Privacy Policy

Photo Identifier (photoidentifier.org) looks at a photo you choose and tells you what is in it: a plant, a rock, a dog breed, a pair of shoes, a place and so on. A photo can say a lot about you, so this page spells out where it travels, what we record about your visit, who else is involved and how long anything stays. "We" and "us" mean the people who run photoidentifier.org.

The short version

• To identify a photo, we send it once, inside a single request, to an AI vision model. We don't save the photo on our side and we don't use it to train AI models.
• The answer you get is shown in your browser. We don't keep a copy of it.
• On the "when was this photo taken" tool, the photo never leaves your device: the date and camera details are read by your own browser.
• To share out free identifications fairly, we keep a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address and a device identifier, never the raw IP address.

• There are no accounts, so we never ask for your name or email address.

What happens to your photo

1. You pick a photo. Your browser may shrink it and convert it to JPEG first, so it uploads faster. That step runs on your device.
2. Your browser sends the photo to our server in one request. The server hands it straight to the AI model, waits for the answer and passes the answer back to you. The photo is not written to our storage, our database or our logs.
3. The answer (the name, how sure the model is, a short explanation and alternatives) appears in your browser tab. Reloading or closing the tab clears it.

Tools that run only in your browser. Reading a photo's built-in details (EXIF data such as the date, the camera and, if your phone saved it, the GPS position) is done by code running in your browser. Those photos are not uploaded to us at all.

Messages. If you email us, we keep the thread so we can answer you.

What the site records on its own

• Free-identification allowance. A salted hash of your IP address, a salted hash of an identifier your browser works out from its own settings, and how many free identifications they have used. The browser identifier is also stored in your browser's local storage.
• Request logs. Like every website, our host handles your IP address, browser type and the pages you open, to serve the site and keep attackers out. These logs never contain your photo.
• Error notes. When the AI model fails to answer, we log a short technical message (an error code, never the photo or the answer) so we can fix the problem.

• Visit counts. We count visits with Plausible Analytics, which sets no cookies and keeps nothing that identifies you. We only see totals such as page views, countries and the sites that sent visitors.

Cookies and local storage

We don't set cookies for visitors. Your browser's local storage holds the device identifier above and your light or dark theme setting; clearing the site's data in your browser removes both.

Who else handles your data

A few outside services help run the site, and each one gets only what its job needs:

• Cloudflare — hosts the site and passes your request through; like any web host it sees your IP address when you connect.
• KIE (kie.ai) and Google Gemini — receive your photo inside one request, run the vision model that writes the answer, and send it back; we do not ask them to keep the photo.

• Plausible Analytics — counts visits without cookies and without identifying you.

The AI provider processes your photo under its own terms. We don't ask it to store the photo, but what it does on its side is governed by those terms, not by us. We pass information to anyone else only when the law requires it or when it is needed to stop fraud or protect someone's safety. We don't sell personal information or share it for advertising.

How long things are kept

• Your photo: not kept by us. It exists on our server only for the seconds it takes the model to answer.
• The answer: not kept by us. Take a screenshot or copy the text if you want to keep it.
• Free-identification records: for as long as we offer free identifications. They contain no raw IP address.

Your rights

Email us and we will tell you what we hold about you, send you a copy, correct it or delete it. Because we don't keep photos or answers, that is usually just the hashed allowance records. We reply within 30 days. Depending on where you live (for example the EU, the UK or California), you may have further rights, including the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Photo Identifier is meant for people aged 18 and over. Please don't upload photos of children.

Security

The whole site runs over HTTPS. Your photo travels to us and on to the AI provider over encrypted connections, and it is held only in memory while the answer is being written.

Where data is processed

Our host and the AI provider run servers in several countries, so your photo and request data may be handled outside the country you live in.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. If a change affects what happens to your photos, we will say so on the site before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions, data requests or deletion requests: support@photoidentifier.org