Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-04-07

Sherlocale ("the app", "we") is an Android app that lets you take a photo and uses the Google Gemini API to guess the country and region depicted. This policy describes what data we collect and what we do with it.

What we collect

1. Photos you submit. When you tap "Guess location", the app sends the selected image to our backend, which forwards it to Google's Gemini API for analysis. The image is processed in memory and not stored on our servers.
2. Your Google account identifier. When you sign in with Google, we receive your Firebase user ID (UID) and email address. We store the UID in our database to track how many free guesses you have used and (in the future) whether you have an active subscription.
3. Usage counters. We count the number of guesses you make (per user and globally) for billing and abuse-prevention purposes. We do not log the content of your photos or the results.
4. Diagnostic data. Standard mobile app crash reports may be collected by Google Play Services and Firebase to help us fix bugs.

What we do not collect

• We do not collect your location, contacts, calendar, microphone, or any other personal information.
• We do not sell or share your data with advertisers.
• We do not use your photos to train AI models. Submitted photos are processed by Google Gemini under Google's API terms and are not used for model training.

Third-party services

• Google Firebase (Authentication, App Check, Firestore) — Privacy
• Google Cloud Run (backend hosting) — Privacy
• Google Gemini API — Terms
• Google Play Billing (subscriptions) — Privacy

Data retention and deletion

• Photos: not retained.
• User account record (UID, free-guess counter, subscription state): retained while your account exists.
• Account deletion: to delete your account and all associated data, sign out and email us at the address below. We will remove your record from our database within 30 days.

Children

Sherlocale is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from children under 13.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent revision.

Contact

Questions or deletion requests: [email protected]