Mitsuke
Privacy Policy
In short
- We don't ask for your location and we don't store it. We strip the metadata from your photos before uploading them.
- We blur license plates and faces on your phone before a photo leaves it.
- We only send a photo to an external AI (OpenAI) if you agree, already blurred and without your name.
- We don't sell your data or show personalized ads.
- Push notifications (likes, comments, followers) only arrive if you allow them on your phone, and you can turn each type off.
- You can export your data and delete your account from the app.
- The photos you publish are stored on Google servers in the United States. See section 9.
1. Who is responsible
The controller of your data is Matjahu. You can write to us at mitsuke.app@gmail.com.
2. What data we process
| Data | What | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email or Apple/Google identifier (or an anonymous identifier if you enter as a guest), username, city (optional, text you type), profile photo (optional) and your age band (we only store "14-15", "16-17" or "18 or over", not your date of birth) | You |
| Content | Photos (with plates and faces already blurred and no metadata), descriptions, modifications to your car, comments, collections, place or event tags and the cars you suggest for the catalog (make, model, years and a note) | You |
| Activity | Likes, saved cars, who you follow, who you block, streaks and achievements, and the bell notices we leave you when someone likes your photo, comments on it or follows you (the type of notice, who did it and the photo; never the text of a comment) | You and other users, by using the app |
| Technical | Installation identifier, IP address, device model and version, how many times you used AI car recognition each day (to apply a daily limit), crash reports (the error trace and your device model and version, without your name or email) and, only if you agree, usage statistics | Your device and our servers |
| Push notifications | If you allow Mitsuke to show notifications: your phone's identifier for receiving them (Firebase Cloud Messaging token), its system (Android or iOS), the app language and which kinds of notice you turned off in Settings | Your device |
| Purchases | Whether you have a subscription and its status. We don't see your card details: Apple or Google handle them. If you are Pro, your public profile shows a "PRO" badge | Apple, Google and RevenueCat |
| Invitations | The ambassador code you type when signing up (if you do) and when you typed it. If you are an ambassador: your code and how many accounts joined with it (you only see numbers, never who) | You and us |
| Moderation | Reports received or sent, removal notices, appeals and the decisions we make | Other users and us |
| Communications | The messages you send us by email | You |
We do not process: your GPS location, your contacts, any car's license plate or VIN, payment data, or special categories of data on purpose. Streak and achievement reminders are scheduled by your own phone; push notifications for likes, comments and followers are sent by our server (row "Push notifications"). Part of your data (your garage, your settings and the photos you leave as "Only me") is stored only on your phone.
3. Why we use your data and on what legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Providing the service: account, profile, garage, feed, collections, service notifications and subscription | Performance of a contract (Art. 6.1.b) |
| Sending a photo to OpenAI to identify the car | Your consent (Art. 6.1.a) |
| Measuring app usage with statistics | Your consent (Art. 6.1.a) |
| Sending you push notifications about likes, comments and followers | Performance of a contract (Art. 6.1.b), with the notification permission you give on your phone |
| Collecting crash reports to fix errors and keep the app stable and secure | Legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f) |
| Invitation program: attributing a sign-up to an ambassador's code and counting valid accounts | Legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f); for ambassadors, performance of a contract (Art. 6.1.b) |
| Moderating content, preventing abuse and protecting users | Legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f) and legal obligations (Art. 6.1.c) |
| Responding to requests from authorities and defending against claims | Legal obligation (Art. 6.1.c) and legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f) |
You can withdraw a consent at any time from the app settings, without affecting what was done before. You control push notifications with your phone's notification permission and the switches in Settings. If you want to object to processing based on legitimate interest (for example, crash reports), write to us.
4. Photos, license plates and people
- Before a photo leaves your phone, the app detects license plates and faces and blurs them. You'll see the result and can blur more by hand. Always check it before publishing.
- We remove the photo's metadata (including location and capture date).
- If you see a photo showing your plate, your face or your car and want it removed, use the report button in the app or write to mitsuke.app@gmail.com. We handle it without you having to prove anything.
5. AI car identification
- The app can suggest a car's model from your photo using an external AI service: OpenAI (United States).
- The app does not talk to OpenAI directly: it sends the photo to a server of ours, which is the only one that communicates with OpenAI. That server does not store or log the photo; it only counts how many times you used recognition each day, to apply a daily limit.
- Only the photo is sent, already blurred and without metadata, never your name, email or any identifier of yours. We only do it if you agree the first time, and you can change it in settings. If you don't agree, you enter the car by hand.
- OpenAI processes the photo to return the result to us, on servers in the United States (see section 9). According to its terms, OpenAI may keep the photo for up to 30 days solely to detect abuse and does not use it to train its models. Our contract is with OpenAI Ireland Ltd.
- A model's rarity comes from public statistics from the European Environment Agency, which contain no personal data.
