Privacy Policy
Backyard Designer (“the app”) is made by Ben Smith-d’Agincourt, an individual (sole proprietor) doing business as Backyard Designer (“we”, “us”). This policy says exactly what the app collects, where it goes, how long we keep it, and how you delete it. It is written to match what the software actually does.
What we collect
- Photos you choose. The garden photo you take or pick is sent to our server so a redesign can be generated. Location data and other metadata are stripped from the photo on your device before it is sent.
- Your design brief and the designs we generate. The space type, style and any notes you enter, and the before/after images produced for you.
- Conversations with the assistant. The questions you ask about a design and the assistant’s answers.
- Sign in with Apple. When you sign in, Apple gives us an anonymous account identifier. Apple may also offer us an email address; we do not store your email address or your name — only the identifier, which lets your designs and credits follow you to another device.
- An installation identifier. A random identifier created when the app is installed, used to keep your data together before you sign in. It is not tied to your device’s hardware identity.
- Purchase records. When you subscribe or buy credits, Apple processes the payment and RevenueCat tells our server the product, a transaction identifier and your subscription status, so we can credit your account. We never receive your card or bank details.
- Diagnostics. If signing in fails on your device, the app reports the failure code to us so we can fix it. We do not use third-party crash-reporting or analytics SDKs.
- Network address. Your IP address is used in memory to limit abuse (rate limiting). We do not keep it in our records.
We do not collect contacts, precise location, health data, or advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
How we use it
- To generate your redesigns and answer your questions about them.
- To keep your designs and credits available to you, including on another device when signed in.
- To run the credit system: granting your plan’s allowance, recording purchases, and charging credits for generations and chat.
- To improve the product. We keep the questions people ask the assistant (without identifying you) to learn what people want; and we keep question-and-answer pairs, tied to your installation only, to check the quality of the assistant’s answers.
- To prevent abuse and keep the service running within its cost limits.
We do not use your photos or designs to train AI models, we do not sell your data, and we do not show advertising.
Who processes your data
To provide the service we send data to these providers, each bound by its own terms:
- Google (Gemini image model) — receives your photo and design brief to generate the redesign.
- Anthropic (Claude) — receives your photo, the generated design and your questions to answer you, and to write a one-time description of each design.
- Apple — Sign in with Apple and all payments.
- RevenueCat — subscription and purchase status.
- Render (hosting) and Cloudflare (network) — our server runs on Render and is reached through Cloudflare.
Our server is hosted in the United States. If you are outside that region, your data is transferred there to provide the service.
How long we keep it
- Designs, photos and conversations: until you delete them. There is no automatic expiry. Each installation can hold up to 100 designs; the oldest is removed when that limit is reached.
- Question log and answer-quality log: while we operate the service, and deleted with your account.
- Credit and purchase records: for as long as needed for accounting and to honour what you bought.
Deleting your data
In the app, go to Account → Settings → Delete account & data. This permanently deletes your designs, their photos, your conversations, the stored descriptions of your designs, and your diagnostic and question records — on your device and from our server — in one step. If our server cannot be reached, nothing is deleted and the app tells you, so you are never told something is gone while it is not.
Deleting your data does not cancel a subscription — subscriptions are managed by Apple. Use Settings → Manage or cancel subscription in the app, or your Apple ID settings.
If you have deleted the app and cannot use the in-app option, email bsmithdagincourt@gmail.com and we will help.
Security
All traffic between the app and our server is encrypted (HTTPS). The keys for the AI providers live only on our server, never in the app.
Children
The app is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date above and note the change in the app.
Contact
Ben Smith-d’Agincourt · bsmithdagincourt@gmail.com