Privacy Policy

Plantora (“Plantora,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) provides a plant-care and social-commerce mobile application (the “App”). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who processes it on our behalf, and the choices you have. By using Plantora, or by interacting with our official social media accounts, you agree to the practices described here.

Operator: Plantora · Contact: admin@plantora.info

1. Information You Provide

1.1 Account information

• Display name, username, email address, mobile number (with country), and profile photo.
• The country you select as your shop and marketplace country — one of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq or Jordan. It is stored on your account and determines which marketplace listings, Company Shops and weather you see. You can change it at any time.
• Authentication credentials handled by Firebase Authentication, including sign-in with Google or Apple where you choose it.
• A one-time verification code sent to your email at sign-up. Codes are stored only as a hash, never in readable form, and expire.
• Biometric app-lock state is stored on your device only and is never transmitted to us. We never receive your fingerprint or face data.

1.2 Plant and garden data

• Plant records, species, care schedules, watering and fertilizing history, seed trays, propagation logs, and garden groups you create.
• Photos you attach to plants, seed trays and propagation entries.

1.3 Content you post

• Bloom video posts and Explore photo posts, with captions, overlays, comments, likes, reposts and shares.
• Stories — photos and short videos (up to 60 seconds) posted to the 24-hour story tray, plus story views and likes.
• Marketplace listings you create, including title, species, description, photos, price, stock, pot and plant size, pet-safe flag and category.
• Reviews you leave on Company Shop products, including review photos and ratings, and merchant replies to them.

1.4 Messages

• Direct messages, group messages, shared product and post references, photos and voice notes you send through in-app chat.
• Messages are private between participants. We do not read them routinely; they become visible to a reviewer only when a participant reports a specific message (see §3.3).

1.5 Business account verification

If you apply to operate a verified Company Shop, we collect the documents needed for that review:

• Your Commercial Registration (CR) or trade licence document.
• A photo of the authorized signature.
• The authorized signatory’s Civil ID or passport.
• Business name, contact details and shop description.
• The pickup address of your shop (governorate, area, block, street, building and a pin on a map) so couriers can collect orders, and your products: photos, descriptions, prices and stock.
• You can apply and manage your shop either in the App or on this website. Both write to the same account and the same storage, so what you enter in one appears in the other.
• The country your business is registered in, and the commercial registration or trade licence issued by that country — see the Terms & Conditions, Section 9.2.

1.6 Addresses and order details

• Saved delivery addresses (area, block, street, building and any extra directions) and the contact phone number you provide.
• Your location, only if you ask for it. The address form has a “Use current location” button. It is the only place the App asks for your phone’s location, and it asks only when you tap it, only while the App is open, and never in the background. Your phone’s own location and geocoding service (usually Google’s on Android, Apple’s on iPhone) turns the position into an address that fills the form, and the App saves the position (latitude and longitude) with that address as a location pin. You can refuse the permission and type the address instead.
• When you place a Company Shop order, the delivery address and phone number you chose, and the location pin if that address has one, are stored on the order record so the seller can fulfil it. The address and phone number also appear on the order receipt.
• Deleting a saved address deletes its pin. The copy on an order stays with that order. Deleting your account removes it from the order once the order is delivered or cancelled (see Data Retention below).
• Plantora uses your location for nothing else. The weather shown in the App is for the capital city of the country you select, using fixed coordinates for that capital — it never uses your GPS or device location.

1.7 Your account on this website

• You can create and use a Plantora account on plantora.info with an email and password or with Google. It is the same account as in the App, and we collect the same account information described in §1.1.
• When you sign up or log in from a new browser we email you a one-time code. If you choose “Trust this browser,” your browser keeps a random token for 30 days so it is not asked for a code every time. We store only a hash of that token on our servers. Logging out of that browser, or clearing this site’s data in it, removes the token.
• If you start signing up but never confirm the email code, the unfinished account is deleted automatically after 24 hours, which frees the email address and username.

1.8 Reports and support

• Content reports, private-message reports, and the reason and detail you supply.
• Bug reports and support requests, including any attachment you add and basic technical details about the App at the time of the problem.

