隐私政策

Introduction

LightPath Apps LLC ("we," "our," or "us") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it. This policy describes our practices for the WhatsWorth app (the "App"). WhatsWorth helps you identify household items from photos and generate an AI value estimate. When available, source-linked market references provide additional context for that estimate.

Information We Collect

Information You Provide

• Photos: When you photograph an item for valuation, images are analyzed using cloud-based AI services hosted on Google Cloud Platform for identification. If you are not signed in, photos are processed in real time and are not stored on our servers. If you are signed in, we also keep a compressed copy of each item's photos in your private area of our cloud storage so your inventory is available across your devices. Photos you take before signing in are not uploaded — but if you later sign in, the items already on your device, including their photos, are backed up at that point.
• Account information: If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your name and email address from your account. Apple Sign-In may provide a private relay email address instead of your real email. You may also use the app anonymously without providing any personal information.
• Item descriptions: Any notes or descriptions you add to items are stored locally and optionally synced to your account.
• Feedback and reports: If you submit feedback or report an issue, we receive the content you provide.

Information Stored Locally (On Your Device)

• Item inventory: Saved items, valuations, and comparable sales data are stored in a local SQLite database on your device.
• App preferences: Your settings, onboarding status, and display preferences.

Information Collected Automatically

• Crash reports: If the app crashes, anonymous diagnostic information is sent to our crash reporting service. This includes device type, OS version, and crash stack traces, but never your photos or item data.
• Device attestation: App integrity checks verify that requests come from a genuine app installation to prevent abuse.

How We Use Your Information

• Item identification: Your photos are analyzed using cloud-based AI services to identify items and determine their category, brand, model, era, and condition.
• Price estimation: Search queries derived from item identification are sent to Google-hosted AI and search infrastructure to retrieve market references from public web sources, which may include marketplace sites such as eBay and Mercari. The App separates sold references from active, retail, or unknown listings and excludes unsupported references from comparable-based calculations.
• Inventory sync: If you sign in, your item inventory is synced to the cloud so you can access it across devices.
• App improvement: Anonymous crash data helps us fix bugs and improve stability.

Legal Basis for Processing (EEA/UK Users)

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, we process your personal data only where we have a valid legal basis under the GDPR (Article 6). The bases we rely on are:

• Performance of a contract: Providing the core service you ask for — identifying items, generating AI value estimates, and syncing your item inventory across your devices.
• Consent: Optional analytics and crash reporting. You can withdraw this consent at any time in the app's Settings, with no effect on the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
• Legitimate interests: Protecting the service from abuse and enforcing usage limits through app integrity checks (App Check / DeviceCheck), and debugging and improving reliability. We balance these interests against your rights and freedoms.
• Legal obligation: Retaining purchase and transaction records where required for tax, accounting, and audit purposes.

Information We Do NOT Collect

WhatsWorth does not collect, use, or share:

• Your location data
• Your contacts or address book
• Advertising identifiers or cross-app tracking — we run no third-party ad networks and do not track you across other companies' apps or websites
• Payment or financial information (purchases are handled entirely by the Apple App Store or Google Play Store)

Camera Access

WhatsWorth requires camera access to photograph items for valuation. You may also select photos from your gallery. Camera access is used solely to capture images for AI-powered item identification and pricing.

Data Storage and Security

• Local storage: Item inventory and preferences are stored on your device in a private SQLite database protected by the operating system's app sandbox.
• Cloud sync: If you sign in, inventory data is synced to Google Cloud Platform, which uses encryption in transit and at rest.
• Photo processing: Images are transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS) to cloud-based AI services and processed in real time.
• Photo backup: For signed-in users, a compressed copy of each item's photos is stored in your private area of our cloud storage on Google Cloud Platform, encrypted in transit and at rest. Only your own account can browse or download your backups through the app. Each backup also has a private, unguessable link that the app uses to restore your images to your other devices; anyone who obtained that link could view that image without signing in, so we do not publish or share them.

