Privacy Policy

1. What We Collect

When you use Photocard AI, we collect:

• Photos you upload: Original photos and normalized working copies are stored privately in Cloudflare R2. We also create reduced-size, full-frame JPEG review copies in memory for automated content-safety checks. Anonymous originals expire after 24 hours, unclaimed anonymous results after 7 days, and claimed account assets remain until you delete them.
• Account information: We use Clerk authentication to manage your account. This includes your email address and basic profile information.
• Payment information: Stripe handles checkout, tax, and billing details. We store provider identifiers and entitlement events, not complete card details.
• Usage data: We track generation jobs, pull reservations, output validation, downloads, and sharing choices to provide and secure the service.
• Community data: If you opt in, we store the public nickname, avatar choice, bio, a system-generated profile address, low-resolution copies of the photos you upload, consent records, moderation history, and reports needed to operate Community.

2. How We Use Your Data

We use uploaded photos only to:

• Generate the photocard you request
• Provide Seedream with the complete portrait as a visual reference
• Check input and generated images for prohibited sexual or explicit content before delivering a result
• Validate the generated file and create the one output size selected before generation plus its clean low-resolution preview
• Deliver your files, provide support you request, and apply the retention rules below

Account, billing, and operational usage data may also be used to process payments, secure the service, provide support, and improve reliability. We do not use uploaded photos for those general improvement activities.

Our model-training promise: We do not use or authorize the use of uploaded photos to train, fine-tune, evaluate, benchmark, or improve any AI model. We do not sell or license them for AI development. Read the complete Our AI Promise.

We do not sell your photos. Originals, normalized working copies, masters, and high-resolution downloads are not made public. If you deliberately publish a card or upload photos to Community, a low-resolution display copy and the public profile fields shown to you may be accessible through a share URL or Community listing until you withdraw it. We otherwise disclose photos only to service providers that need them to perform the generation, storage, security, and support services described in this policy.

3. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored using:

• Cloudflare R2: Private original photos, normalized working copies, the selected high-resolution output, and its clean low-resolution preview.
• Neon Postgres: Accounts, generation jobs, templates, pull ledger, entitlements, and retention records.
• Clerk: Authentication and account management.

We use industry-standard security measures to protect your data. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services:

• AI generation provider: Processes the complete image inputs and selected concept needed to create the photocard you request.
• Sightengine: Receives a reduced-size, full-frame JPEG review copy of each input and generated output to detect prohibited sexual or explicit content. The review copy is submitted directly for automated analysis and is not stored by Photocard.ai as a separate user asset.
• Stripe: Checkout, subscription management, tax, and payment processing.
• Cloudflare and Neon: Private object storage and business-data storage.
• Clerk: User authentication
• Google Analytics 4: Consent-based measurement of visits, device and browser details, approximate location derived from IP address, page use, and interactions.
• Google AdSense: Consent-based delivery, personalization, frequency control, security, and measurement of ads shown on Guide pages.

These operational disclosures are not sales or public sharing. We do not authorize any provider to use your photos for AI model development.

5. Analytics, Advertising & Cookies

We use Google's certified consent management platform for privacy messages in the EEA, UK, and other applicable regions. It supports the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework and Google Consent Mode. We do not load the GA4 tag until analytics permission is granted or Google reports that consent is not applicable. We do not request a Guide ad unless the required storage, user-data, and personalization permissions are available.

Google may receive your IP address, device and browser information, page URL, consent choices, and analytics or ad interactions. Depending on your choices and region, Google may use advertising cookies or device identifiers for personalized or non-personalized advertising, measurement, fraud prevention, and frequency control. Read how Google uses data from partner sites.

You can reject optional purposes when the message appears and reopen your choices from the "Privacy choices" link in the footer. See our Cookie Policy for cookie categories and controls.

6. Legal Bases & International Transfers

Where applicable law requires a legal basis, we process data to perform our contract with you, comply with law, protect our legitimate interests in security and reliable operations, or based on your consent for optional analytics and advertising. Some providers process data outside your country. Where required, we rely on recognized transfer safeguards such as adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access your personal data
• Delete your account and associated data
• Request a copy of your data
• Opt out of non-essential data collection
• Withdraw analytics and advertising consent without affecting earlier lawful processing
• Withdraw a Community submission while leaving its separate share link under your control

To exercise these rights, contact us at hello@photocard.ai.

8. Children's Privacy

Our service is intended for users aged 18 and above. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 18.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at hello@photocard.ai.