Privacy Policy

Who we are. Garden Genius (gardengenius.org) lets you visualise garden and home improvements from a photo. We operate from the United Kingdom and are the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact us about anything in this policy at hello@gardengenius.org.

What we collect and why.

• Your photos and generated images. The photos you upload and the images we create for you are stored in your account so you can revisit, tweak and download your designs. Legal basis: performance of our contract with you.
• Account details. Your email address and a securely hashed password (we can never read your password). If you start without signing up, we create a temporary account identified only by a cookie until you add an email. Legal basis: contract.
• Purchase records. What you bought, when, and for how much. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe and never reach our servers. Legal basis: contract and our legal obligations to keep accounting records.
• Messages you send us. If you use the contact form, we keep your message and email so we can reply. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in supporting users and improving the service.
• Technical data for security. We rate-limit requests by connection address, and we record a salted, one-way hash of your IP address to limit how often the free visualisation can be claimed. We do not store your raw IP address in our application database, and the hash cannot practically be reversed. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in preventing abuse and controlling costs.

How your photos are processed. Each photo (and, if you use the drawing feature, a marked-up copy) is sent once per generation to our AI provider, OpenRouter, which routes it to Google's image model to create your visualisation. Your images are not used by us to train AI models and we do not sell them. Your photos and results are private to your account unless you explicitly share an image.

Sharing feature. If you press Share on an image, or ask us to email your design to you, that single image becomes viewable by anyone with the unguessable link, on a page that also shows your before photo for comparison. Nothing else in your account is exposed. Email us or use the contact form to have a link disabled.

Emails we send. If you buy something we send a receipt, and if you ask us to email your design we send it to the address you gave. Because you asked us for that design, we may also send you a small number of follow-up emails about Garden Genius itself, such as other looks you could try and the price of extra images. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in marketing our own service to people who have used it. Every one of those emails has a one-click unsubscribe link, we act on it immediately, and we never pass your address to anyone else. Receipts and password resets are not marketing and will still reach you.

Who we share data with. We use a small number of service providers to run Garden Genius: 20i (UK web hosting, where the site and your images are stored), Stripe (payment processing), OpenRouter and Google (AI image generation, per-generation only), Resend (transactional email such as purchase receipts), and, only if you accept advertising cookies, Meta (advert measurement, described under Cookies below). Each processes data only to provide their service to us. We never sell your personal data, and we never send your photos or generated images to advertisers. We may disclose data where the law requires it.

Cookies and advertising. We set one essential cookie, which keeps you logged in. It is required for the site to work and needs no consent.

We also advertise on Facebook and Instagram, so we use the Meta advertising pixel to see which adverts lead to people trying Garden Genius. The pixel loads only if you press Accept on our cookie banner, and it sets cookies from Meta that can be used to measure our adverts and show you Garden Genius adverts elsewhere. Legal basis: your consent. If you press No thanks, the pixel is never loaded and no data goes to Meta. You can change your mind at any time using the Cookies link in the footer, which brings the banner back. When it is active, the pixel tells Meta that a visit, a free visualisation or a purchase happened, along with your IP address, browser details and any Meta cookies already on your device. Meta acts as a joint controller for this measurement data; their terms are at facebook.com/legal/controller_addendum and you can control ad personalisation in your Facebook and Instagram settings. Blocking third-party cookies in your browser, or using its tracking protection, also stops it.

How long we keep things. Your account, photos and generated images are kept while your account is active, so your projects remain available to you. Contact-form messages are kept until dealt with. Purchase records are kept for as long as accounting law requires. Free-visualisation grant hashes are automatically deleted within 90 days. If you ask us to delete your account, we remove your account, photos, generated images and share links, keeping only the payment records the law requires us to hold.

Your rights. Under UK data protection law you can ask us for a copy of your personal data, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to or restrict our processing, and ask for data you provided in a portable format. Email hello@gardengenius.org from your account email and we will respond within one month. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) if you are unhappy with how we handle your data.

Children. Garden Genius is not directed at children. You must be 18 or over to make purchases.

International transfers. Our AI and email providers may process data in the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on our providers' compliance frameworks and standard contractual safeguards.

Changes to this policy. If we make material changes, we will update the date above and highlight the change on the site.