Mobile Privacy Policy

Privacy in short

Your collection stays on your iPhone by default. You do not need an account to capture cars or use your local garage.

Optional Pro cloud backup, called Cloud Archive in the app, starts only after you choose Sign in with Apple. It helps you recover your private collection on another iPhone.

Creating a miniature is optional. After you connect Apple and approve a photo, the app sends a copy through our mobile cloud service to OpenAI. Capture and your local garage remain available without an account.

The app does not send photos to a service to identify cars. It does not sell your personal information or track you across apps and websites.

You can export a private backup or delete your data in Settings. Restoring a purchase and restoring your collection are separate actions.

Local-first collection

Exotic Index stores your car sightings on your iPhone first. This is what local-first means. Capture and the local garage do not need an account. They do not create a public profile.

Your private collection can include photos, dates, car names, mystery cars, notes, favorites, repeat sightings, event albums, and an optional location.

Original photos can include hidden camera details, such as where or when you took the photo. Processed archive photos and reviewed share cards remove these details. A private collection backup can still include the original photos and their hidden details. Store exported backups in a private place.

Accounts and collection recovery

The purchase service uses a random app code to check Pro access and restore purchases. This code is not your name, email address, or password. It also stores your entitlement, which is the record that says whether Pro is active.

Pro Cloud Archive starts only after you choose Sign in with Apple in Settings. The app does not ask Apple for your name or email. Apple gives the service a signed code that confirms the sign-in. It also gives an account code that stays the same for recovery. Apple and our cloud provider use these codes to create or recover your private archive.

Opening the app, taking a photo, checking a purchase, or running background work does not create a new cloud owner.

You can use the same Apple Account on another iPhone to restore missing cars and processed photos. You can also restore favorites, repeat sightings, and event albums from your Pro archive.

Restoring a purchase and restoring collection data are separate actions. One step restores Pro access. The other restores saved cars from the archive.

Naming cars

The launch version lets you enter a car name manually, connect another sighting as a repeat encounter, or keep it as a mystery car for later review. It does not send photos to a remote vehicle-recognition provider.

A photo can still contain visible cars, license plates, people, and surroundings. Share previews remove saved location and metadata, but you remain responsible for reviewing the visible pixels before sharing.

Optional miniature images

You choose each photo sent to OpenAI to create one miniature image. The app removes photo metadata first. Visible people, plates, and surroundings can still be present in the image. Review the photo before you approve it. The request does not include your notes or saved location.

Our mobile cloud service, Supabase, stores the request under your connected Apple account. It records the photo fingerprint, consent version, generation status, and usage needed to enforce limits. OpenAI receives the photo and an instruction to create the miniature. Generated details can differ from the real car.

The source copy is removed from our server when generation finishes. Server images expire after 24 hours and are removed by scheduled cleanup. Job records remain until account deletion to enforce limits. The completed miniature stays on your iPhone and can be included in your private backup.

OpenAI has its own retention rules. Its API documentation lists 30 days of abuse-monitoring retention for image edits. Flagged images can be kept for safety review. Deleting data in Exotic Index does not control these provider records. OpenAI does not use API data for model training by default.

OpenAI API data controls

Pro cloud archive and location

If you have Pro and connect Apple, the app can privately archive saved sighting details, including mystery status, notes, a processed photo, event-album context, and optional exact coordinates. Exact coordinates are never placed on a share card. Free local records remain available without Pro, and the iPhone collection stays primary.

Service providers and purchases

Apple processes subscription and lifetime-unlock payments. The purchase service receives a random app code, the product bought, whether Pro is active, and the related purchase history. It uses this information to offer, restore, and manage Pro. Exotic Index does not receive your full payment-card number.

Apple confirms the account for optional recovery and miniature generation. Supabase stores the private Pro archive and temporary miniature images. OpenAI creates requested miniature images. RevenueCat manages Pro access. PostHog records the limited app and crash data described below. The app does not use a remote service to identify cars from photos.

Diagnostics and tracking

The app sends a short event name to our analytics service for a few actions. These actions include saving a capture, joining an event, using Find One, naming a car, opening a marketplace link, making a share card, and asking to review the app. It also says whether naming a car or opening a link worked. These events never include photos, plates, car names, notes, locations, account codes, sighting codes, or other details about the sighting.

The analytics service gets a random code for this app installation. It also gets basic facts about the app, phone, and operating system. It does not use your internet address to add a location to an analytics or crash record.

If the app stops because of a fatal error, the phone saves a crash report. It sends the report after the next launch. The report does not add a location based on your internet address.

We turn off automatic app-open records, screen views, taps and other screen actions, user profiles, recordings of app use, surveys, and remote feature-switch reports. We also turn off account matching and ad tracking. Apple keeps performance summaries in local system logs.

The app does not track ads or sell personal information. It does not use app or crash records to follow you across other apps or websites.

Deletion and retention

Settings has Export My Collection, Restore Collection Backup, and Delete All My Data. An export is a private backup that the app can import. It can include cars, photos, favorites, repeat sightings, and event albums. A restore skips items that are already on the iPhone.

If cloud data may exist, the app first asks the cloud service to delete it. This includes saved rows, private files, miniature jobs and images, purchase links that can be removed, and the cloud sign-in record. A daily generation count contains no account or job identifiers and remains after deletion. The app clears local records and sign-in codes after it confirms cloud deletion or can safely try again.

Local sightings stay on your iPhone until you delete them. Delete All My Data also removes them. Removing the app and its data removes them too. You must delete an exported file from each place where you saved or shared it.

Cloud archive data stays until you delete it or the service ends. We can keep security, purchase, and deletion records for longer when needed to stop fraud, finish deletion, or follow the law. Contact us if deletion in the app cannot finish.

Your choices

You can keep using the complete local collection without an account, decline location access, restore purchases, manage a recurring subscription, connect or avoid Apple recovery, export and restore a private backup, and delete your data from Settings. iOS Settings controls camera and location permission.

Children

The app is not directed to children under 13, and Exotic Index does not knowingly collect their personal information. A parent or guardian who believes a child submitted information can contact us to request deletion.

Policy changes

We will update the date at the top of this page when this policy changes. If a change materially affects how the app collects or uses information, we will provide additional notice in the app or through another appropriate channel before the change takes effect when required by law.

Contact

Privacy questions and requests: privacy@exoticindex.com. App help: support@exoticindex.com.

If you email us, we receive your email address and the message or files you send. We use them to answer you, fix problems, protect the service, and follow the law. We keep them only as long as needed for those uses. Do not send original photos, exact locations, purchase receipts, or random app codes unless support asks for one item through an approved private channel.