Plant Vault

Privacy policy

Last updated 12 October 2026.

Plant Vault keeps your garden on your phone. If you sign in to a Pikeworks account, a private copy of your garden is kept with it so you can get it back on a new phone. A Pikeworks account and friends are optional and off until you choose them, and friends only ever see a plant you add and choose to share.

Who is responsible

Plant Vault is made by Pikeworks, a sole trader in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Pikeworks is the data controller for the small amount of processing described below. For anything about this policy, write to plantvault@pikeworks.co.uk.

What stays on your phone

Your gardens, plants, wishlist, kit, diary, photos, reminders, remembered facts and chat history are kept in Plant Vault's own database on the phone, where I can't see them. They're included in your phone's own backup if you have that turned on (Android's backup to your Google account, or iCloud on an iPhone), which is between you and Google or Apple.

Signed in to a Pikeworks account, a private copy of all of it, photos included, is kept with your account for you to bring back, as described under Cloud backup below. It never goes to friends.

What leaves your phone, and only when you ask

Plant Vault has no advertising, no analytics and no tracking. Nothing is sold or shared with anyone else.

Plant Vault AI

The AI is Google's Gemini, reached through Pikeworks' own relay on Cloudflare (ai.pikeworks.co.uk). When you ask something, the app sends your message, any photos you attach and a summary of your garden records so it can answer about your own plants: plant names, varieties, locations, care dates and notes, your kit and wishlist, open reminders, facts you asked it to remember, each garden's name and area (never its postcode) and the forecast. The relay checks that the request comes from the real app (with Firebase App Check) and that your subscription is live, then passes it to Gemini. It never stores what you ask or what comes back, only how many questions were asked. Google processes it under the Gemini API terms for paid services, and App Check under the Firebase terms. I don't keep a copy of your conversations. They're kept on the phone, and in your private cloud copy if you're signed in, and you can delete them.

Naming a plant with Google Lens

Without the subscription, "Name a plant free with Google Lens" on the Ask screen hands a photo you take or choose to Google Lens, in Google's own app on your phone. Plant Vault sends it nowhere itself and keeps no copy. What Google does with it is covered by Google's privacy policy.

Reporting an answer

If an answer is wrong or unsuitable, "This was wrong" under it sends that one question, that one answer, anything you type about it and the app version to me. It's stored in Plant Vault's own Google Firebase database in London, which only I can read. Nothing else from your garden goes with it, and nothing identifies you unless you type it. I read reports to put the app right, and delete them within a year.

Don't put anything private into a question that you wouldn't want Google to process. Plant Vault AI is for adults: you must be 18 or over to use it.

Your Pikeworks account, if you make one

You don't need an account to use Plant Vault. Without one, everything stays on your phone and the app works fully. A Pikeworks account is one sign-in for every Vault app, and you choose whether to make one, in Settings.

If you make one, the Pikeworks account service keeps:

• the email address you sign in with, if you use one, stored encrypted, with a scrambled copy so it can be found when you sign in;
• if you sign in with Google or Apple, the account number they give me, and with Apple a token I keep only so I can tell Apple when you delete your account. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, I only ever see the hidden address;
• your password, if you set one, scrambled so it can't be read back, not even by me;
• the public half of any passkey you make (the private half never leaves your phone);
• which phones and apps are signed in: the app, the kind of phone, and when each was last used;
• a short security log of sign-ins and changes to the account, which for 30 days also holds a scrambled tag made from your internet address, to slow down anyone guessing passwords.

I use these only to run the account you asked for and to keep it secure. Keeping it secure is a legitimate interest; running it is what you asked me to do. I never sell any of it, never use it for marketing, and never send you anything but sign-in codes and notices about your own account, such as a new way in being added.

Who handles it for me: Cloudflare runs the service and stores it in the European Union. Sign-in codes and notices are sent by Resend, which keeps the messages it sends in the United States under its data processing agreement, protected by the standard contractual clauses and the UK's addendum to them, and by Cloudflare's own email service. Cloudflare and Resend are companies in the United States.

How long I keep it: for as long as you have the account. A phone that hasn't used it for 18 months is signed out. If nobody signs in to the account for 24 months, I email you once, and delete it 30 days later unless you sign in. The security log is kept for 12 months. When you delete the account, everything above goes at once, and it is gone from my backups within 30 days.

Deleting it: in any Vault app, open Settings, then Pikeworks account, then Delete account. You can also do it on the web, from pikeworks.co.uk/delete-account, or by emailing plantvault@pikeworks.co.uk. Your entries on your phone stay where they are.

Your rights: you can ask for a copy of what the account holds, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to how it's used, by emailing plantvault@pikeworks.co.uk. Where the account has an email address, the copy is sent to that address as a file, so it only reaches you. I reply within a month. If you want to complain about how I handle your information, write to the same address: I'll say within 30 days that I have it, and what happens next. If you're still unhappy, you can go to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

The account isn't for anyone under 13.

