Rank Privacy Policy

Draft, not legal advice; review by a qualified lawyer before public launch. Placeholders in [square brackets] must be filled in. Confirm every processor and retention period against the production setup before publishing.

Last updated: [Date]

This Privacy Policy explains how [Company Name] ("Rank", "we", "us") collects, uses, and shares personal data when you use the Rank website, app, and related services (the "Service"). For data protection purposes, [Company Name], [Address], is the controller of your personal data. Contact: [Privacy Contact Email].

1. Summary

• Rankings are saved automatically in your account. We store the photos, prompt, title, and result order until you delete the ranking or your account.
• You control deletion. You can edit or delete rankings at any time; deletion removes the files and database records.
• We do not log your prompts, run content analytics on your photos, train AI models on your photos, or sell your data.
• We strip EXIF metadata (including GPS location) from photos in your browser before upload.
• Photos and prompts are checked by automated moderation and sent to a third-party AI model to produce the ranking. We request zero data retention and no training from these providers where available.

2. Data we collect

2.1 Account data

• Email address and name (from sign-up or from your Google account if you sign in with Google). If you use Google, we may also receive your Google profile picture and a Google account identifier.
• Password, stored only as a one-way hash. We never see or store it in plain text.
• Age confirmation: a record that you confirmed you are 18 or older, and when.
• Account timestamps (for example, when you created your account).

2.2 Session and security data

• Session cookies that keep you signed in (see Section 8).
• Session records, which may include your IP address, browser/device type (user agent), and session expiry.
• Rate-limit counters linked to your account, to prevent abuse.
• Technical logs generated by our hosting provider and application (for example, request time, IP address, status codes, and error messages). These do not include your photos or prompts.

2.3 Photos and prompts

• Rankings: your browser removes EXIF metadata and creates a 512-pixel copy for AI ranking and a display copy up to 1600 pixels. When you generate a ranking, we send the photos and prompt for moderation, send only the 512-pixel copies to the ranking model, and automatically save both copies, the prompt, title, and result order in your account. They remain until you delete the ranking or your account.
• Image URL imports: if you add an image by URL, our server retrieves and streams the image to your browser for the same processing. We do not store or log the imported URL. DNS resolution and the source image host receive the network requests needed to retrieve it.

2.4 Connected photo imports

Google Photos imports use the Picker API: you explicitly select the photos to share. Instagram imports support only your own Business or Creator account media; personal Instagram accounts are not supported. We do not scrape private accounts. Before connecting, the import dialog asks for consent to send selected photos to Rank, OpenRouter and its ranking providers, and configured moderation providers. Imported photos pass through the same browser metadata removal, private upload, validation, moderation, retention and deletion flow as uploaded files.

OAuth tokens remain server-side in an encrypted, short-lived import session; they are never exposed to the browser. No refresh token or persistent background access is requested. Closing/cancelling an import removes its local token and media catalog and attempts to delete its Google Picker session; abandoned tokens expire after 15 minutes and are purged on subsequent import requests. Deleting your account removes these records. You can also revoke access in Google or Instagram account settings. Photo and ranking deletion removes Rank's copies, not your originals at Google/Instagram.

Rank's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not use Google Photos data to train, create, or improve general AI/ML models, for advertising, or for unrelated profiling. Enabling live Google Photos access requires review of this feature and downstream processing against the Google Photos API policy; no Google approval is implied.

2.5 Communications

If you email us (for example, for support or to report abuse), we keep the message and your contact details to handle your request.

We do not collect payment data (the Service is currently free), use advertising trackers, or buy data about you from third parties.

Uploaded draft photos are private and removed when you discard them. Abandoned drafts are reclaimed after 24 hours when you next start an upload. Display copies use WebP where supported, with a JPEG fallback. When you click Rank, your criterion is checked, refined once by DeepSeek through OpenRouter, and checked again before comparisons. We keep your original prompt; refinement failures stop the ranking and offer retry. Your photos are not sent to the text-refinement model.

3. How we use your data, and our legal bases

We do not use your data for advertising or profiling, and we do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects based solely on automated processing. AI rankings describe photos for your own use and are not decisions about you. Automated moderation may block a prompt or upload; you can contact us if you think this was a mistake.

Images of people. Photos may contain faces or other information that could reveal sensitive characteristics. We do not use photos to identify people, create biometric templates, or infer sensitive characteristics, and our Terms prohibit prompts that rank people by such characteristics. If you upload photos of other people, you are responsible for having their consent (see our Terms).

