Privacy Policy
The short version
- We collect what the app needs to work: your sign-in email and name, your garden, and the plant photos you choose to identify.
- Plant photos are sent to Pl@ntNet to identify the plant, with location data removed first. We keep them, and your corrections, to improve identification until you delete your account, and you can ask us to stop.
- We do not sell or share your personal information, show ads, or use third-party analytics or tracking.
- On cultum.app, joining the waitlist gives us your email and a few details about how you found us. We use it only to email you about Cultum, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
- Payments are handled entirely by Apple or Google. We never see your card details.
- Your data is stored in Canada. You can delete your account and everything in it from the app at any time: Settings → Delete account.
1. Who we are
Cultum (“Cultum”, “we”, “us”) is a plant-care app operated together by Vladyslav Blahov, Artem Muradian and Oleksandr Abramov, all residing in Canada. We are jointly responsible for the personal information described in this policy, which covers the Cultum apps for iOS and Android, the service behind them, and the cultum.app website, including its waitlist.
Privacy Officer. Vladyslav Blahov is the person the operators have designated as responsible for protecting personal information at Cultum, including for the purposes of Quebec’s privacy law. Contact: hello@cultum.app.
2. What we collect
| Information | Where it comes from | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account: email address, name, and an account identifier from Apple or Google | Sign in with Apple or Google. If you use Apple’s “Hide My Email”, we receive a relay address instead of your real one. | To create and secure your account and let you sign in on more than one device. |
| Preferences: time zone, and whether you have seen onboarding | The app | To schedule care reminders at the right local time. |
| Garden: the plants you add, their names, rooms, care schedules, reminders and care history | You | To provide the app’s core features. |
| Plant photos you take or choose for identification, the identification results, and any correction you give us | You, and Pl@ntNet’s result | To identify the plant and, unless you ask us not to, to improve identification over time. |
| Subscription records: plan, store, purchase and renewal dates, trial and renewal status, and the store’s transaction identifiers | Apple or Google, after you buy | To confirm your purchase and give you Cultum Plus on every device you sign in to. |
| Usage counts: for example how many identifications you made today | Generated by the service | To apply the limits of your plan. |
| Technical logs: IP address, request time, app version, device platform, error details, and your account identifier and email | Generated when the app talks to our servers | To keep the service running and secure, investigate faults and abuse, and answer support requests. |
| Waitlist (cultum.app): email address, the page you signed up on, the referring site, campaign tags in the link (UTM), time zone, browser type (user agent) and time of signup | You, and your browser, when you join the waitlist | To tell you when Cultum launches and send product updates, and to understand which links bring people to the site. |
| Support messages | You, when you email us | To answer you. |
Camera and photo-library access are used only when you choose to take or pick a photo. Before a photo is stored or sent anywhere, we remove its metadata, including any GPS location. Care reminders are notifications scheduled on your device; we do not send push notifications from our servers.
3. What we do not collect or do
- We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural or targeted advertising.
- No advertising identifiers, ad networks, or third-party analytics or tracking tools. The cultum.app website sets no cookies.
- No precise location, contacts, biometric information, payment card details or passwords. You sign in with Apple or Google, and we never see your password for either.
- No profiling or automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
4. How we use it, and your consent
We use personal information only for the purposes in the table above. We collect only what those purposes need, and we will ask for your consent before using it for a new purpose.
By creating an account and using Cultum, you consent to this collection and use. You may withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual limits. Because most of this information is needed to run the service, withdrawing consent to it means closing your account.
Waitlist emails. By joining the waitlist you give us your express consent to email you about Cultum, as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act require. Every email identifies us and includes a working way to unsubscribe, and we act on an unsubscribe within 10 business days. You can also withdraw consent at any time by emailing hello@cultum.app. We never sell or share the list.
Improving identification is optional. If you do not want your plant photos and corrections kept to improve identification, email hello@cultum.app. We will delete your stored photos and stop keeping new ones beyond what is needed to answer each identification. Everything else keeps working.
If you are in a country where data protection law asks for a legal basis, we rely on performing our contract with you, our legitimate interests in running a secure and working service, your consent for improving identification, and legal obligations.
5. Who processes it
We use a small number of service providers. Each receives only what it needs, and our providers are bound by contract or their published terms to protect it and use it only to provide their service:
| Provider | What it does | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure (Canada) | Hosting: servers, database, photo storage and logs | All the information described above, stored on our behalf |
| Vercel (United States) | Hosting the cultum.app website and receiving waitlist signups | Your waitlist signup in transit, and standard web request logs (IP address, browser, time) |
| Google Workspace (United States) | Storing the waitlist in a Google Sheet, and emailing our team about each signup | The waitlist details listed in section 2 |
| Pl@ntNet (France) | Plant identification | The plant photo you submit, without metadata or account details. Pl@ntNet processes it under its own terms. |
| Apple (United States) | Sign in with Apple; App Store purchases | Sign-in and purchase confirmations exchanged with Apple. We revoke Cultum’s access to your Apple sign-in when you delete your account. |
| Google (United States) | Sign in with Google; Google Play purchases | Sign-in and purchase confirmations exchanged with Google. |
Plant care information and species photos come from public sources such as Wikipedia and the NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. We fetch that content ourselves, and none of your information is sent to them.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the rights or safety of our users or others, or as part of a transfer of the app to a new operator, who would be bound by this policy.