6. Location
We don't collect your location. The app doesn't ask for GPS permission. The place where you saw a car, if you give one, is just a label you type or choose and is never turned into coordinates.
7. Minors
- You must be at least 14 years old. If we find out someone is younger, we delete their account.
- Accounts of 14 and 15 year olds are private by default: nobody sees their profiles and photos without their permission. The app has no private messages.
- If you are a parent or guardian of a minor and want to know what data we hold or ask for its deletion, write to mitsuke.app@gmail.com.
8. Who else sees or receives your data
We don't sell your data. We use providers that process it on our behalf under contract:
| Provider | Purpose | Data |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Firebase and Google Cloud) | Hosting the app: accounts, database, photos and server functions; crash reports (Crashlytics); usage statistics, if you agree (Analytics); and delivery of push notifications on Android (Cloud Messaging). The database and functions are in the European Union; the photos you publish and sign-in data are processed in the United States (section 9) | All app data |
| Apple (notification service, APNs) | Delivering push notifications on iPhone | The notification token and its text, which includes the username of whoever likes your photo, comments or follows you |
| OpenAI | Identifying the car in a photo | Only the blurred photo, with your consent |
| RevenueCat, Apple and Google | Managing purchases and subscriptions | Subscription status and purchase identifier |
Your public cars, photos, comments and profile are visible to anyone (except on accounts of 14 and 15 year olds, which are private by default, and except what you mark as private). Your username, your city (if you add one), your level and your badges (such as "PRO" or "Ambassador") are public, and people search finds your username. Cars you suggest for the catalog are reviewed by one of our team and are not published under your name. We may also disclose data to authorities when the law requires it.
9. Transfers outside the European Economic Area
Your data is spread across several places, and some are outside the European Economic Area:
| What | Where it is processed |
|---|---|
| Account and sign-in (Firebase Authentication) | United States and other countries where Google operates |
| Profile, garage, comments, collections and reports (database) | European Union |
| Server functions that apply rules and limits | European Union (Belgium) |
| Photos you publish (file storage) | United States (South Carolina) |
| Photo you send to the AI (OpenAI) | United States |
| Subscriptions (RevenueCat) | United States |
| Crash reports, usage statistics and push notifications (Google; Apple on iPhone) | United States and other countries where they operate |
For these transfers we rely on the safeguards of Chapter V of the GDPR: the EU-US Data Privacy Framework when the provider is certified under it (as Google is) and the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. The photos you publish have already gone through plate and face blurring and carry no metadata. If you prefer a photo not to be stored in the United States, don't publish it: you can keep it as "Only me" on your phone.
10. How long we keep data
| Data | Period |
|---|---|
| Account and content | As long as you have the account |
| Deleted account | It disappears from the app and from our servers within minutes (your profile, garage, photos, comments and likes, including those you left on other people's photos, your notices, the phones registered for push notifications, your invitation data and your sign-in account). We also ask RevenueCat to delete your subscriber history; if it doesn't answer, we retry every week. If something fails, a weekly sweep completes it, always within 30 days |
| Copies in our providers' systems | May take up to 180 days to disappear from their backup systems (Google's terms) |
| Phone identifier for push notifications | Until you sign out on that phone, uninstall the app or delete your account. If the phone's system invalidates it, we delete it |
| Crash reports | 90 days (Firebase Crashlytics period) |
| Payments to ambassadors | If you are an ambassador and we have paid you, the payment record (date, blocks and reference) is kept even if you delete your account, for the period required by tax law |
| Moderation log (what content, reason, date, notices and appeals) | 12 months. It is kept even if you delete your account, because it is the record of what moderation decided; it holds your identifier and a summary, never the photo |
| Usage statistics (if you agree) | The period set in the Firebase Analytics configuration, at most 14 months |
| Data we are legally required to keep | The period set by law |
11. Your rights
You can access your data, rectify it, delete it, restrict its use, object to certain uses, take it with you in a reusable format and withdraw your consent.
- In the app: delete your account, export your data and manage your consents. More in how to delete your account.
- By email: at mitsuke.app@gmail.com. We reply within one month at most.
- If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) or to your local authority.
12. Automated decisions and moderation
We use an AI to suggest a car's model (only if you agree) and an automatic filter that rejects a comment if it contains links, contact details, insults or spam; in that case the app tells you and you can write it differently. No account is suspended and no photo is removed solely by an automated decision: a person decides, we explain the reason and you can appeal.
13. Security
We protect your data with encrypted connections, strict access rules on the database and the photo storage, mandatory sign-in to use server services, daily usage limits and restricted administration access. If a security breach affected you, we will tell you and notify the AEPD within the legal deadlines.
14. This website
This website is static: it uses no cookies, analytics or advertising. It is hosted on GitHub Pages (GitHub, Inc., United States), which, like any web server, may log your IP address when it serves you the page.
15. Changes to this policy
If we change something important, we will tell you in the app before it applies. The current version is always on this page. The rules for using the app are in the terms of use.