In a nutshell
No sign-up and no account with us. Your Reflectars live on your phone and in your own iCloud (iPhone) or Google Drive (Android), never on our servers. The photo you choose is sent to our AI provider only to make your poem, painting or music, and we don't keep it. No ads, no tracking, and we never sell your data. Website analytics only run with your consent where the law asks for it.
This policy explains what Reflectar (“we”, “us”) does with information when you use the Reflectar app on iPhone or Android, and this website. Reflectar is made by Dean Chew, a sole trader in the United Kingdom, who is responsible for your information. We've kept it plain. If anything is unclear, please get in touch.
No account, no sign-up
You don't create an account to use Reflectar. Behind the scenes, your phone is identified only by an anonymous device ID: a random identifier stored securely on your device. Our server pairs it with an equally anonymous account ID, and against that we keep only what the app needs to work: your credit balance and history, your purchase records, daily usage counts, your time zone (so monthly credits refresh at the right time) and the app version. We don't collect your name, email address, phone number or a password, and we don't store IP addresses in our database.
Photos and videos you choose
Reflectar starts from a picture you pick. On both iPhone and Android it uses the system photo picker, so the app only ever sees the photos or videos you select, never the rest of your library. You can also choose a file from Files, or take one with the camera.
To write your poem, repaint the scene or compose music, one still image, resized, is sent through our server to our AI provider (see AI processing). We don't store your photos on our servers. If you choose a short video or a Live Photo, the moving clip stays on your phone and in your own backup; only a still frame is sent, and the video's sound is never sent to us or our providers. Videos you share from Reflectar are rendered fresh, with your music and effects and without the original sound.
Camera and AR
If you use AR mode or take a photo in the app, Reflectar uses your camera to capture the scene you frame. That picture is handled exactly like a photo you choose, as described above.
Location (optional)
If you allow it, Reflectar uses your approximate location only while you're using the app, and only to stamp the name of the place on the instant-camera frame of a moment you capture live. Your phone turns the location into a place name using its built-in service (Apple's on iPhone, Android's geocoding service on Android, usually provided by Google). The place name is saved with that Reflectar and in your own backup. We never send your location to our servers, and Reflectar doesn't read location data from the photos you upload. Images you save or share are newly made by the app and carry no GPS data. It's entirely optional: skip it and your frames simply won't show a place.
Notifications (optional)
If you allow notifications, Reflectar can show gentle reminders that are scheduled on your phone. You can turn them off at any time in your phone's settings.
Purchases
Credits and Reflectar+ are bought through Apple's App Store on iPhone or Google Play on Android. Apple or Google processes the payment, so we never see your card or billing details. We receive a transaction ID (Apple) or purchase token (Google), check it with Apple or Google, and keep it with your anonymous account so we can give you what you bought.
Anonymous usage data
To make Reflectar better and keep its poems varied, our server keeps a record of what was generated: the text of poem lines, the poem style, which repaint style was chosen, and the short text description used to compose music. These records hold no identifier of any kind, are never linked to you or your device, and never include your images.
AI processing (third parties)
Poems and repaints are made with OpenAI. To compose music, OpenAI first writes a short text description from your image, and ElevenLabs composes the track from that text alone; ElevenLabs never receives your image. Requests pass through Cloudflare, our infrastructure provider, which may keep short-lived logs of them. We send no identifying information about you with these requests. Under OpenAI's terms for businesses, content sent through its API is not used to train its models and may be kept for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse.
On Android, Reflectar also uses Google's ML Kit, which runs on your phone, to pick a good still frame from a video. Your video isn't uploaded for this, though Google may collect basic performance and diagnostic information about ML Kit itself.
Your content and backup
Your Reflectars (the photos, videos, poems and music you make) are stored on your phone, and are never stored on our servers.
- iPhone: they back up to your own private iCloud (Apple's CloudKit) under your Apple ID.
- Android: if you connect Google Drive, they back up to a hidden app folder in your own Google Drive. Reflectar can only see the files it created there, not the rest of your Drive. Connecting uses Google sign-in, and your Google account's email address is shown in the app's Settings so you know which account is connected. It stays on your phone and is never sent to us. Android's standard device backup may also include the app's data, under your Google account settings.
That backup lives in your Apple or Google account, and you control it.
Service providers
- Apple: the App Store, in-app payments, iCloud storage of your content, and place names on iPhone.
- Google: Google Play and its payments, Google Drive backup, ML Kit, and place names on Android.
- Cloudflare: the server infrastructure that runs Reflectar's backend.
- OpenAI: poem writing, repainting, and the text descriptions used for music.
- ElevenLabs: music composition, from text only.
- Website only: Google Analytics (anonymized, with cookie consent), reCAPTCHA on the contact form, and YouTube for the film on the home page. See below.
Some of these providers are based in the United States, so information may be processed outside the UK and EEA, under the safeguards those providers offer.
Cookies & this website
This website uses Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how the site is used. It runs under Google Consent Mode v2, so analytics storage is denied by default until consent is given. We collect no personal data through it, and we do not sell or share it.
If you visit from a region that requires explicit opt-in (the EU/EEA, UK, Switzerland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, or Brazil), a banner asks before any analytics cookies are set. Elsewhere, analytics is enabled by default; either way you can change your choice at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in the footer. The app itself uses no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
The film on the home page is hosted on YouTube. Until you press play you see a still image served from this site, and nothing is requested from YouTube. When you press play, the video loads from youtube-nocookie.com (YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode), and from then on Google's own privacy policy applies to that player.
If you use the contact form, the name, email address and message you enter are emailed to us so we can reply, and are kept only in our mailbox. The form uses Google reCAPTCHA to stop spam, under Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Your rights (GDPR · UK GDPR · CCPA)
You have the right to access, correct, and delete your information. Because Reflectar holds so little, and nothing that identifies you, most of this is in your hands already:
- You can delete your anonymous account and credits any time in the app's Settings: “Delete my anonymous account & credits” on iPhone, or “Delete my account & credits” on Android. This removes your credits, purchase records and usage counts from our server. Your Reflectars and your backup are not affected.
- Your content lives in your own iCloud or Google Drive, which you manage through your Apple or Google account. On Android you can disconnect Google Drive in the app's Settings, and remove the app's hidden backup from Google Drive's “Manage apps” settings.
- To exercise any other right, just send us a message and we'll help.
Data retention
Anonymous account, credit and purchase data is kept while you use the app, and deleted when you delete it in Settings or ask us to. Anonymous usage records hold nothing that identifies you and are kept to help us improve the app. Contact form messages are kept only as long as we need them to help you.
Children
Reflectar is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA). We don't knowingly collect information from children.
Changes to this policy
If we change how Reflectar handles your information, we'll update this page and note any material changes here.
Contact
Questions about privacy or a data request? Email privacy@reflectar.app, or reach us through our contact form.