Third-Party Services

WhatsWorth uses the following third-party services:

• Google Cloud Platform: Cloud-based AI services for item analysis, user authentication, and data storage
• Apple App Store / Google Play: App distribution, in-app subscriptions, and payment processing
• Public web and marketplace sources: Google-hosted search may return public pages from marketplaces such as eBay or Mercari. We do not send your photos directly to those marketplace operators. If you choose to open a source link, your device connects to that site and it may receive ordinary connection information, such as your IP address and browser or device details, under its own privacy policy.

These services have their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review them:

• Google Privacy Policy

Children's Privacy

WhatsWorth is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 — or the higher minimum age for digital consent in your country, which is up to 16 in the EEA. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can remove it.

Data Deletion

You have full control over your data:

• Delete individual items: Remove any saved item from your inventory within the app. See Data Retention below for when the cloud copy is removed.
• Sign out: Signing out stops cloud sync and clears the app's data on that device. It does not remove anything already backed up to your account — signing back in restores it.
• Uninstall the app: Removing the app deletes all locally stored data. Cloud backups are not affected by uninstalling — use Delete Account to remove those.
• Account deletion: Delete your account directly from the app (Profile > Delete Account), or request deletion online.

Data Retention

We keep your personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy:

• Cloud item inventory & valuations: Retained for as long as your account is active. Deleting an item erases its record and its photos, on the schedule described under Photos below. We delete your full cloud inventory when you delete your account.
• Photos: If you are not signed in, photos are processed in real time for analysis and are not retained on our servers after the appraisal completes. If you are signed in, backed-up copies are retained for as long as the item remains in your inventory. When you delete an item, removal of its backup is handled by a cleanup that runs from the app on your device. On Android there is a wait of at least a week, and the cleanup runs when you open the app — so if you stop using the app, it does not run at all. If it cannot reach our servers, or cloud sync is switched off, the cloud copy can remain, and we cannot promise it will be retried. Deleting your account erases your backups server-side, as part of an erasure that completes within 30 days and does not depend on your device; it is the only removal route that does not rely on your device doing the work.
• Deletion records: After your account is erased we keep a minimal record that the deletion happened, so we can demonstrate the request was honoured. It is kept indefinitely and contains no item data or photos.
• Analytics & crash data: Anonymous diagnostic and analytics data is retained for up to 2 years.
• Purchase records: Retained for as long as required to comply with our tax, accounting, and audit obligations, then deleted.

International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and processed on servers located in the United States and other countries. In particular, your photos and item descriptions are processed through Google Cloud services (Vertex AI / Gemini and Google-hosted search infrastructure) and may be processed in the United States or other countries where those providers operate. If you are located outside the United States and choose to use the App, your data may be transferred internationally and processed in those locations.

For users in the EEA and UK, we have implemented appropriate safeguards for these transfers. Transfers to the United States rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, incorporated into Google's data-processing terms. In addition, where the recipient is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, we rely on that Framework as a further safeguard. Together these measures ensure your data receives an adequate level of protection when it is transferred internationally.

Your Rights

Depending on your location — and in particular if you are in the EEA or UK — you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Rectification (Correction): Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Erasure (Deletion): Request deletion of your personal data.
• Restriction of processing: Request that we limit how we process your data in certain circumstances.
• Data portability: Request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Objection: Object to processing that relies on our legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent: Where we rely on your consent, withdraw it at any time (for example, by disabling analytics and crash reporting in the app's Settings).

Since most data is stored locally on your device, you have direct control over it. To exercise any of these rights for cloud-synced or account data, please visit our Privacy & Data Requests page or email us at [email protected]. We will respond to your request within one month, which we may extend by up to two further months for complex or numerous requests, as permitted by GDPR Art. 12(3).

If you are in the EEA or UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app or by other means.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at: [email protected]