Privacy Policy for PlantCare AI
Effective Date: February 17, 2026
Contact: muhammadilyas15@gmail.com
1. Introduction
PlantCare AI ("we", "our", "the app") is an AI-powered plant care companion that helps you identify plants, diagnose plant diseases, manage care schedules, and plan your garden. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store,
and protect your information when you use our mobile application.
By using PlantCare AI, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this policy.
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Information You Provide
- Plant information: Plant names, nicknames, species, room/location, light conditions, pot size, watering and fertilizing frequencies, care notes, and date acquired
- Photos: Plant images captured via camera or selected from your gallery for identification, disease diagnosis, and growth journaling
- Care logs: Records of watering, fertilizing, pruning, misting, rotating, repotting, and custom care activities with timestamps and optional notes
- Growth photos: Timestamped photos documenting plant growth over time
- Reminders: Custom care reminder schedules you configure
- Climate zone: Your selected climate zone preference for personalized care advice
- Contact form submissions: Category, subject, and message content when you use the Contact Us form
- Google account information: Email address, display name, and profile photo when you sign in with Google for cloud backup
2.2 Information Collected Automatically
- Device information: Device model, manufacturer, Android version, and app version (included in crash reports and Contact Us form)
- App usage analytics: Screens visited, feature usage patterns, and session data (via Firebase Analytics)
- Crash reports: Stack traces, device state, and error logs when the app crashes (via Firebase Crashlytics)
- AI usage tracking: Daily counts of plant identification, disease diagnosis, and AI chat queries (stored locally to enforce free tier limits)
- Advertising identifiers: Device advertising ID for serving ads (free tier users only)
2.3 Information Processed by AI
- Plant images: Photos you submit for AI identification or disease diagnosis are sent to Google's Gemini AI service for processing. These images are processed in real-time and are subject to https://ai.google.dev/terms.
- Plant context: When using AI Care Tips or AI Chat, your plant's species, room, light condition, and climate zone are sent to Gemini AI to generate personalized responses.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use collected information to:
- Provide core functionality: Store and manage your plant collection, care logs, growth photos, and reminders
- AI plant identification: Analyze plant photos to identify species and provide care instructions
- AI disease diagnosis: Analyze plant photos to detect health issues and suggest treatments
- AI care advice: Generate personalized care tips based on your plant's species, environment, and climate zone
- Send notifications: Deliver care reminders, morning summaries, and overdue plant alerts
- Cloud backup and sync: Synchronize your plant data across devices when you sign in (premium feature)
- Display advertisements: Show ads to free tier users via Google AdMob
- Improve the app: Analyze crash reports and usage patterns to fix bugs and enhance features
- Process purchases: Handle subscription billing for premium features
4. Data Storage and Security
4.1 Local Storage
- All plant data, care logs, growth photos, diagnosis history, reminders, and scan history are stored locally on your device using a Room (SQLite) database
- User preferences (theme, language, climate zone, notification settings) are stored in SharedPreferences on your device
- Photos are stored in the app's private internal storage directory
- AI identification and diagnosis results are cached locally in the scan history for offline re-viewing
4.2 Cloud Storage
- If you sign in with Google and enable cloud backup (premium feature), your data is stored on Google Firebase Firestore servers
- Cloud data includes: plants, care logs, growth photos, diagnosis logs, reminders, and scan history
- Cloud data is encrypted in transit (TLS/SSL) and at rest on Google's servers
- Data is isolated per user account and only accessible with your Google credentials
4.3 Security Measures
- All network communication uses HTTPS/TLS encryption
- Cloud data is protected by Firebase security rules restricting access to authenticated users only
- Authentication is delegated to Google Sign-In (industry-standard OAuth 2.0)
- No passwords are stored by the app
- AI API keys are stored securely and never exposed to end users
5. Data Sharing
5.1 We Do NOT Sell Your Data
We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to third parties.
5.2 Third-Party Services
We use the following third-party services that may collect data:
┌──────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Service │ Purpose │ Data Accessed │ Privacy Policy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Google AdMob │ Advertising (free tier) │ Device ID, ad interactions │ https://policies.google.com/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Firebase Analytics │ App improvement │ Usage patterns, device info │ https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Firebase Crashlytics │ Crash reporting │ Crash logs, device state │ https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Firebase Auth │ Authentication │ Email, name, profile photo │ https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Firebase Firestore │ Cloud sync (premium) │ User-generated plant data │ https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Google Gemini AI │ Plant ID, diagnosis, chat │ Plant photos, plant context │ https://ai.google.dev/terms │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Google Play Billing │ Subscriptions │ Purchase history │ https://policies.google.com/privacy │
├──────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Google UMP │ Consent management │ Consent preferences │ https://policies.google.com/privacy │
└──────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
5.3 Ad Personalization
- Free tier users see advertisements served by Google AdMob
- AdMob may use device identifiers and usage data for ad personalization
- You can opt out of personalized ads through your device settings
- Premium subscribers see no advertisements
- We use Google's User Messaging Platform (UMP) to collect ad consent preferences
6. Photos and Images
- Photos are captured or selected only when you explicitly choose to take a photo or pick from your gallery
- Photos are used for: plant identification (AI), disease diagnosis (AI), growth journaling, and plant profile images
- Photos sent for AI analysis are processed by Google's Gemini AI service and are subject to Google's data processing terms
- Photos are stored locally in the app's private internal storage on your device
- If cloud backup is enabled (premium), photos metadata may be synced to your cloud account
- Photos are never shared with advertisers or used for marketing purposes
- You can delete photos at any time from within the app (long-press to delete growth photos, or delete the plant entirely)
7. Children's Privacy
PlantCare AI is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete it
promptly.
8. Your Rights and Choices
8.1 Access and Control
- You can view all your data within the app at any time
- You can edit or delete any plant, care log, growth photo, or diagnosis record
- You can export your plant collection as PDF or care history as CSV (premium feature)
8.2 Account and Data Deletion
- You can sign out of your Google account at any time from Settings
- You can request deletion of your cloud data by contacting us at muhammadilyas15@gmail.com
- Uninstalling the app removes all locally stored data including the database and photos
- Your plant data is never deleted when you cancel premium — only premium features become unavailable
8.3 Notifications
- You can disable all notifications through the app's Settings screen
- You can snooze individual notifications for 1 hour
- You can configure reminder times from Settings
- You can also manage notification permissions from your device Settings
8.4 Ad Preferences
- Premium subscription removes all advertisements
- You can opt out of personalized ads via device settings (Settings > Google > Ads)
9. GDPR Compliance (European Users)
If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), you have additional rights:
- Right to access — request a copy of your data
- Right to rectification — correct inaccurate data
- Right to erasure — request deletion of your data
- Right to restrict processing — limit how we use your data
- Right to data portability — receive your data in a portable format (use the Export feature)
- Right to object — object to data processing for marketing
The app uses Google's User Messaging Platform (UMP) to obtain consent for data processing and personalized advertising in compliance with GDPR.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at muhammadilyas15@gmail.com.
10. Data Retention
- Local data is retained on your device until you delete it or uninstall the app
- Cloud backup data is retained as long as your Google account is linked and active
- Firebase Analytics data is retained per Google's standard retention policies (14 months)
- Crash reports are retained for 90 days
- AI processing: Plant images sent to Gemini AI are processed in real-time; we do not store copies on our servers
11. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by:
- Updating the "Effective Date" at the top of this policy
- Posting a notice within the app
Your continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
12. Contact Us
If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, contact us at:
Email: muhammadilyas15@gmail.com