Privacy Policy

Recola Pty Ltd ("Recola", "we", "us") respects your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect when you use the Recola app, how we use it, and the choices you have.

Recola Pty Ltd is incorporated in Australia. We are bound by the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and we extend equivalent protections to users everywhere. For people in the European Union and the United Kingdom, Recola Pty Ltd is the controller of your personal data under the GDPR and the UK GDPR.

What we collect

• Content you save: the video links and URLs you choose to share into Recola, together with the structured data we extract from them (recipes, places, outfits, products, songs, and other categories).
• Photos you add: a photo you add of something you did is stored privately on your account, shown only to you, until you delete it or your account.
• Post metadata: when you save a post, we retrieve its public metadata (caption, media, location tag and public comments). Where a service provider does this for us, it receives the post link only, never your identity.
• AI analysis outputs: Recola sends the content you save to third-party AI services to extract structured information. The results of that analysis — ingredients, locations, product details, and so on — are stored in your library.
• Account information: basic details you provide when creating an account, such as your email address and the display name you enter, and information needed to secure it.
• Usage data: counts and timestamps of your saves, and basic interaction events used to operate limits, streaks and digests.
• Device data: platform and app version, your device's time zone (so reminders and digests arrive at a sensible local hour), a push-notification token if you enable notifications, and crash and performance reports so we can fix problems. A crash report may include a stack trace and the screen you were on.
• Approximate location, only if you allow it: if you grant Recola access to your location, we store your approximate area — rounded to about one kilometre, never your exact position or address — so that reminders about places you have saved only reach you when the place is actually near you. This is optional, it is off unless you turn it on, and Recola works without it. See Place reminders and your location below.

Importing your saves. If you choose to import, you log in to Instagram or TikTok inside Recola. Your login stays with that service: Recola does not see or keep your password, and nothing from the login is kept after the import. Recola reads the list of posts you saved, on your phone, and saves only the ones you pick, the same way as when you share a post to Recola.

We deliberately minimise what we keep. Videos you share from other apps are processed transiently and are not kept; what remains is your text metadata and preview imagery. A video from your own camera roll is kept privately, so you can play it in Recola, until you delete it.

How we use it

We use your information to provide and improve Recola: processing and analysing the videos you save, organising the results into your personal library, syncing that library to your account, managing your subscription, and sending the notifications you have enabled. We also use some of it to measure how well our own ads work, as Measuring our ads describes.

To keep your collections accurate, Recola checks automatically how your saves are sorted, and the Recola team may occasionally look at a single save to correct a sorting mistake. It never leaves our own systems.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not use your saved content to train AI models, and we do not share it with anyone for advertising. There are no ads in Recola, and Recola never asks to track you across other apps or websites. We do measure how well our own ads on other platforms work, as described in Measuring our ads below. We do use a product-analytics provider (which screens are used, and where people get stuck) and a crash-diagnostics provider to keep Recola working. Both process data on our behalf in the United States under Australian Privacy Principle 8. Neither receives the content you save: not your notes, titles, transcripts, captions or extracted details. What they receive is limited to interaction events, error reports, and the account identifier needed to connect them.

AI processing and third-party services

To extract structured information from what you save, Recola uses third-party AI services. When you save something, relevant content may be transmitted to those services for analysis. We share only what is necessary for the analysis, and we use these services as a paying customer under terms that prohibit the provider from using your content to train or improve its models.

When you ask Recola a question, the question and the saves needed to answer it are sent to the same AI services to write the answer. The conversation, and any plan it makes, stays on your phone: we do not keep your questions or answers on our servers.

Our service providers, by role and by where they process data, are: database, sign-in and file storage (Australia); media processing (Australia); AI analysis (United States); retrieval of public post metadata (United States and European Union); product search, which receives an item's description only (United States); mapping, which receives place names and coordinates only (United States); subscription status, which also reports trials, subscriptions and renewals for ad measurement (United States); payments and push-notification delivery (Apple); push-notification delivery and account email (United States); product analytics and crash diagnostics (United States); and ad measurement, which receives the events described in Measuring our ads (United States). Except for ad measurement, which works under the advertising platform's own terms, each processes data on our behalf, under contract, and only to the extent needed to provide Recola. None of them receives your identity unless their role requires it (sign-in, subscription status, account email, and ad measurement, which receives a coded form of your account ID). The current list of providers is available on request from privacy@recola.app.

For outfits, products and decor, Recola shows where an item can be found, with a link to the retailer. Nothing that identifies you is sent to find that link. Links open the retailer in your browser; Recola is not paid for them.

Recola may look up public facts about things you save, on Wikipedia. Only the thing's name is sent, never anything that identifies you.

