Pocket Photographer Last updated · November 2026

Privacy policy

Pocket Photographer connects travellers and locals with casual local photo buddies in Amsterdam, Lisbon and Paris. This page explains what we collect, why, and what you can do about it — in plain language, not legal filler.

What we collect

• Account info: your email, display name, @username, and country if you add one.
• If you sign in with Apple or Google: the email address (with Apple, possibly a private relay address), the name and an account ID that Apple or Google share with us. We do not get your Apple or Google password. If you delete your account, we also ask Apple to remove its link to our app.
• Booking details: the city, date, time, meeting point, add-ons and price you choose or receive.
• Your choices about your photos: whether you want them by AirDrop as well as in the app, and whether a photo buddy may show photos from your session in their portfolio (you can change your answer at any time, and the photos are then removed from the portfolio).
• Messages and photos exchanged through the app for a session — shared between you and your photo buddy only. The one exception is the notification that tells you a message has arrived: the first part of a new message (with the sender's first name) is sent as a notification through Expo and Apple or Google, so your phone can show it.
• Safety information you choose to give us: reports, disputes, or emergency-contact details for a live session.
• Location: if you allow it, your phone's location is used on your phone to work out how far each photo buddy is. A customer's location is not sent to us or stored. A photo buddy who taps "Use my location" to set their work area sends their position once; we keep it rounded to about 1 km, and customers see it only as a distance or an approximate area on the map.
• Photos you choose from your photo library (profile photo, portfolio, inspiration pictures). The app does not use your camera. We ask for access to your photo library only when you add a photo or save one.
• If you apply to be a photo buddy: a photo of a government ID, a selfie, portfolio photos and the city you want to work in. Only our review team can see the ID and selfie, and we delete them 30 days after we decide on your application. You enter payout details on Stripe's own page; we keep only the last four digits of the bank account.
• A notification token for your phone, so we can tell you about a booking, a message or your photos. You can turn notifications off in your phone's settings.
• Waitlist sign-ups on our website: your name, email, the city you live in, whether you're interested in booking or becoming a photo buddy, and which link or platform you came from.
• Ideas and bug reports you post on the Ideas & feedback board, and your votes. Posts are shown to other users without your name. If you delete your account they stay, with nothing linking them to you.
• Basic technical data (device type, app version), a record of key booking steps (for example a request, a delivery or a cancellation), and short error reports when something goes wrong (an event name and a short technical message, never your messages, photos or card details). All of it is tied to your account to keep the app working and see where people get stuck. Error reports are deleted after 30 days.
• Crash reports: if the app crashes or hits an unexpected error, a report goes to Sentry, our crash-reporting provider, with the error, the screen, the app version and the phone model and system. It carries no name, email, account ID, messages, photos or card details, only a random ID for this installation of the app, and is kept for at most 90 days.

Payment data

Payment is handled by our payment processor, Stripe. Pocket Photographer never sees or stores your full card number — only what the processor gives us to run the app, like the card's last four digits, its brand, and whether a payment succeeded. Card and Apple Pay payments both go through Stripe; your card number is never shared with us.

Why we use it

• To run the booking, chat, and delivery flow you're actually using.
• To keep meetups safe — the meetup-code check, emergency screen, and dispute process.
• To respond when you contact us or report a problem.

We don't use your data for ad targeting, and we don't sell it to anyone.

Who sees it

• Your photo buddy or customer sees only what's needed to complete a booking. A photo buddy sees the customer's first name and profile photo, a customer sees the buddy's public profile, and both see the meeting details. Nobody sees your account email.
• Supabase, our database and hosting provider, stores the data on our behalf as a data processor — it doesn't use it for its own purposes.
• PostHog, our product analytics provider (EU region), receives your account ID (not your email) and the booking steps described above, on our behalf as a data processor.
• Sentry, our crash-reporting provider, receives the crash reports described above, on our behalf as a data processor.
• Stripe, our payment processor, receives payment details to take payments and to pay photo buddies.
• Apple and Google, if you choose to sign in with them, know that you signed in to Pocket Photographer.
• Mapbox, our map provider, loads the map pictures when you open the map, so it sees your IP address and which part of the map you view. We switch off its optional usage statistics, and we never send it your account details or your position.
• Expo, which delivers our push notifications and app updates, receives your phone's notification token and the text of each notification.
• Formspree, the service behind our website's waitlist form, receives the waitlist details and emails them to us.
• We share information with authorities only if the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and booking history while your account is active. If you delete your account, we remove your personal data, aside from what we're legally required to retain (for example, records tied to an open dispute or safety report). Waitlist details are kept until we've told you your city is open, or until you ask us to delete them. ID documents and selfies from photo buddy applications are deleted 30 days after a decision. Error reports are deleted after 30 days.

Your rights

• Ask what data we hold about you, and get a copy of it.
• Correct anything that's wrong.
• Ask us to delete your account and personal data.
• Object to, or ask us to limit, how we use your data.
• Complain to your local data protection authority (for example the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens in the Netherlands, CNPD in Portugal, or the CNIL in France) if you think we've got something wrong.

To use any of these, email privacy@pocketphotographer.app — we aim to reply within 30 days.

Age

Pocket Photographer is for adults. You need to be 18 or older to book or offer a session — this is a safety meetup service, not a general app.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, access to the database is restricted, and every write to your data goes through checks tied to your account — nobody, including us, can act as you.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll show you a notice in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top always shows the latest version.

Contact

Questions about your data or this policy: privacy@pocketphotographer.app. For anything else, use Send feedback from your profile in the app.