Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 4, 2025

Welcome to Art & Culture Scan: GuideNOW (“GuideNOW,” “the App,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This app is developed by Oktay Kurt (the “Developer”), who is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how information is handled in connection with your use of GuideNOW.

Our core principle is user privacy and data minimization. The Developer does not collect, store for its own use, or have access to your personal photos, scanned data, or precise location data. Where data is stored, it is on your device or in your private iCloud account, to which the Developer has no access.

1. Authentication

GuideNOW uses your Apple iCloud account for authentication. This process is managed by Apple. We recommend you review Apple’s privacy policies to understand how they handle your Apple ID and related information. The Developer does not receive or store your Apple ID password.

2. Information Handled by the App

• Images for Analysis:
  • What happens: When you capture an image or select one from your gallery for analysis, the image data is sent for processing to enable the identification feature. This may involve transmitting the image through intermediary infrastructure service providers to a third-party artificial intelligence (AI) service provider.
  • Purpose: To identify the art, landmark, or object in your image and provide you with relevant information.
  • Storage: These images are NOT stored by the Developer. After processing, they may be cached on your local device or stored in your private iCloud account, under your control, to enable features like viewing your scan history.
• Chat Interactions:
  • What happens: Text queries you submit in the chat feature are sent for processing to a third-party AI service provider via our infrastructure service providers to generate responses.
  • Purpose: To provide you with conversational AI-driven insights and answers.
  • Storage: Chat history is ephemeral and is NOT stored by the App on your device, in your iCloud account, or by the Developer after you close the chat session.
• Location Information (Optional):
  • How it’s used:
    • On-Device for Local Suggestions: With your permission, the App may use your device’s location to suggest nearby points of interest. This processing occurs on your device.
    • Contextual Information for AI Processing: With your permission, general location context (e.g., the city or specific venue like a museum, if determinable) may be sent along with your image to our AI service provider.
  • Purpose: To enhance the relevance of local suggestions and improve the accuracy of the AI’s identification results.
  • Storage: The Developer does not store your precise location data. Contextual location information is part of the temporary request to the AI service provider and is not separately stored by the Developer.
• Data Storage (Locally and Your Private iCloud):
  • What is stored: Information about items you’ve successfully scanned (e.g., identification results, descriptions, related audio content) and your mapped discoveries may be stored in the App’s local cache on your device and/or in your private iCloud database (using Apple’s CloudKit technology for private databases).
  • Purpose: To allow you to access your discoveries offline, maintain a history (excluding chat), and sync this data across your devices if you use iCloud.
  • Developer Access: The Developer has NO access to the data stored in your private iCloud database or your device’s local cache. This data is under your control.

3. How Information is Used

The information handled as described above is used solely to:

• Provide the core functionality of the App (e.g., image identification, AI-powered chat, audio guides, mapping discoveries).
• Improve the quality and accuracy of the App’s services.
• Enable offline access to your discovered items (excluding chat history).
• Manage your subscription status (via Apple, see below).

4. Information Sharing and Disclosure

Except as described below, the Developer does not share your information:

• Service Providers: We engage third-party companies and individuals (e.g., AI service providers, infrastructure hosting and proxy services) to facilitate our App, provide App-related services, or assist us in analyzing how our App is used. These third parties receive the minimum information necessary to perform their designated functions (e.g., an image for analysis, a chat query for response) and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose. These providers have their own privacy policies governing their use of data.
• Apple (CloudKit, StoreKit2): Data you choose to store in your private iCloud is managed by Apple. Subscription services are managed by Apple via StoreKit2. We receive anonymized transaction information from Apple for record-keeping but do not receive your payment details. We encourage you to review Apple’s Privacy Policy.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect and defend our rights or property, prevent fraud, act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the App or the public, or protect against legal liability.

5. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical measures to protect information integrity, such as routing API requests through infrastructure designed to protect sensitive keys. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. The security of your data stored on your device or in your private iCloud account primarily relies on the security measures you and Apple implement.

6. Your Data Rights and Choices

• Data Stored by the App: You can typically manage and delete data stored by GuideNOW (like your scan history, excluding chat which is not stored) from within the app or through your device’s and iCloud storage settings.
• Location Services, Camera, Photo Library Access: You can manage the App’s access to these features through your device’s system settings at any time. Disabling access may affect the functionality of certain features.

7. Children’s Privacy

GuideNOW is not directed to children under the age of 13 (or the relevant age of digital consent in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with information without your consent, please contact us at [email protected].

8. Third-Party Links and Services

The App may integrate with or rely on third-party services as described. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that we do not own or control. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services you interact with.

9. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy within the App or on our App Store page and updating the “Effective Date” at the top. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

10. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact Oktay Kurt at: [email protected]