Privacy Policy

Effective date: June 2026 · Last updated: October 2026

1. What we collect

• Account data: name, email, country, experience level. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google. Trial accounts hold no email address until you save them.
• Garden data: farm name, location, crops planted, tasks, and the diary entries and photos you add.
• Marketplace data: your listings, the photos you upload with them, an optional contact phone number, and an approximate location.
• Device data (mobile app): your device location, only when you allow it, to set your garden location and find nearby listings; and a push notification token, only if you turn notifications on.
• Usage data: pages visited, features used — collected via anonymised analytics.

2. How we use your data

• To provide and personalise GrowLocal features (task reminders, local map, crop advice).
• To show your listings to nearby users on the marketplace and map.
• To send transactional emails (verification, password reset). We do not send marketing emails without your consent.
• To improve the platform through aggregated, anonymised analytics.

3. What we do NOT do

• We do not sell your personal data to third parties.
• We do not share your email address with other users — only your first name and last initial are visible publicly.
• We do not store payment information. GrowLocal does not process payments between users.

4. Affiliate links & advertising

GrowLocal uses Amazon affiliate links. Clicking these takes you to Amazon; their privacy policy applies to any purchase. We use Google AdSense to display ads; Google may use cookies to personalise ads based on your browsing history. You can opt out at adssettings.google.com.

5. Location data

If you add a farm or marketplace listing, we store an approximate location (latitude/longitude) to enable the local map and nearby search. You control whether your farm appears on the public map via the "Show on community map" toggle.

6. Data retention

Your data is kept while your account is active. You can delete your account and its data at any time from the app (Profile → Delete my account) or from your profile on the website; full steps are at growlocal.today/delete-account. Deletion is immediate and backups are overwritten within 30 days. If you cannot sign in, email hello@growlocal.today.

7. Security & service providers

Passwords are hashed with bcrypt, and all data in transit uses HTTPS. Your data is stored on servers we run with DigitalOcean in the United States. We share only what each service needs to do its job: Open-Meteo receives garden coordinates to fetch weather; OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) receives an address you type to find its coordinates; Expo receives your push token to deliver notifications; Anthropic receives the questions you ask the AI assistant; Resend receives your email address to send account emails; and Google verifies your sign-in if you use Google.

8. Your rights

Under applicable law (DPDP Act 2023 for India, state privacy laws for the US), you have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data. Contact us at hello@growlocal.today.

9. Children

GrowLocal is not intended for users under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

10. Contact

Data controller: GrowLocal · hello@growlocal.today