Privacy Policy

This policy explains what Bidstitch collects, why, who else sees it, and how to get rid of it. Every statement in it about what the app does was checked against the app’s source code.

Who we are#

Bidstitch is an app that identifies vintage clothing from photographs and estimates what a piece is worth. It is provided by Bidstitch App Inc. You can reach us at privacy@bidstitch.com.

The short version#

• You can use Bidstitch without giving us your name, your email, or anything else about you. The app signs you in anonymously the first time you open it, and all you have at that point is a random account identifier. Our analytics does still record an approximate city worked out from your IP address and an identifier for your install of the app, and you can turn analytics off in Settings.
• The photos you take are the main thing we handle. They go to our servers so that an AI can look at them, and they are sent on to the AI companies we use.
• Photos from a scan you do not save are deleted automatically within 24 hours. Photos of pieces you save to My Closet or your history are kept until you delete them.
• We use two product analytics services to understand how the app is used. You can turn them off in Settings.
• We do not sell your data, we do not show you ads, and we do not share your data with advertisers.
• You can delete your account from inside the app.

1. Your account#

Every install is signed in from the moment you open the app. Bidstitch creates an anonymous account for you automatically. An anonymous account has one piece of information attached to it: a random account identifier generated by the authentication service we use. It has no name and no email address, and it is not worked out from anything about your device. The installation identifier described in section 6 is a separate thing, and it is not what signs you in.

If you create a real account, we collect:

• an Apple sign in credential, if you sign in with Apple. When you do that, Apple asks whether to share your real email or a private relay address, and whether to share your name. Whatever you choose is stored in your authentication record. The app itself never reads or stores the name Apple offers.
• a Google sign in credential, if you sign in with Google. Google shares the email address and the name on your Google account, and both are stored in your authentication record. The app itself never reads or stores the name Google offers.

Bidstitch can also use your phone number as a sign in method. If you sign in that way, your account is tied to the phone number you give, and the number is stored in your authentication record. That is the only circumstance in which we hold your phone number.

Creating a real account on top of your anonymous one keeps the same account identifier, so nothing you have already scanned or saved is lost.

We do not collect your date of birth, your contacts, your address, or any payment details. There is no payment or subscription feature in the app. The app never asks your device for your location, but our analytics services do record an approximate city worked out from your IP address, which section 6 explains.

2. Photographs, and what happens to them#

This is the part that matters most, so it is set out step by step.

When you scan a piece:

1. The photos you take are uploaded from your device to our storage, into a private area that belongs to your account alone. Nobody else can read them. They cannot be modified once written.
2. Our server downloads those photos and sends them to the AI providers described in section 3, so the piece can be identified and valued.
3. If you do not save the result, those photos are deleted automatically. A cleanup job runs every hour and deletes scan photos, and the stored result that goes with them, once they are more than 24 hours old.

When you save a piece to My Closet or it goes into your history, the photos are copied into a permanent area of storage that belongs to your account, and a smaller thumbnail version is made. Those copies stay until you delete the piece or delete your account. There is no automatic time limit on saved pieces. When you delete a saved piece, its photos are deleted from our storage too.

Your photos are stored so that only your account can read them. Our servers can read them in order to run a scan and to save a piece for you.

Please photograph clothing, not people. If a photo you upload happens to show another identifiable person, you are responsible for having their permission.

3. The AI services we send photographs to#

Bidstitch cannot work without sending your photos to third party AI companies. Here is exactly what they receive, and why.

Two things are true of all of them, and they are worth stating plainly:

• We do not send them any information about who you are. No account identifier, no email address, no username, no device information. The request contains the images and the prompt, and nothing else. The search provider receives only a text query and never receives a photograph.
• Which AI provider and model is used for the full identification is chosen by us, not by you, and can change. More than one AI company is used.

Each of these companies handles the data it receives under its own terms and privacy policy.

You can always ask us for more. This policy does not name the companies we work with, because which providers are behind Bidstitch is part of how the app is built, and it can change. If there is anything more you want to know about your data, where it goes, or who handles it, write to privacy@bidstitch.com and ask. We are happy to answer.

4. What we store about your closet#

When you save a piece, we store what the AI worked out about it (things like the name, brand, category, era, rarity, and estimated value), the photos and thumbnails, and anything you edited yourself, such as what you paid for it.

We also use the contents of your closet to generate two things about you: a short “taste profile” describing your collecting style, and a “collection score” with a grade. These are produced by sending a text only summary of your closet to one of the AI providers described in section 3: for each piece, its name, brand, category, era, rarity, value, and description. No photographs are sent for this, and no account identifier, email address, or username is sent. The results are stored on your account and shown to you in the app.