Cloud backup, while you're signed in

While you're signed in to your Pikeworks account, Plant Vault keeps a copy of everything you've logged in it with your account, so you can get it back on a new phone or have it on another one. The copy is the same as Plant Vault's own backup file: everything you've logged, with any photos. It's saved by itself a minute or so after you change something, and only while you're signed in. Signed out, nothing is saved.

Only you can reach it: the copy is read only by Plant Vault, signed in to your account. I don't look at it or use it for anything else, and it never goes to friends. Cloudflare stores it for me in the European Union, in storage that isn't public. Cloudflare is a company in the United States.

One copy is kept, the newest. On a new phone, Plant Vault offers to bring it back when you sign in; what's on that phone stays, and the copy is added to it. If you use two phones, each adds the other's entries before it saves.

Deleting it: in Plant Vault, open Settings and use Delete the cloud copy. Everything on your phone stays. Deleting your Pikeworks account deletes every app's copy at once. Either way it's gone straight away; I keep no other copy of it.

Friends, if you turn them on

Friends is optional, and it's off until you turn it on. It needs a Pikeworks account. With it on, you can add people you know by their handle, a link or a QR code, see what they choose to share, and react and comment. Nobody can search for you, nothing suggests you to anyone, there are no public profiles, and nothing can be reshared. You can have up to 200 friends.

Every app starts private. Nothing from Plant Vault reaches anyone until you say so in Plant Vault, and then only the entries you switch sharing on for when you save them. A note starts switched off every time, and so does anything that says where you were.

If you turn friends on, the friends service keeps:

• your handle, and a display name if you add one. Your picture is drawn from a random pattern; you can't upload one;
• your invite code, which version of the community rules you agreed to, for each app whether it's shared with friends or private and whether you want a notice when a friend posts, and which app gets notices about friend requests;
• your friends, the friend requests you've sent and received, and the people you've blocked;
• the posts you share: what the share screen showed for that entry, such as its name and your rating, and only if you switched them on, a note, a photo or where it was;
• the comments and reactions you add;
• notices for you, such as a friend accepting your request or commenting on your post;
• in apps with friends tables, a few numbers for this year worked out from your log, such as how many different things you've logged, and for some tables the name of your top entry. The log itself never leaves your phone for this;
• for each phone that gets friends notifications: an identifier that Google's Firebase, or Apple, gives that phone for Plant Vault, whether it's Android or iPhone, and the phone's time zone, so notices arrive quietly at night;
• photos you share. Your phone makes a copy 1,080 pixels across and takes out everything the camera recorded, such as where and when it was taken, and the service turns away any photo that still has those details;
• any report you make, and if someone reports something of yours, a copy of what they reported, kept so that deleting it doesn't destroy the evidence;
• a record of anything I do about a report, such as taking something down or switching friends off for an account. If an account is barred from friends for good, I also keep the Google or Apple account number it signed in with and a scrambled fingerprint of its email address (never the address itself), so the same sign-in can't come back to friends on a new account.

Plant Vault also keeps a copy of what you've seen in friends on your phone, so it works without signal. That copy is kept apart from your log, isn't included in your phone's backup or the app's backup file, and is wiped when you sign out.

Who sees what: your friends see your posts from Plant Vault, and where you come in Plant Vault's tables, while Plant Vault is shared with friends and neither of you has blocked the other. Set Plant Vault back to private and they stop seeing them, without anything being deleted. Comments and reactions are seen with the post they're on, by the person whose post it is and by their friends who can see it. Some of them may not be your friends, so they see your handle, your display name and what you added. Someone you send a friend request to sees your handle and display name. Anyone with your invite link or QR code can send you a request; the link carries a code, not your handle, and making a new link stops the old one working. Handles, display names, posts and comments are checked automatically against a list of words that aren't allowed, and a display name can't hold a web address. Nothing else is read unless it is reported, and then I read it myself.

I use all this to run friends, which you asked for when you turned it on, and to keep it safe, which is a legitimate interest. When the law requires me to report something, as it does for anything that puts a child at risk, I do so because of that legal duty. I never sell any of it and never use it for marketing.

Who handles it for me: Cloudflare runs the friends service and stores what it holds, photos included, in the European Union. Notifications go through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging and, for iPhones, Apple's push service. Each one carries the app's name and one plain line saying who did what, with the title of the post it is about cut to 40 characters, such as "Sam commented on your Neck Oil": never a note, a comment, anything else anyone wrote, or a photo. Where Firebase is used on your phone, it starts only when you turn friends on, with its analytics off. When something is reported, a private Discord channel gets a one-line alert with the kind of report, the app, the reason and a reference number, never a handle or what was written. Cloudflare, Google, Apple and Discord are companies in the United States. Friends never sends email, so Resend, which sends the account's sign-in codes, handles none of it. If something shared puts a child at risk, I report it to the National Crime Agency, as UK law requires, with the details of the account that shared it.