4. Who we share data with (processors)

We share data only with service providers that process it on our behalf to run the Service, and as described in Section 5. We do not sell or "share" personal data for cross-context behavioral advertising (as those terms are defined in the CCPA).

AI and moderation providers. For every ranking request we instruct OpenRouter to route only to providers that offer zero data retention and to deny use of data for training ("data collection: deny"). We choose moderation services that, according to their published terms, do not retain or train on submitted content, or that let us request this. We cannot independently guarantee that every provider retains nothing at all: providers may keep limited data under their own policies, for example to detect abuse or comply with law. See each provider's privacy policy for details.

Our authentication software (Better Auth) is open-source code that runs on our own servers; it is not a separate company that receives your data.

Live imported-photo activation is unverified. OpenRouter documents sampled prompt categorization for reporting/model ranking separately from downstream model-provider retention. Routing restrictions alone do not establish end-to-end policy compliance. Before connecting live Google Photos/Instagram accounts, the operator must review OpenRouter's own handling, the applicability of sampling to image-bearing requests, downstream-provider terms, and Google/Meta use-policy eligibility. No such approval or production clearance is implied by the current implementation. See OpenRouter's collection documentation.

5. Other disclosures

We may disclose personal data:

• For legal reasons: to comply with law, a court order, or a valid request from authorities; to enforce our Terms; or to protect the rights, safety, or property of users, the public, or us.
• Child safety: if we detect or are told about suspected child sexual abuse material, we will report it, with related account information, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and/or law enforcement, as required or permitted by law.
• Business transfers: if [Company Name] is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, or if the Service is transferred to a company set up to operate it, data may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

6. Retention

Encrypted backups maintained by our hosting provider may keep deleted data for a limited time (for example, database point-in-time recovery of up to [30] days) before being overwritten. We do not restore deleted user data from backups except to recover from a system failure, and if we do, we will re-apply your deletions.

7. Your rights and choices

Everyone can:

• view, rename, and edit rankings, and delete individual photos, rankings, or the whole account, from inside the app;
• ask us for a copy of your data, or to correct it, by emailing [Privacy Contact Email].

If you are in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you also have the right to: access your personal data; correct it; delete it; restrict or object to processing (including processing based on legitimate interests); data portability; and withdraw consent where we rely on consent. You can complain to your local data protection authority.

If you are a California resident, under the CCPA/CPRA you have the right to know what personal data we collect, use, and disclose; to access and delete it; to correct it; to opt out of sale or sharing (we do not sell or share it); to limit use of sensitive personal information (we use only what is needed to provide the Service); and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. Categories collected in the last 12 months: identifiers (email, name, IP address, account ID); customer records; internet or network activity (session and log data); and photos you submit for ranking (which may be audio/visual information). We collect them from you and, if you use Google sign-in, from Google, for the purposes in Section 3, and disclose them only to the service providers in Section 4.

Residents of other places (for example, other U.S. states, Kenya, Canada, Brazil) may have similar rights under local law. We will honor requests as the applicable law requires.

How to make a request: email [Privacy Contact Email] from the email address on your account. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond within the time required by law (usually within one month, or 45 days under the CCPA). You may use an authorized agent where the law allows.

8. Cookies

We use only strictly necessary cookies: session cookies that keep you signed in and protect against cross-site request forgery, plus any security cookies set by Cloudflare to protect the Service from attacks. We do not use advertising, analytics, or third-party tracking cookies. If we add any in future, we will update this policy and ask for consent where required.

9. Security

We protect your data with measures that include:

• encryption in transit (HTTPS) and encryption at rest by our hosting provider;
• saved photos stored under your account and served only through authenticated routes or short-lived signed links, never through public URLs;
• passwords stored only as salted hashes;
• server-side secrets for AI providers (your browser never receives them);
• EXIF/GPS metadata removed before upload;
• per-account rate limits and automated moderation.

No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a data breach that affects you, we will notify you and the authorities as required by law.

10. Children

The Service is for adults 18 and older only. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will delete it. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact [Privacy Contact Email].

11. International transfers

We are based in [Country], and our providers process data in the United States and other countries where they or their sub-processors operate, including on Cloudflare's global network. These countries may have different data protection laws from yours. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for transfers, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum), the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified, or other lawful transfer mechanisms. Contact us for more information.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version with a new "Last updated" date and, for material changes, notify you by email or in the app before they take effect.

13. Contact

[Company Name] [Address] Privacy questions and requests: [Privacy Contact Email] General: [Contact Email] [EU/UK representative details, if required]