Privacy policy
Effective 10 November 2026. Fernly is published by Manas Krishna, trading as 7 Elements (sole proprietorship), 7th, H No 701, Lotus Boulevard, Sector 100, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India. Contact: fernlyfarm@gmail.com.
The short version
- Your garden, photos, reminders and preferences are kept on your phone. You don't need an account.
- A photo leaves your phone only when you choose to identify a plant or check its health. It goes through our server to Kindwise, the plant identification service we use, and our server doesn't keep it.
- If you sign in with an email, Google or Apple account, your garden (including its photos) is backed up to our server so you can restore it. You can turn this off.
- We don't show ads, sell data, or track you across other apps and websites.
Kept on your phone
Your plants, collections, care reminders, progress notes and photos, recovery journals, scan history (the last 20 results), light meter readings, profile name and preferences, and simple usage counts (for example “plant added”, which never leave the phone). Deleting the app, or Settings → Delete local data, removes them. Settings → Export my local data gives you a copy. Your phone's own backup (iCloud or Google) may include Fernly's data; that backup is yours and we can't access it.
What leaves your phone, and when
| What | Sent to | When and why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 plant photos (re-encoded, without location data), plus any symptom notes | Our server, then Kindwise (plant.id) | Only when you allow photo analysis and tap Identify, Outdoors or Diagnose: to name the plant or suggest likely problems |
| A question about a scan, with that scan's result and your earlier questions in the same conversation | Our server, then OpenAI | Only when you ask a follow-up question: to write an answer |
| City search text, then the chosen city's coordinates | Open-Meteo | When you search for a city and while local weather is on: to load the forecast for frost and heat alerts and watering advice |
| A sign-in identifier (a guest one is created for you, with no details asked) | Google Firebase Authentication, our server | The first time you scan or buy: to count your monthly scans and apply your plan |
| Your garden backup | Our server | Only when you're signed in with an email, Google or Apple account (never as a guest), unless you turn it off |
| A plant-sitting list: plant names, rooms, care tasks and your note for the dates you choose, and the name your sitter types in when they tick a task | Our server, and anyone you give the code to | Only when you create a plant-sitting code |
| IP address and basic device and network details | Our server, and each service above | With every request: to deliver it, and for security and rate limiting |
Our server doesn't store the photos you scan or the results. It keeps a count of your scans and questions each month. Kindwise may keep identification requests for up to six months under its own policy. Under OpenAI's API terms, the questions we send aren't used to train its models; OpenAI keeps them for up to 30 days to detect abuse, and we ask it not to store the conversation. With each question we send a code derived from your account (not your name or email) so OpenAI can spot misuse. Device notifications (care reminders, frost and heat alerts) are scheduled by your phone; nothing about them is sent to us. Camera and photo access are used only when you take or choose a photo or measure light; a light-meter photo is deleted straight away and never sent.
If you sign in or buy a plan
- Account: your email address, name and sign-in method, from Google Firebase Authentication.
- Garden backup: your plants and their details, collections, progress notes and photos, care reminders and recovery journals. We keep the latest backup and the one before it; photos count towards your plan's storage. Turn it off, or delete it, in Settings → Backup. Turning backup off or signing out doesn't delete it.
- Purchases: your plan, purchase and renewal dates, refund status and the store's transaction id, from Apple, Google, Stripe or Razorpay once they confirm a payment. We never see your card or bank details.
- Security records: a log of account and billing actions (such as a refund or a deleted account) with the time and IP address.
How long we keep it
- On your phone: until you delete it.
- Scanned photos and results: not kept by our server.
- Garden backup and its photos: until you delete it or your account. A photo no longer in either copy is deleted.
- Plant-sitting lists, with the ticks and sitter names: deleted 3 days after the end date you choose (at most 60 days ahead), or as soon as you stop sharing.
- After you delete your account: purchase records for 8 years (tax and accounting law), without your name or email; security records for 12 months, with your IP address and email removed.
- Server logs: short technical logs, capped in size, so older entries are overwritten within weeks.
Delete your account in the app (Settings → Account → Delete account) or on this website.
Who processes data for us
- Hostinger runs our server (in India).
- Kindwise s.r.o. (Czech Republic) identifies plants and suggests health problems from photos.
- OpenAI (United States) answers follow-up questions.
- Open-Meteo provides weather and city search.
- Google Firebase Authentication handles sign-in.
- Apple, Google, Stripe and Razorpay process payments.
Each uses the data only to provide its service to us, under its own privacy policy.
Children
Fernly isn't directed to children under 13 and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. A parent can delete a child's data in the app or ask us at fernlyfarm@gmail.com.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask to see, correct, export or delete your data, object to how it's used, or complain to a data protection authority. You can export or delete most of it yourself in Settings. For anything else, email fernlyfarm@gmail.com.
Security
Every request uses HTTPS. Service keys stay on our server and never reach the app.
Changes
If we change how data is used, we'll update this page and its date, and tell you in the app before a significant change takes effect.