How long I keep it: for as long as you have the account, except where it says otherwise here.

• A photo on a post is deleted after 90 days, and the post stays, saying the photo is no longer shared. A photo that isn't added to a post within a day is deleted.
• Notices are kept for 60 days, and only this year's table numbers are kept.
• A friend request nobody answers lapses after 30 days.
• A phone's notification identifier goes when you sign out on that phone, or when the phone hasn't refreshed it for 30 days.
• When you change your handle, the old one is held for you for 30 days.
• Something taken down for breaking the rules is deleted 30 days later, and its photo straight away.
• Something reported is kept, where nobody in the app can see it, until the report is dealt with, even if it is deleted or its 90 days pass. A report is kept for a year after it is closed, and the record of what I did about it for a year.
• Anything reported because it may put a child at risk is kept until I have looked at it, even if it is deleted. If it is child abuse, I report it to the National Crime Agency, as the law requires, and it is kept for a year from the day I send that report, with what the law calls relevant data about the account that shared it: its posts, comments, photos, fish handed over, sessions and friend connections from the two weeks before. Then it is deleted unless the Agency asks me to keep it longer. The Agency's reference number for my report is kept for five years. If it is not child abuse, it is let go that night.
• A bar from friends for good is kept after the account is deleted, because that is its purpose.

Whatever is deleted is gone from my backups within 30 days.

Block and Report: every post, comment, friend and friend request has Block and Report, and so does everything else friends lets someone send you. Blocking someone works in every Vault at once. It ends the friendship, cancels your requests to them, and hides your posts, comments, reactions, notices and table rows from each other. They aren't told, and a request from them never reaches you. You can unblock someone under Blocked in Friends; that doesn't bring the friendship back. I read every report myself and aim to do it within a day, and the person you report is never told who reported them. Anything reported as putting a child at risk is hidden straight away, and anything three people report is hidden until I've looked at it. Breaking the rules can mean what you shared is taken down, and friends switched off for your account for 7 days, 30 days or for good; your own log and backups aren't touched.

Deleting it: you can delete any post or comment of yours, and any comment on your own posts, at any time. Deleting your Pikeworks account, as above, deletes everything friends holds about you too: your profile, friends, requests, blocks, posts, comments, reactions, notices, numbers and photos. Reports about you are closed and their copies deleted, apart from anything held because it may put a child at risk. Reports you made stay open, with your account taken off them, so what you reported is still looked at. Your handle is freed 30 days later.

Your rights: the rights described for the account cover friends too. Email plantvault@pikeworks.co.uk to ask for a copy of what friends holds about you, to have it corrected or deleted, or to object to how it's used.

Friends isn't for anyone under 13, or under 18 in an app that is for adults.

What a plant shared with friends carries

In Plant Vault, friends start private: nothing from Plant Vault reaches them until you turn sharing on in Friends. Even then, a plant only goes when you add it, or move it from your wishlist into a garden, and switch Tell friends on in the form. That switch starts off every time. It carries the plant's name, its variety and its botanical name. Never your gardens, where it grows, its care, your notes, your diary, your kit, your chats with Plant Vault AI or your photos: the app doesn't read them to make a post. Editing a plant later never shares it again, and nothing on your wishlist is shared. The table in Friends counts the different species each of you has added this year, and your friends aren't told when you share a plant: they see it when they next open Friends.

Photos and the camera

Photos you add stay in Plant Vault's own storage on the phone. The camera and gallery are only used when you choose a photo. A photo only leaves the phone if you attach it to an AI question, if you've linked a sheet and the photo is part of a record you asked to be copied there, or, while you're signed in, in your private cloud copy.

Notifications

Care notes, reminders and frost warnings are worked out on the phone and shown by the phone. None of them is sent from a server.

Your rights

Your records live on your phone, so you're in control of them. Settings has an export of everything as CSV and JSON, and "Delete everything", which clears the app. A sheet you linked is yours, in your Drive, and you delete it there. You also have the usual UK GDPR rights over any personal data I hold, which in practice is what you send me in an email, a report you send with "This was wrong", and your Pikeworks account, its cloud copy and friends if you made one. For those you can ask for a copy, ask for them to be corrected or deleted, or object to how they're used. Write to plantvault@pikeworks.co.uk and I'll answer within a month. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Deleting your Pikeworks account deletes the account, its cloud copy and everything friends holds about you, as described above, and it's gone from my backups within 30 days. Do it in More, then Pikeworks account, then Delete account, or on the web from pikeworks.co.uk/delete-account, without installing anything. Deleting the account doesn't touch your garden on your phone.

Children

Plant Vault isn't aimed at children or designed for them. Plant Vault AI requires you to be 18 or over. A Pikeworks account and friends aren't for anyone under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and anything important is pointed out in the app.