Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this covers

Plant Parenthood is operated by Dennis Yang in California, United States (“Plant Parenthood,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This policy covers the Plant Parenthood iOS app, plantparenthood.cc, the Plant Parenthood API, and messages or forms you send us.

Questions or privacy requests can be sent to support@plantparenthood.cc.

2. Information we collect

We collect information you provide, content created through the service, and limited technical information needed to operate and protect it.

• Account and profile: email address, user ID, username, display name, avatar, account dates, and authentication or session records. Sign-in codes, refresh credentials, and some abuse-prevention identifiers are stored in hashed form.
• Plants and community content: plant names, species, nicknames, photos, captions, capture and sharing dates, care history and notes, archive and privacy settings, likes, comments, cutting availability, and confirmed plant-family relationships.
• Cutting requests: the plants and members involved, request status, an optional note, pickup or shipping preference, an approximate pickup area you type, and consent history. If a plant owner accepts a request and chooses to share an email address, we store and show that address to the requester.
• AI-supported features: a photo you select or add as a new plant after enabling identification and, when you enable photo matching, a limited set of recent reference photos from your own active plants. When identification succeeds, we store the resulting species, common name, confidence, and care guidance. Photo-matching suggestions and confidence are returned to the app; we store only the plant assignment you confirm.
• Messages and forms: information submitted through beta signup, contact, support, comment-reporting, and deletion-request forms, such as name, email, platform, and message.
• On-device information: session credentials stored in iOS Keychain and preferences, AI choices, and the current Terms acceptance stored in UserDefaults on your device.
• Technical and website data: IP and network information used for security and rate limits; operational and error logs; and website browser, device, session, page-view, and approximate-location information collected through Google Analytics. The iOS app does not contain an advertising or cross-app tracking SDK.

3. How we use information

• Create and secure accounts, deliver passwordless sign-in codes, and maintain sessions.
• Store and display plant collections, photo updates, care history, profiles, comments, likes, cutting requests, and plant-family graphs.
• Provide AI-supported plant identification and photo matching when you choose those features.
• Deliver support, respond to reports and deletion requests, and send service-related messages.
• Prevent abuse, investigate errors, protect members and the service, enforce our Terms, and comply with law.
• Measure use of the website and improve the service.

4. What other people can see

Plant Parenthood is a sharing community. Unless you mark a plant private, your profile, active plants, photos, captions, plant details, likes, comments, care history, and accepted plant-family links may be visible to other signed-in members. Comments show the commenter’s profile. A family link between different owners appears only after the other owner accepts it.

Marking a plant private removes it and its photo history from normal in-app community discovery, including Feed, search, other members’ profile views, public plant-family traversal, and new cutting requests. You can still see and manage it in your own collection. The public-by-link image limitation below still applies.

Plant and avatar image URLs are public by link. Anyone who has a direct image URL may be able to view it without signing in. Do not upload an image you need to keep private. Removing a plant or photo removes it from normal feeds and records, but its first-party image file may remain accessible by direct URL until a later cleanup run deletes it. Deleting your account removes current Render-hosted media, subject to the legacy-provider, cache, and backup exceptions below. Copies already saved by other people may remain.

Cutting-request notes, approximate pickup area, preferences, status, and accepted contact email are limited in the app to the requester and plant owner. The recipient may still copy information you choose to share, so use care before sharing personal contact or meetup details.

5. AI-supported identification and matching

When Identify New Plants is enabled, we send photos added as new plants to OpenAI. When Compare Photos with AI is enabled, we may also send a limited set of recent reference photos from your active collection so OpenAI can suggest which plant is shown. We do not intentionally include your email or profile text in those requests.

Identification and photo matching are enabled by default and can be turned off separately in Settings. The strongest photo match may be selected automatically, and identification results may be saved automatically. You can correct a plant or choose manually when matching is unavailable. AI results can be incomplete or wrong.

6. Service providers and other disclosures

We use service providers only to operate, secure, communicate about, and understand the service. They process information for those purposes under their own privacy terms and our agreements where applicable.

• Render hosts the website and API and stores current account, community, and media data in PostgreSQL and first-party storage.
• OpenAI processes selected plant photos for AI-supported identification and matching.
• Resend and our mailbox provider deliver sign-in codes and receive contact, support, and deletion-request messages.
• Supabase temporarily retains legacy media and historical service data while our backend migration and final deletion work are completed.
• Google Analytics measures use of the website using cookies or similar first-party identifiers. Google-hosted fonts and an embedded Product Hunt badge may also receive ordinary web-request data such as IP address, browser details, and referring page.

We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect people or rights, investigate abuse, or complete a merger, financing, acquisition, or transfer of the service. We do not receive money for personal information and do not display advertising or use an advertising or cross-app tracking SDK in the iOS app. The website automatically sends the Google Analytics measurement data described above; browser tracking protection or a content blocker may limit that collection.

7. Retention and deletion

We generally keep account and content information while your account is active or as needed to provide the service. Authentication, security, delivery, and operational records may remain for a reasonable period after they expire or are no longer active. Support emails and provider logs may be retained under the relevant provider’s settings and legitimate operational, security, backup, or legal needs.

You can delete individual content in the app where that control is available. You can delete your current Plant Parenthood account from the app, or submit a request at plantparenthood.cc/#delete-data. We may verify your identity before completing an emailed request. Account deletion removes the active first-party account and associated content from normal use. Limited copies may remain temporarily in backups, logs, provider systems, legal records, or caches.

If you used Plant Parenthood before the Render migration, email support@plantparenthood.cc so we can also locate legacy Supabase data that may not be reached by the in-app deletion action. We will retain only what is reasonably necessary for security, legal compliance, dispute resolution, or enforcing agreements.

8. Your choices and privacy rights

• Edit your profile and plant details, mark individual plants private, remove supported posts or comments, archive or delete plants, and delete your account using the available app controls.
• Turn Identify New Plants or Compare Photos with AI off in Settings.
• Control camera and photo-library access in iOS Settings. Browser tracking protection or a content blocker may limit website analytics collection.
• Email support@plantparenthood.cc to ask for access, correction, deletion, or a copy of your information, or to object, restrict processing, withdraw consent, or appeal a decision where applicable law provides those rights.

We may ask for information needed to verify your identity and authority. Some requests may be limited by security, legal, fraud-prevention, recordkeeping, or other lawful exceptions. We will not discriminate against you for exercising an applicable privacy right. Depending on where you live, you may also complain to your local data-protection authority.

9. Security and international processing

We use measures such as encrypted network connections, short-lived access credentials, rotating sessions, hashing, Keychain storage on iOS, rate limits, and access controls. No system is perfectly secure, and public-by-link photos should not be treated as confidential.

Plant Parenthood and its providers primarily process information in the United States. If you use the service elsewhere, your information may be transferred to and processed in countries with different privacy laws. We use the protections required by applicable law for those transfers.

10. Children

The service is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has provided information, contact support@plantparenthood.cc so we can investigate and delete it as appropriate.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. We will post the new effective date here and provide additional notice in the app or by email when a change is material and applicable law requires it.

12. Contact

Plant Parenthood is operated by Dennis Yang in California, United States. Email privacy questions or requests to support@plantparenthood.cc.