Measuring our ads

To tell which of our ads work, Recola tells Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, in the United States, when the app is installed and opened and how long each visit lasts. Our subscription provider also tells Meta when a free trial starts, when a subscription begins and each time it renews, with the plan and its price, from its own servers, even when the app is closed. This happens only if your App Store account is in the United States or Australia and your phone is set to a time zone there, whether or not you saw one of our ads; anywhere else, Recola sends Meta nothing. Meta uses it to report to us which of our ads led to installs and trials. With these it receives a random identifier made for this purpose, a coded form of your Recola account ID, basic details about your phone, such as its model, system version, language and time zone, and reports of errors in its own code. Like any service your phone connects to, it can see your IP address, and from that and your time zone it can work out roughly where you are, such as your country or US state. If you installed Recola from one of our ads, Apple may also tell Meta so, without saying who you are.

It never receives your name, your email address, anything you save, or your phone's advertising identifier, and Recola never asks to track you across other apps or websites; it tells Meta you have not allowed tracking. Meta handles this information under its own terms for advertisers, and may use it to measure ads and to choose which ads to show people, including you. It keeps what it receives for up to two years, and deleting your Recola account does not delete it. For installs and app opens, Recola also asks Meta to limit how it uses this information for people in the US states where it offers that option.

The random identifier stays on your phone until you delete Recola, and our subscription provider keeps a copy to report trials. Deleting Recola from your phone stops the app's own reports; a subscription you keep may still be reported each time it renews, until it ends. You can control how Meta uses information about you for ads in Meta's ad preferences, in your Facebook or Instagram settings, and opt out of interest-based ads from participating companies through the Digital Advertising Alliance at aboutads.info/choices.

Place reminders and your location

Recola reminds you about things you saved and have not used yet. For places, a reminder is only useful if you could actually go — a cafe in your city is worth a nudge, a restaurant you saved for a trip next year is not.

By default Recola works this out without any location access at all, from the device settings it already has (such as your time zone). That is enough to tell your own country from somewhere overseas, and it is what everyone gets.

If you allow location access, Recola can be more precise and only remind you about places that are genuinely near you. In that case:

• We ask only for "while using the app" access. Recola never requests background or always-on location and does not track your movements.
• We read your position when you open the app, round it to roughly one kilometre, and store that rounded value on your account. We do not store your precise coordinates or your address.
• The rounded area we store is used for one thing: deciding which saved places are near enough to be worth a reminder. It is not used for advertising, profiling, or tracking you across other apps or websites, and it is not shared with any third party.
• With the same permission, the Places map can show where you are, as a dot your phone draws on the map. Recola does not read, send or keep that position.
• You can refuse, and nothing else in Recola changes. You can also turn it off at any time in your device settings, and we stop reading it.

Sharing

We share your information only with service providers who help us operate Recola (such as cloud infrastructure and AI analysis providers), and only to the extent needed to provide the service. We also send the events described in Measuring our ads to the advertising platform that measures our ads. We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect the rights and safety of Recola and its users.

Storage, security and overseas transfer

Your data is held with established cloud infrastructure providers using industry-standard safeguards: encryption in transit (TLS), encrypted credential storage on your device, and access controls so that only you can read your data, apart from the occasional sorting check described above.

Your library and account are stored in Australia. Some processing happens outside Australia, principally in the United States and, for Instagram post metadata, the European Union, by the providers named above. Where it does, we take reasonable steps consistent with APP 8 to ensure your information is handled in line with this policy and applicable law, including contractual data-processing terms with each provider (the ad measurement platform handles what it receives under its own terms for advertisers) and, for transfers of EU and UK personal data, the EU standard contractual clauses or the UK addendum where they apply.

If we become aware of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm to you, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires, and any other regulator where the law requires it.

Data retention

We retain your account data and library content for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. Your saves are retained until you delete them or you delete your account.

When you delete your account we permanently delete your profile, saves and metadata within 30 days, except where a law requires us to retain a specific record. What the ad measurement platform has already received stays under its own terms, for up to two years, as Measuring our ads says.

Your rights

Wherever you are, you can:

• Access everything you have saved, in the app.
• Correct your account details in Settings.
• Delete any individual save from its detail screen, remove individual items from your tiles, or delete your entire account and all associated data in Settings.
• Request a copy of your data by emailing privacy@recola.app.

If you are in the EU or UK, you additionally have the rights the GDPR and UK GDPR give you: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Our lawful bases are performance of our contract with you (running the service you subscribed to), our legitimate interests (keeping Recola secure, understanding how it is used, and fixing faults), and your consent where we ask for it (notifications). If you are a California resident, you have equivalent rights under the CCPA/CPRA. We honour these requests for all users, whichever law applies to you; ad measurement is the one exception, and the way to stop it is in Measuring our ads.

Automated processing: Recola uses automated systems, including AI models, to read what you save and file it into categories, to pick reminders, and to assemble your weekly digest. These systems organise your own content for you. They make no decision about you that has a legal or similarly significant effect, and their results are not used for advertising or to deny you anything.

Complaints

If you have a privacy concern, contact us first at privacy@recola.app — we aim to respond within 30 days. If you are unsatisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au) or your local data-protection authority.

Children

Recola is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. We do not ask for a date of birth; by accepting our Terms when you create an account, you confirm you are 13 or older. If we learn that an account belongs to a child under 13 we delete it and its data. If you believe a child has created an account, contact privacy@recola.app and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves. When we do, we update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email privacy@recola.app.