Privacy Policy

What we collect

Account: your email address and password. Your password is handled by Google Firebase Authentication; we never see it.

Profile: your display name and handle, plus anything you choose to add: avatar, bio, phone number, postal address, and birthday.

Plant data: photos you scan, AI identification and diagnosis results, and your plant cases and their history.

Community content: posts, articles, comments, and likes.

Marketplace: your listings (including an approximate area if you choose to share one), reservations, and messages with buyers and sellers.

Safety records: people you block, reports you file (including a copy of the reported content), the version and date of the Terms you accepted, and any action taken on your account.

Feedback: star ratings and notes you send us.

Device and usage: push notification tokens, app preferences (language, theme, notification settings), the IP address of your most recent request, and when you were last active.

Advertising: when ads are shown, Google AdMob collects your device's advertising ID, IP address, general location derived from it, device information, and how you interact with ads. See "Advertising" below.

Location

Location is optional. If you turn on the Nearby filter, your device's location is sent to our server to find listings near you; it isn't saved to your profile. If you share an area on a listing, we round it to about 1 km before storing it, and other people only see that approximate area. We never collect location in the background.

How we use your data

To provide FloraVerse: identify plants and diagnose problems, keep your plant cases, show the feed and marketplace, deliver messages, and send the notifications you turned on.

To keep FloraVerse safe: hide content from people you block, review reports, enforce our Terms, and prevent spam, fraud, and abuse.

To improve FloraVerse: understand problems through your feedback and reports, including reports about AI results.

To fund FloraVerse: show ads from Google AdMob in some parts of the app.

We do not sell your personal data. We never give advertisers your account details, photos, posts, or messages.

Advertising

FloraVerse shows banner ads and occasional full-screen ads served by Google AdMob. Ads are labelled, and we limit them to content suitable for general audiences.

Google uses the data listed under "What we collect" to deliver ads, limit how often you see them, measure them, and prevent fraud. In the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, and places with similar laws, Google shows personalised ads only with your consent; otherwise it shows non-personalised ads, which use only limited data such as general location.

You can change your ad consent in Settings → Ad privacy choices when that option is shown in your region. On Android you can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's Google settings. Google's use of this data is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Legal bases

Where data protection law requires a legal basis, we rely on: performing our contract with you (running the features you use); our legitimate interests (keeping the service safe, improving it, and showing non-personalised ads); your consent (personalised ads, location, notifications, and optional profile details, which you can withdraw at any time); and legal obligations.

AI processing

When you identify or diagnose a plant, your photos are sent to Google's Gemini AI service, which processes them under Google's API terms to produce your result. We don't use your photos to train AI models. Results are saved in your private storage so you can revisit them. If you report a result, a copy of it is shared with our team for review. Please don't upload photos of people.

What other people can see

Other signed-in users can see your display name, handle, avatar, and bio, and the posts, comments, likes, and listings you publish.

Marketplace messages are visible only to you and the other person in the conversation.

Your email, phone number, address, birthday, block list, and reports are never shown to other users. People you block aren't told that you blocked them.

To investigate reports and enforce our Terms, authorized FloraVerse staff can review content, including marketplace conversations.

Service providers

We share data only with providers that help us run FloraVerse, and only as needed:

• Google Firebase and Google Cloud: sign-in, database, and file storage.
• Google Gemini: AI plant identification and diagnosis.
• Google AdMob: showing and measuring ads.
• Expo: delivering push notifications.
• Hostinger: hosting our servers and website.

These providers may process data in countries other than yours, under safeguards required by law. We may also disclose data when the law requires it or to protect the safety of our users.

Payments

FloraVerse does not currently sell anything in the app. Marketplace sales are arranged directly between buyers and sellers, and FloraVerse never handles that money. If we introduce in-app purchases, they will be processed by Google Play or the App Store, and we will receive only a purchase confirmation, never your card details.

Your choices and rights

• Edit or remove profile details in Settings → Profile.
• Turn notifications on or off in Settings → Notifications.
• Manage the people you've blocked in Settings → Blocked users.
• Change ad consent in Settings → Ad privacy choices where available, or reset your advertising ID in your device settings.
• Delete posts, plant cases, and listings at any time.
• Delete your account in Settings → Delete account, or request it at floraverse.app/delete-account.

To access, export, or correct your data, email privacy@floraverse.app. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict processing and to complain to your data protection authority.

Account deletion and retention

We keep your data while your account is active. When you delete your account, we immediately delete your sign-in account, profile, plants, plant cases and diagnoses, scans, uploaded photos, posts, comments, listings, marketplace conversations (for both participants), gifts, wallet history, feedback, block list, and reports you filed. Plants you had reserved are released back to their sellers.

Like counts on other people's posts stay, but they aren't linked to your profile. Copies in server logs and backups are removed within 30 days. Reports other people filed about your content may be kept for up to one year for safety and legal reasons. Advertising data held by Google is kept under Google's own retention rules and is linked to your device's advertising ID, not your FloraVerse account.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, stored on Google Cloud, and protected by access controls. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password and tell us about any suspicious activity.

Children

FloraVerse is not for children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country). We don't knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes

If we make material changes, we'll update this policy and tell you in the app before they take effect.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@floraverse.app. We respond within 30 days.