24 hours. The scientific name returned by an identification is sent to GBIF purely to verify it exists, with nothing else attached.
Questions about this policy? Email freeplantidentifier@outlook.com.