BirdPerch Privacy Policy

Most of your data in BirdPerch stays on your device. You don't need an account, and there are no ads, no third-party tracking and no sale of data. This policy explains what is processed where, and your rights.

Contents

1. Who we are

BirdPerch is developed by Ahmet Emin Tayfur, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Contact: ahmet@ahmettayfur.com

2. Data stored on your device

  • Your bird's profile: name, species, colors, perch, theme, gender choice and, if you added it, your bird's age.
  • Your learning progress and the care tasks you write.
  • Bird journal: care marks, weights and notes.
  • Voice recordings you make for Voice Practice.
  • App settings and widget data.

We don't store any of this on our server. Only the items listed in section 3 are sent, through our server, and only when you use those AI features. If you delete the app, it is removed from your device.

Talk with my bird: Your recording is processed entirely on your device, deleted when processing ends, and never sent anywhere.

3. AI features (only with your permission)

Ask Gaia, Let's find its colors (including "Let's find it from a photo" during setup) and Let's look at the cage ask for your explicit permission the first time you use them. You can withdraw it at any time in Profile > AI permission.

What is sent when you use them:

  • Ask Gaia: your message, the chat's recent messages, your bird's name, species, gender choice, age (if you added it) and the app language. If you're a Plus member and have separately allowed Gaia to read your journal, the last 14 days of care marks, weights and notes are sent too. You're asked about this separately and it starts off; you can change it with "Gaia can read my journal" in Profile or in the Journal.
  • Let's find its colors and Let's look at the cage: the photo you take or choose, and the app language. Before sending, the photo is resized on your device and all metadata, including location, is removed. Let's look at the cage also sends your bird's species.

This content is passed through our server, which runs on Cloudflare, to Anthropic's Claude AI model, and the answer is returned to you. We don't store your messages, photos or journal entries; our server logs contain only technical details (request type, result and duration), never your ID or content. Your ID is not sent to Anthropic. Request logging is turned off at the gateway layer.

Anthropic processes this data under its commercial terms, does not use it to train models and deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days. It may keep content flagged for violating its Usage Policy for up to 2 years, and longer where the law requires.

AI answers are for information only; Gaia does not diagnose and is not a veterinarian.

4. Data we keep to apply usage limits

To apply AI limits (for example, the number of photos per day), our server keeps:

  • A one-way hash of the anonymous user ID the app creates for you. We do not keep your name, email or device identifier.
  • Usage counts linked to that hash (which feature, which day, how many times).

When you open the Plus tab, your anonymous ID goes to our server to look up your allowances; this happens even before you give AI permission, carries no content and isn't counted as a use. To check Plus, our server looks up your anonymous ID with RevenueCat and caches the answer (the ID's hash and a yes/no) for a few minutes.

Your IP address is used momentarily by Cloudflare for rate limiting to prevent abuse; it is not stored in our database.

5. Subscriptions and purchases

Payments are handled by Apple; we never see your card details. We use RevenueCat to manage subscription status and to see subscription statistics (such as the charts in RevenueCat's dashboard). RevenueCat processes your anonymous user ID, purchase and subscription history, a developer-specific device identifier (IDFV; not the advertising ID) and basic device and app information the service needs (such as OS version, device model, app version, language and App Store country). When you start a purchase, we also record in RevenueCat which part of the app opened the Plus screen (for example Gaia or a theme). See RevenueCat's privacy policy for details.

6. Permissions

  • Camera: only when you choose to take a photo.
  • Photos: we use the system photo picker, so we access only the photo you select, never your whole library.
  • Microphone: for Voice Practice and Talk with my bird.

Your explicit consent for AI features, performance of a contract for subscriptions, and our legitimate interest in preventing abuse and applying usage limits.

8. International transfers

Cloudflare, Anthropic and RevenueCat may process data outside Türkiye (for example, in the United States). The explicit consent you give for AI features also covers transfers related to those features.

9. Retention

  • Data on your device: until you delete it or remove the app. If your iPhone's iCloud or computer backup is on, it is also in those backups, which we can't access.
  • Messages, photos and journal entries: not stored on our side.
  • Usage counts: daily counts are deleted automatically within 4 days. Free-use counts are kept with no time limit so the free uses can be applied; you can ask us to delete them with your Support ID. Deleted records leave the database's restore history within 30 days.
  • Your subscription record (anonymous ID, purchase history and device identifier at RevenueCat): deleting the app doesn't remove it; email us your Support ID to have it deleted. This doesn't cancel your Apple subscription, and if the app stays installed the record is created again.

10. Your rights

Under Turkish data protection law (KVKK, Article 11) and, if you are in the EU, the GDPR, you have the right to access your data, request correction or deletion, object to processing and withdraw consent.

  • Withdraw AI permission in Profile > AI permission.
  • Remove on-device data by deleting the app.
  • To delete your usage counts on our server, send your Support ID to ahmet@ahmettayfur.com. You'll find it in Profile > Legal and support; tap it to copy the whole ID. Copy it before deleting the app: a reinstall creates a new ID, and earlier counts can't be found with it. We complete requests within 30 days at the latest.

11. Children

BirdPerch is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from children of that age.

12. Security

All connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Secret service keys are kept only on the server and are never embedded in the app. We process only the minimum data a feature needs.

13. Changes

We may update this policy; the effective date is always shown at the top of this page. If what the AI features send changes, the new app version asks for your permission again.

14. Contact

For questions and requests: ahmet@ahmettayfur.com