Privacy Policy

What Herbario stores, and where

Every specimen you keep — the photograph, the species name, the confidence score, the coordinates if you allowed them, the date, and any field note you write — is stored in a database on your iPhone. Browsing, searching and editing your collection involves no network connection and sends nothing anywhere. Deleting a specimen in the app deletes its photo and its record. Deleting the app deletes the entire collection.

What leaves your device

One thing, at one moment: when you tap to identify a plant, the cropped photo of that plant is transmitted so it can be matched against an identification model. Specifically:

• The image is sent to our identification service, which forwards it to Pl@ntNet, a research-grade plant identification network operated by a consortium of French public research institutions. Their handling of submitted images is described in the Pl@ntNet privacy statement.
• The request carries the plant organ you selected (leaf, flower, fruit, bark) and your interface language, so common names come back in your language.
• Your location is never sent with an identification request. Coordinates, when you permit them, are attached only to the copy of the sighting saved on your device.

We do not keep a server-side copy of your identification photos.

The anonymous identifier

To meter the free tier fairly (five identifications a day per person, rather than a shared pool anyone can drain), Herbario creates a random anonymous identifier the first time you identify a plant. It is not your name, email, phone number, or Apple ID — it is a random string, and we could not connect it to you if we tried. Alongside it we store a daily count of identifications and, if you subscribe, your subscription status. That is the entire server-side record.

Camera and location permissions

• Camera — required, because pointing the camera at plants is the app. Frames are analysed on-device to detect whether a plant is in view; those frames are not stored and not transmitted. Only the photo you explicitly capture is sent for identification.
• Location (while using the app) — optional. If granted, one approximate fix is recorded at the moment you save a specimen, so your herbarium remembers where you found it. If declined, everything works; your specimens simply have no coordinates.

Purchases

Herbario Pro is a subscription handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. We never see your payment details. To activate Pro, we verify the transaction directly with Apple and record only the subscription's status, expiry date and transaction identifier against your anonymous identifier.

What we do not do

• No advertising, and no advertising SDKs.
• No third-party analytics or tracking of any kind.
• No selling, renting or sharing of data with data brokers.
• No reading of your photo library — Herbario only handles photos it takes.
• No account creation, passwords, or collection of names and email addresses.

Data retention and deletion

Your collection is yours to delete at any time, specimen by specimen or by removing the app. The anonymous server-side record (identifier, daily counts, subscription status) is retained while it is needed to operate the service; to have it deleted, email us the request — no proof of identity is needed, because the record contains none.

Children

Herbario is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information from anyone, children included.

Changes to this policy

If Herbario's data practices change — for example, when optional collection sync ships — this page will change first, with the effective date above updated. A feature that alters what leaves your device will always be opt-in.

Contact

Questions, deletion requests, or anything unclear: hello@studioflorez.com.