6. Where it is stored
Our servers, database and photo storage are in Canada. The cultum.app website is hosted by Vercel, and the waitlist is stored with Google, both in the United States. If you live in the United States or elsewhere, your information is transferred to and stored in Canada. Plant photos are processed in France by Pl@ntNet, and Apple and Google process sign-in and purchase information in the United States and other countries.
While it is in another country, your information is subject to that country’s laws and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. Before information about Quebec residents leaves Quebec, we assess whether it will be adequately protected, as Quebec law requires.
7. How long we keep it
- Account, garden, plant photos, identification results and subscription records: until you delete your account, or sooner if you ask. Deletion from the live service is immediate.
- Database backups: overwritten on a rolling basis within 7 days.
- Technical logs: deleted automatically after 30 days.
- Waitlist: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you, and in any case no longer than 12 months after Cultum launches, unless you have since created an account.
- Support emails: for as long as needed to resolve your request, then deleted.
If we use your information to make a decision about you, we keep it long enough for you to be able to access it, as the law requires.
8. Deleting your account
In the app, go to Settings → Delete account. This permanently deletes your account, garden, reminders, plant photos and identification history, and revokes Cultum’s access to your Apple sign-in if you used it. If you can no longer use the app, email hello@cultum.app from the address on your account and we will delete it for you.
Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription. Subscriptions are billed by Apple or Google, and only you can cancel them. Do that in your App Store or Google Play account settings, or you may keep being charged.
9. Your rights in Canada
Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and provincial laws, you have the right to:
- know what personal information we hold about you, how it is used and who it has been disclosed to, and get a copy of it;
- ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information; and
- withdraw your consent, as described in section 4.
If you live in Quebec, you also have the right to receive your information in a structured, commonly used technological format; to ask us to stop disseminating it or to de-index it where the law allows; and to be informed of the purposes, sources and recipients of the information we hold.
To make a request, email hello@cultum.app. We will reply within 30 days, free of charge, and may first need to confirm that the account is yours. If we cannot fully meet a request, we will explain why.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or, in Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.
10. Your rights in the United States
Depending on your state, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and other states with comprehensive privacy laws, you have the right to:
- know and access the personal information we have collected about you, including the categories, sources, purposes and recipients, and get a portable copy;
- delete it;
- correct inaccurate information;
- opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, targeted advertising and profiling. We do none of these, so there is nothing to opt out of; and
- not be discriminated against for using any of these rights.
How to make a request. Email hello@cultum.app. We will confirm the request and respond within 45 days. We verify requests by confirming that they come from the email address on the account. You may use an authorized agent; we may ask for proof that the agent is authorized and confirm the request with you directly.
Appeals. If we decline your request, you can appeal by replying with “Appeal” in the subject line. We will answer within 60 days. If you are not satisfied with the result, you can contact your state Attorney General.
Notice for California residents
In the past 12 months we have collected the following categories of personal information, from the sources and for the purposes described in section 2:
| Category | Examples | Disclosed for a business purpose to |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Name, email address, account identifiers, IP address | Microsoft Azure; Apple or Google; Vercel and Google Workspace (waitlist) |
| Commercial information | Subscription and purchase records | Microsoft Azure; Apple or Google |
| Internet or other electronic network activity | Request logs, usage counts; for the waitlist, referring site, campaign tags and browser type | Microsoft Azure; Vercel and Google Workspace (waitlist) |
| Audio, electronic or visual information | Plant photos you submit | Microsoft Azure; Pl@ntNet |
- We have not sold or shared personal information in the past 12 months, and we have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing information about consumers under 16.
- We do not collect or use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you.
- Retention periods are in section 7.
- Shine the Light: we do not disclose personal information to third parties for their direct-marketing purposes.
- Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: Cultum does not track you across other apps or websites, so these signals do not change how we handle your information.
11. Children
Cultum is not directed at children, and you must be at least 13 to use it. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. In Quebec, a parent or guardian must consent for users under 14. If you believe a child has given us personal information without the required consent, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Security and breaches
All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted with TLS. Information is encrypted at rest by Azure. Our credentials are held in a managed key vault, and our storage is reachable only by our own service. Sign-in sessions use short-lived access tokens, and you can end them by logging out or deleting your account. Access to personal information is limited to what is needed to run Cultum.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and, where applicable, the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec and the authorities required by U.S. state law. We keep a record of every breach.
13. Changes and contact
If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect, and we will ask for your consent where the law requires it.
Questions or requests: hello@cultum.app.
Vladyslav Blahov, Artem Muradian and Oleksandr Abramov.
Privacy Officer: Vladyslav Blahov.