1.9 Email lists

• Marketing emails: when you create an account you agree to receive news, offers and plant tips by email. We store that choice (yes), when and where it was made (the App or the website, recorded as automatic at sign-up) and which wording was shown. Accounts created before this change that had never answered were switched on as well; anyone who had said no or unsubscribed stays off.
• We add your email address to a list at our email provider, Resend, and remove it when you unsubscribe or delete your account. You can unsubscribe at any time with the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every marketing email. Verification codes, order and account emails are not marketing and are always sent.
• If you leave your email in “Notify me” on plantora.info, we store it with the page and language it came from, and may email you about the launch and related news until you create an account. After that, your account choice applies.

2. Information Collected Automatically

• Crash reports and usage analytics via Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics: for example that a plant was added or identified, or a care task completed, with an app-instance identifier, the app version, and basic device and operating-system details. The App does not request or use your device’s advertising ID.
• On this website, your browser stores your language choice and, only if you choose “Trust this browser,” the trusted-browser token described in §1.7. Firebase Authentication also keeps you signed in using your browser’s storage. Account pages (sign up, log in, your account) use Google reCAPTCHA through Firebase App Check to tell people from automated traffic; reCAPTCHA receives your IP address and basic browser and device details, under Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies on this website.
• Push notification device tokens via Firebase Cloud Messaging, collected only after you sign in and grant notification permission.
• Device and session records used for the multi-account switcher, session management and security.
• Product view counts on Company Shop listings. These are aggregate counters for a seller’s own dashboard; sellers see totals and daily trends, not who viewed a product.
• Grower points earned from your in-app activity — completing care tasks, adding plants, diagnosing a plant, posting, commenting, liking, following, and opening care guides. Points feed a Top Growers leaderboard. Points are not tied to purchases, cannot be bought, and have no cash or redemption value.

3. Automated Processing and AI Features

3.1 Flora AI plant diagnosis

Flora can diagnose a plant from a photo, from a typed conversation, or hands-free by voice. Depending on how you use it:

• Photos you capture or upload for diagnosis are sent to Groq for analysis and stored on your own diagnosis session record, readable only by you.
• Voice recordings in the hands-free mode are short audio clips sent to Groq for speech-to-text transcription. The clip is transmitted for processing and is not retained by us as an audio file; the resulting text is kept as part of your conversation transcript.
• Flora’s spoken replies are generated by Groq text-to-speech. Only the reply text Flora produces is sent, never your recording.
• Conversation transcripts — your messages, Flora’s replies and the diagnosis result — are stored on your account so you can revisit past sessions, and are readable only by you.

Flora AI is an informational tool, not professional horticultural, agricultural or pesticide-safety advice. See the Terms & Conditions, Section 12.

3.2 Automated content moderation

Photos and videos uploaded to Bloom, Explore, Stories and marketplace listings are automatically scanned on upload for prohibited content. Scanning uses an image-classification service we operate together with the OpenAI moderation API. Frames may be retained as moderation evidence where content is flagged, in access-restricted storage visible only to reviewers. Most uploads are never seen by a human.

3.3 Reported content

When you report a post, listing, comment, account or private message, the report and enough context to assess it — including the specific reported message in a private conversation — is made available to Plantora reviewers. Reporting is the only routine circumstance in which the content of a private message is read by us.

4. Connected Services

4.1 Instagram Connect (your account)

You may optionally connect your own Instagram account to show a “From Instagram” photo grid on your Plantora profile. If you do:

• We receive an access token from Instagram through Meta’s OAuth flow. The token is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before storage, held in a record only the server can read, and refreshed automatically so the connection keeps working.
• We sync up to your nine most recent Instagram photos — image URL, permalink and timestamp — plus your Instagram username, to display the grid.
• Synced media appears only on your own profile. It is never mirrored into the Bloom or Explore feeds.
• You can disconnect at any time, which removes the stored token and the synced media.

4.2 Plantora’s own Instagram account

Plantora’s official Instagram account (@plantora.kw) is managed by us through Meta’s Instagram API and is used solely to publish content we create. That integration does not access, collect or store data belonging to any other Instagram user.

