FotoThis
Privacy Policy
Last updated 20 October 2026
FotoThis has no accounts. Your photos, location and Screen Time choices stay on your iPhone. We send only what's needed to name a plant and, if you join one, to run an Outside Challenge with your friends.
Who we are
FotoThis is made by Acrypt ApS, Copenhagen, Denmark (CVR DK43269054) ("we"). We are responsible for the data described here. Contact: hello@fotothis.one.
What stays on your iPhone
These are used and kept only on your phone. We never receive them:
- Your photos from both cameras, including the selfie. The checks that decide an unlock (outdoor scene, selfie, repeat photo, movement) all run on the phone.
- Your location, used to check you've moved and to work out sunset and the weather bonus.
- Your steps from Apple Health.
- The apps you lock. Apple's Screen Time gives FotoThis an encrypted token for each app, not its name or what you do in it.
- Your onboarding answers (first name, age range, scroll habits), minutes, streaks and collection.
For the weather bonus, your phone asks Apple WeatherKit for the current weather at your location (under Apple's privacy policy), or Open-Meteo if Apple doesn't answer. They receive your position for that request only, not who you are.
Naming a plant
When you take a verified photo, FotoThis sends the back-camera photo (never the selfie), made smaller, to our server, together with your current position.
- The position is used only to choose the right regional flora. It isn't stored and isn't passed on.
- The photo is passed to Pl@ntNet (a French research consortium: Cirad, INRAE, Inria and IRD) to name the plant, under Pl@ntNet's privacy policy. We don't store the photo.
- The plant's name and its Wikipedia article (no photo, nothing about you) go to Groq, an AI service, to pick a few facts. Facts are kept per species and language for up to 180 days so others get them faster.
- To limit free-trial lookups to 3 a day, the server counts lookups against an anonymous device key. The count is deleted after 2 days.
Checking your subscription and your app
- Subscription: your App Store transaction ID is sent so our server can ask Apple whether you're subscribed. The answer is kept for 1 hour. Payment is handled by Apple; we never see your card or Apple ID.
- App Attest: Apple's App Attest proves requests come from the real FotoThis app. We keep the anonymous public key it creates for this install.
Outside Challenges
Only if you create or join a challenge, FotoThis creates an anonymous member ID on your phone and sends:
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Anonymous member ID | To recognise your phone. Not linked to your name, email, phone number or Apple ID. |
| Nickname and colour you choose | Shown to your crew on the board. |
| Daily totals: whether you went outside, number of verified photos, names of new plants, locked minutes, emergency unlocks | To score the challenge. |
| Daily steps (only with "Share my daily steps with this crew" on; you can turn it off) | Shown to your crew. |
| Time zone | To know which day it is for you and to keep notifications out of quiet hours. |
| Push notification token | To tell you when a friend joins, goes outside, cheers or nudges you. |
| Cheers, nudges and joins | Shown in your crew's feed. |
Who sees it: only the people in your challenge (up to 8). There's no public profile, no chat and no global leaderboard. We never send photos, faces or locations for challenges.
How long we keep it:
- A challenge and everything in it is deleted 30 days after it ends.
- A challenge nobody joins is deleted after 30 days.
- If you leave a challenge, or the creator removes you, your progress in it is deleted.
- A member ID that hasn't been in a challenge for 90 days is deleted with its nickname and push token.
Invite links
Opening an invite link at fotothis.one/c/… shows the inviter's nickname, colour and who has joined. The page shows no scores.
What we don't do
- No advertising, no tracking across apps or websites, no analytics or advertising SDKs.
- We don't sell or share your data with anyone except the services named above, which act only to provide FotoThis.
Where it's processed
Our server runs on Vercel in the United States; challenge data is stored in a Neon Postgres database in Frankfurt, Germany (EU), and short-lived counters in Upstash Redis. Where data leaves the EU/EEA, these providers use the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. Like any web server, ours sees your IP address; we use it only to stop abuse (rate limits, kept up to 1 hour) and in short-lived server logs.
Legal basis (GDPR)
We process this data to provide the app you asked for (contract), and to keep it safe from abuse (legitimate interest). Sharing steps with your crew is your choice and can be turned off at any time (consent).
Your rights
You can ask to see, correct or delete your data, or object to its use. Because there's no account, we can't tell which data is yours without your member ID: leaving a challenge or deleting the app removes it from your side, and you can email us at hello@fotothis.one for anything else. You can also complain to your data protection authority (in Denmark, Datatilsynet).
Children
FotoThis is for people aged 13 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from younger children.
Changes
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top. Important changes will also be shown in the app.