We also keep a count of how many scans you have done.

5. Your profile#

If you choose to set one, we store a username, a link and link text, and an avatar image. Usernames are unique across Bidstitch, so we keep a server side index that maps a username to the account that claimed it. That index is not readable by the app or by other users; it exists to stop two people claiming the same name. When you change your username or delete your account, the claim is released.

Your profile is optional. Everything except your account identifier can be left empty.

6. Product analytics#

We use a third party product analytics service to understand how people use the app: which screens are opened, whether a scan finished or was abandoned, whether a piece was added to a closet, and so on.

How it is limited:

• It runs only in the released mobile app. It is not present at all in the web version of Bidstitch, and it does not run in development or test builds.
• It records a fixed list of about 35 named events. There is no automatic capture of taps or screens, no session recording, and no session replay. An event can only be created through a typed builder in our code, and that builder accepts only fixed option values, counts, true or false flags, durations, and numbers.
• It never receives a photograph, an image, a storage path or download link, an email address, a username, a profile field, or any free text, including what the AI decided a garment was.
• It is linked to your account. Events are sent under your account identifier, including while your account is anonymous. Alongside them we send your platform (iOS or Android), your app version, whether you are signed in, and a small set of facts about your account: your total scan count, how many pieces are in your closet, which platform you signed up on, whether you finished onboarding, when you signed up, whether you signed up with email, Apple, or Google, and your collection grade.
• Some events include dollar values, specifically an estimated value for a piece, a purchase price you entered, and your total closet value. This is deliberate, and it is how we understand what the app is actually being used on.

You can turn analytics off. Settings has an “Analytics” toggle. Turning it off is recorded on your account on our servers, and the app stops sending events.

That service processes this data in the United States. We keep analytics data only for as long as it is useful for the purposes above.

A second analytics service

Since 30 July 2026 the same curated events described above are also sent to a second product analytics service. It is a second recipient of the same information, not a second set of information: the events are built by the same code, carry the same limited properties, and are subject to the same Settings toggle.

The same limits apply. It runs only in the released mobile app, never in the web version and never in development or test builds. It records only the same fixed list of named events, with no automatic capture of taps or screens, no session recording, and no session replay. It never receives a photograph, an image, a storage path or download link, an email address, a username, a profile field, or any free text.

Like the first service, it is linked to your account: events are sent under your account identifier, including while your account is anonymous.

It processes this data in the United States too.

Approximate location, and an identifier for your install

Two things go to both analytics services that are worth setting out on their own, because they are easy to misread.

An approximate location. The app never asks your device for your location. It has no location permission and no access to GPS, and there is nothing about location for you to grant or deny. What happens instead is that our analytics services see the IP address your events arrive from, and work out a rough city, region, and country from it. We use that to understand which parts of the world the people using Bidstitch are in. It is an estimate made from your network connection, not a reading taken from your device.

An identifier for your installation of the app. Every install of Bidstitch is given its own random installation identifier, and it is attached to the events sent to the second analytics service. We may send it with our other analytics events too. We use it to count how many distinct installs and people are using the app, and for the analytics purposes described above. It is not an advertising identifier and it is not a hardware serial number. It does not survive deleting the app: a reinstall gets a new one.

Both are covered by the “Analytics” toggle. Turning analytics off stops the events, and these go with them.

7. Crash reporting#

We use a third party crash reporting service to receive reports when the app crashes or hits an unexpected error, so we can fix it.

That service’s SDK is built into the app. It ships inside the app and works exactly as set out below.

How it is limited:

• Like analytics, it runs only in the released mobile app and is absent from the web version and from development and test builds.
• Crash reports carry no user identifier. We never attach your account identifier, email address, or username to a crash report, and any user field is stripped from every report before it is sent. The service is configured not to collect your IP address.
• Before a report leaves your device it is scrubbed: query strings are removed from any web address (because those can contain access tokens for your own photos), account identifiers are removed from storage paths, anything that looks like an email address is replaced, and console log messages are discarded entirely.
• Screenshots and view hierarchies are not attached.

Reports do still contain the ordinary technical context a crash reporter needs, such as your device model, operating system version, and app version.

We intend to use it for performance and diagnostic information as well as crashes: how long a screen took to load, which requests were slow, and errors that did not crash the app. That is subject to every limit above, including carrying no user identifier.

Because crash reports contain nothing that links them to your account, they are not deleted when you delete your account. There would be nothing to look for.

8. Referral links#

Bidstitch lets you invite friends with a personal referral link. We use a third party install attribution service to make those links work: when someone installs the app by following one, that service tells the app which link the install came from, so the referral can be credited to you. Without it a fresh install has no way of knowing where it came from.