5. How We Use Information

• Operate core features — plant tracking and care reminders, Bloom, Explore, Stories, marketplace, Company Shops, chat and notifications.
• Provide AI-assisted plant diagnosis and care recommendations.
• Verify business account applications and operate verified Company Shops.
• Process and deliver Company Shop orders, receipts and order-status updates.
• Detect, review and remove content that violates our Terms & Conditions, and act on reports.
• Maintain security and integrity — session and device management, App Check attestation, rate limiting, and prevention of duplicate or fraudulent accounts.
• Diagnose crashes, fix bugs and improve performance.
• Send transactional email — verification codes, welcome messages, order confirmations and status changes, application outcomes, and replies to reports you file.
• Send marketing email — news, offers and plant tips — to accounts that have not unsubscribed (see §10). Verification codes, order and account emails are not marketing and are always sent.

We do not sell your personal information, we do not use it for third-party advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles.

6. Service Providers

We rely on the processors below. Each receives only the data needed for its function.

Business verification documents (§1.5) are not shared with any provider in this table beyond the Firebase storage that holds them.

7. When Information Is Visible to Others

• Public by design: your username, display name, profile photo, bio, public posts, Stories while live, marketplace listings, reviews you leave, follower and following lists, your position on the Top Growers leaderboard, and — for a verified Company Shop — the country the shop trades in.
• Shared with a seller: when you place a Company Shop order — your name, delivery address, the location pin of that address if it has one, phone number and order contents.
• Shared with a buyer: a Company Shop’s business name, contact details and order records.
• Private: direct messages, saved addresses not attached to an order, plant and garden records, Flora diagnosis sessions and transcripts, and business verification documents.
• Shareable links: profile, post, product and story links you share open a public preview page. Anything you share publicly may be seen, saved or screenshotted by others.

8. Data Retention

• Stories are deleted automatically 24 hours after posting. An hourly sweep removes both the story record and the underlying video or photo file.
• Flora voice sessions end automatically after a short inactivity grace period; the transcript is kept on your account until you delete it or your account.
• Deactivated accounts are held for a 30-day grace period, during which signing in restores the account. After 30 days the account and its data are deleted.
• Immediate deletion is available from Settings and does not wait for the grace period.
• What deleting removes and what stays is listed on the Delete your account page.
• Otherwise we keep your data while your account is active. After a deletion request we remove it within 30 days, except where retention is legally required (for example order and dispute records, or fraud prevention), and except for content already redistributed by other users.

9. Children’s Privacy

Plantora is not directed at, and is not intended for use by, children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. By using the App you confirm you are at least 13.

If we learn we have collected information from a child under 13, we delete it as quickly as possible. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact admin@plantora.info and we will investigate. Users between 13 and the age of majority in their jurisdiction may need parental or guardian permission — see the Terms & Conditions, Section 2.

10. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, export or restrict the processing of your personal data, and to object to certain processing.

• In the App: Settings → Deactivate Account. “Deactivate for 30 days” pauses your account with a 30-day recovery window. “Delete everything now” deletes your account and its data immediately. The steps, and what stays, are on the Delete your account page.
• Disconnect Instagram: Settings → Instagram Connect removes the stored token and synced media.
• Marketing emails: use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any marketing email. This does not stop verification codes, order and account emails.
• Notifications: manage push and email preferences in Settings, or at the operating-system level.
• By email: write to admin@plantora.info for access, correction, export or deletion.

Region-specific detail is in the CCPA/GDPR Compliance Addendum, available in the App under Settings → CCPA/GDPR Rights.

11. Data Security

We use industry-standard safeguards, including Firebase App Check attestation, encryption in transit and at rest, application-layer encryption for Instagram access tokens, rate limiting, access-controlled cloud infrastructure, and storage rules that restrict sensitive files such as verification documents and Flora diagnosis photos to their owner. No system is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. International Data Transfers

Our service providers may process data outside your country of residence, including in the United States and the European Union. Where required, we rely on the standard contractual safeguards those providers offer.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes are posted on this page with a new revision date, and material changes are notified in-app or by email.