Last updated: August 21, 2026
This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.
PlantDex identifies plants from a photo, gives You a health check and care plan, and lets You build a personal collection of everything You find. It has no accounts and no sign-in. We do not ask You for Your name, email address, phone number, or any other directly identifying information, and there is no way to give it to Us through the app.
The words whose initial letters are capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.
Almost none. During first launch You may optionally type a display name so the app can greet You by it; this is never required, is stored only on Your Device, and is never sent to Us or anyone else.
When You save a plant, the Application stores its photo, name, scientific name, nickname, care notes and the date You saved it in a local database on Your Device. This is Your personal collection. It never leaves Your Device, is not transmitted to Us, and is deleted when You remove that plant from Your collection or uninstall the Application.
With Your permission, the Application uses Your Device's camera to photograph a plant, or Your photo library so You can identify a plant from a picture You already took. These permissions are used only to obtain the single photo You choose to identify or to save a plant card You choose to share; the library is never browsed or uploaded in the background.
When You scan a plant, that one photo is sent to Google's Gemini API to be identified, and the result — species, care information, and a health check — is returned to the Application. Google processes the image only to generate that response; it is not attached to an account or profile, because the Application has none. Google's handling of this data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.
If no identification service is configured, the Application instead uses a built-in offline field guide, and in that case no photo leaves Your Device at all.
The Application displays advertisements supplied by Google AdMob. Based on the data types Google's advertising SDK itself discloses, it may collect and process the following while serving, measuring and protecting those advertisements:
| Data | Why | Linked to You? |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising identifier (iOS IDFA/IDFV or Android Advertising ID) | Selecting and capping ads, fraud prevention, measurement | Only if You allow tracking (see below) |
| Coarse location (derived from IP address), device and app information | Ad relevance and compatibility | Not linked to an identity by Us |
| App interaction and advertising data (ad shown, ad clicked, ad performance) | Measuring and improving ad performance | Not linked to an identity by Us |
| Crash and performance diagnostics | Keeping the advertising SDK stable | Not linked to an identity by Us |
This processing is carried out by Google as an independent controller under its own policies. We never receive Your advertising identifier or a copy of this data. Google's handling of it is described at How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and in the Google Privacy Policy.
So that there are no surprises, these are the only places the Application shows an ad:
PlantDex does not yet present a dedicated EEA/UK consent dialog of its own. Until it does, Google's advertising SDK applies its own default protections for users in these regions, which may include serving only non-personalised or limited advertising. You still control tracking at all times through Your Device's own privacy settings described above. Regardless of that dialog, You have the right to access, correct, erase, restrict or object to the processing of Your Personal Data, to data portability, and to lodge a complaint with Your local supervisory authority.
We do not sell Personal Data for money. Sharing an advertising identifier for personalised advertising may be treated as "sharing" for cross-context behavioural advertising under California law. You may opt out using the Device controls listed above, which We honour.
Because We hold no Personal Data about You on Our servers, there is nothing for Us to delete on request. You can delete any saved plant — and its photo — from within the Application at any time, or remove everything at once by uninstalling the Application.
The Service is not directed to children under the age of 13, and We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under 13. If You are a parent or guardian and You believe Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us and We will take steps to remove that information.
The security of Your data is important to Us. Because the Application stores Your collection only on Your own Device and transmits no Personal Data to Us, the principal protection for Your information is the security of Your Device itself. No method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure, and We cannot guarantee absolute security.
Advertisements may link to third-party sites operated by advertisers. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content or privacy practices of any third-party site. We strongly advise You to review the privacy policy of every site You visit.
We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date above. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.
If You have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact Us: