Privacy Policy

Your Account

MyCology uses Google Firebase Authentication to create and manage accounts. Your email address, password, user name, and account identifier are processed for sign-in and account management. Your email address and user name are also saved on your device for display in the app. Firebase processes technical information, including IP addresses and user-agent information, to operate and secure authentication.

Mushroom Identification

When you request an identification, MyCology sends your selected photo through its Google Firebase Cloud Functions backend to Kindwise’s mushroom identification service. If available, the request includes the sighting’s latitude, longitude, and observation time. Kindwise processes this information and returns identification suggestions.

Your account identifier is used by MyCology’s backend to authorize the request and enforce usage limits. MyCology does not include your account identifier, email address, or user name in the request sent to Kindwise.

Kindwise Photo Retention and Reuse

Kindwise retains submitted photos and identification information under its API terms. Those terms provide Kindwise with a non-exclusive, unlimited, and irrevocable license to use and modify submitted photos for commercial purposes, including developing machine-learning and other AI systems, providing photos in results to other customers, and sharing photos under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 license or later.

Kindwise’s terms state that human faces are blurred before further reuse and that end-user personal data are anonymized after six months. Anonymization does not mean the photos are deleted.

Submit only photos you have permission to share. Avoid photos containing people or sensitive personal information. Deleting your MyCology account does not automatically delete requests already sent to Kindwise or revoke the photo license described in its terms.

Read Kindwise’s API Terms

Identification Usage Counts

MyCology stores daily identification-attempt counts in Google Cloud Firestore. Each account’s count is linked to its Firebase account identifier and the date, with a timestamp of the latest update. These records enforce daily limits and help control service costs. They do not contain your photos, sighting locations, or notes.

Account-linked usage records currently have no scheduled automatic expiration. After your Firebase account is deleted, a backend cleanup process removes these records. This cleanup may take time and is retried if it fails.

MyCology also keeps a shared daily total that is not linked to an individual account. This total remains after account deletion.

Technical Information and Diagnostics

Google Firebase and Google Cloud process technical information to operate, secure, and troubleshoot MyCology’s backend. Operational logs may include IP addresses, user-agent information, request times, response status, processing duration, and error information.

MyCology’s identification function also logs service response status and limited error information when an identification fails. Its explicit diagnostic messages do not include your photo, password, email address, user name, or sighting coordinates.

Account deletion does not automatically erase all operational logs. Log retention is governed by the applicable Google service policies and project settings.

Your Mushroom Collection

Photos, species names, sighting details, notes, and locations saved to your collection are stored on your device. MyCology uses them to display your sightings, recent finds, favorites, and awards. Your saved collection is not uploaded to your Firebase account. Photos and related information submitted for identification are processed separately as described above.

Camera, Photos, and Location

MyCology uses the camera when you choose to take a photo and accesses a photo when you choose it from your library. Location information may come from your device’s location permission or from a selected photo. You can manage camera, photo, and location permissions in iOS Settings.

Advertising and Analytics

The current version of MyCology does not include advertising or a separate analytics service. Identification usage counts and backend diagnostics support app operation and troubleshooting.

Your Choices and Deletion

You can choose whether to request identification and whether to grant device permissions.

Delete My Account in the Account tab removes your Firebase Authentication account and starts cleanup of your account-linked usage counts. The app then removes the mushroom collection stored in this installation. If local cleanup fails, the app offers a retry.

Deleting the app removes its local app data from that device but does not, by itself, delete your Firebase account or information previously sent to Kindwise.

For privacy questions or requests concerning previously submitted information, contact only1kcm@gmail.com. We can help coordinate requests with the relevant service provider.

Device Backups

Device backups are managed through your device and Apple account settings. Deleting records in MyCology does not necessarily remove copies from existing backups.

Changes to This Policy

We will update this policy when MyCology’s features or data practices change and revise the date shown above.

Contact

MyCology is provided by Kally Mavromatis. For privacy questions, contact only1kcm@gmail.com.