How it is limited:

• Like analytics and crash reporting, it runs only in the released mobile app and is absent from the web version and from development and test builds.
• That service never receives your account identifier, email address, username, or photographs. A referral link carries a short random code that stands for the referring account — not that account’s real identifier — so the link cannot be turned back into an identity by anyone who receives it.
• Its data collection is set to a reduced level, which drops advertising identifiers. It is used to match an install to a link, not to build an advertising profile.
• To make that match, it receives ordinary device and network signals, the same technical context any attribution service needs.

9. What Bidstitch does not do#

All of this was verified as absent from the app:

• No advertising, no ad networks, no advertising identifiers.
• No selling or sharing of personal information with third parties for advertising or cross context behavioural advertising.
• No push notifications and no device push tokens.
• No location permission. The app never asks your device for your location, and it has no access to GPS. Our analytics services do estimate a rough city from the IP address your events arrive from, which section 6 explains.
• No contacts access. The app does not read your address book.
• No payments, subscriptions, or in app purchases.
• No social graph. There is no following, no friends, and no browsing of other people’s profiles.
• No advertising SDK, and no advertising identifiers. (Referral-link attribution is a separate thing and is described in section 8.)
• No crash reporting other than the one service described in section 7.

10. Permissions the app asks for#

• Camera, so you can photograph a garment.
• Photo library, so you can pick an existing photograph instead.

That is the complete list of what the app asks you for. It has no contacts or notification features, and it never asks you for a location permission. The rough city our analytics estimates from your IP address does not come from a permission on your device, so there is nothing there for you to grant or deny.

11. Where your data is processed#

Our servers, database, and file storage run on cloud infrastructure in the United States. Our AI providers and our analytics and crash reporting services also process data in the United States.

If you use Bidstitch from outside the United States, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States. By using the app you understand that this is where it goes.

12. How long we keep things#

13. Deleting your account#

Settings has a “Delete account” option. When you use it, we delete, in this order:

1. your username claim, so the name is free for someone else;
2. everything stored under your account in our database, which is your profile, your closet pieces, your history, your scan sessions, and your saved scan results;
3. every file in your permanent storage area, meaning your saved photos, thumbnails, and avatar;
4. every file in your scan session storage area;
5. your login itself.

This cannot be undone. After deletion the app signs you in as a new anonymous user, and nothing from the old account carries over.

You can also delete individual closet or history pieces at any time, which deletes their photos too.

You do not have to do any of this yourself. Write to privacy@bidstitch.com and tell us whether you want your whole account deleted, or only certain data associated with it, such as particular pieces, photos, or scan results. We will delete whatever you ask us to.

14. Your rights#

Depending on where you live, you have some or all of these rights over your data.

• See it. Ask us for a copy of what we hold about you.
• Correct it. Your profile is editable in the app. For anything else, ask us.
• Delete it. Settings has a delete option that does this immediately. You can also ask us to delete all of it or part of it.
• Take it with you. Ask us for your data in a portable form.
• Object, or ask us to restrict what we do. In particular, you can turn analytics off in Settings at any time.
• Complain to your data protection regulator if you think we have handled your data badly.

To exercise any of these, write to privacy@bidstitch.com from the email address on your account, or tell us your username so we can find you. We will respond within 30 days. We will not charge you, and we will not treat you differently for asking.

Why we are allowed to process your data, for anyone who needs it in these terms: we process your photos, your closet, and your account because we cannot provide the app you asked for without doing so, which is performance of our agreement with you. We process analytics and crash data on the basis of our legitimate interest in understanding and fixing our own product, and you can switch analytics off. Where a jurisdiction requires consent instead, using the app after reading this policy is the point at which it is given, and Settings is where it is withdrawn.

For California residents: the categories of personal information we collect are identifiers (an account identifier, an email address if you create a real account, a phone number if you sign in with one, and an identifier for your installation of the app), your own photographs and the information derived from them, commercial information in the sense of the values and purchase prices you record, internet activity in the sense of the app usage events described in section 6, and coarse geolocation in the sense of the approximate city worked out from your IP address. We collect them for the purposes described throughout this policy. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross context behavioural advertising. We have never done either.

15. Children#

Bidstitch is for people aged 16 and over. If you are under 16, do not use it.

We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. If we find out that an account belongs to someone under 16, we delete it and everything attached to it. If you think a child under 16 is using Bidstitch, write to privacy@bidstitch.com and we will deal with it.

The app does not ask your age, so this rule works on trust.

16. Changes to this policy#

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top.

17. Contact and governing law#

Write to privacy@bidstitch.com about anything in this policy.

This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of laws rules.