Jade Privacy Policy
Jade collects as little as it can. This page says what the app collects, why, who can see it, and how to delete it. If anything here is unclear, write to support@jade.eco.
1. Who is responsible
"Jade," "we," and "us" mean the Jade service at jade.eco, based in the United States.
2. What the app collects
- Email address, and your name and profile photo if you sign in with Apple or Google Why: to create your account and send sign-in codes Who can see it: only you and Jade. Hidden from other members at the database level.
- Display name you choose Why: shown next to your reviews and photos Who can see it: public, including people who are not signed in
- Reviews: leaf rating, written text, observation chips Why: your contributions Who can see it: public
- Photos, with optional title and caption Why: your contributions Who can see it: public
- Favorites (businesses you save) Why: your saved list Who can see it: only you. If you save favorites before signing in, they stay on your phone and merge into your account when you sign in.
- Location, only while the app is open and only if you allow it Why: to find and rank businesses near you Who can see it: sent with your search to Jade's server and to Google. Not saved on your account. See section 5.
- Reports you file and members you block Why: moderation Who can see it: reports, only Jade. Blocks, only you. The person reported or blocked is not told.
- Which version of the Terms you agreed to, and when Why: a record of your agreement Who can see it: only Jade
- Account age and counts of your reviews, photos, and reports Why: to weigh reports (newer accounts count less) and to limit upload abuse Who can see it: only Jade
- Business suggestions you send by email Why: to add or correct a business page Who can see it: Jade. If we publish your "why it's sustainable" text, it may appear with or without your name.
- Technical records: app version, error logs, and request logs from our servers Why: to keep the app working and to find bugs Who can see it: only Jade and the providers in section 6
- Usage and error events: when the app is installed and opened, searches (the words you type and how many results come back), businesses you open, save, or review, invites you share, setting your display name, and app errors with the error message and where in the app it happened Why: to count how many people use Jade and in which states, see which parts of the app get used, and fix crashes. For a review, the event records the rating and the number of chips, not what you wrote. Who can see it: only Jade and PostHog (section 6). Each event carries your device model, iOS version, app version, and a rough location that PostHog works out from your IP address (city or state, never GPS). When you are signed in, events are tied to your account's random ID. When you are signed out, they are tied to a random ID the app creates for this install, and signing out starts a new one. Your email, your name, and your phone's location are never sent.
The app has no ads and no advertising tracking. It does not track you across other apps or websites, and it does not read your device's advertising identifier. The usage and error events above go to PostHog and nowhere else.
3. Your display name is public
Your display name appears next to every review and photo you post, and anyone can see it, including people who are not signed in. Your email address, real name, and profile photo from Apple or Google are never shown to other members. Pick a display name you are comfortable with. You can change it in the app.
4. Photos
When you upload a photo, the app re-encodes it before it leaves your phone. That removes the location, camera, and other hidden metadata. We store only the picture, your caption and title, and which business it belongs to.
Every uploaded photo is checked by an automated service (Google Cloud Vision) before it appears. The service looks for adult or violent content. The image is sent for the check and is not kept by the service or used to train it. A photo the check flags is hidden until a person at Jade looks at it.
Photos of a storefront can include passers-by. We ask members not to post photos whose main subject is a person who has not agreed to appear. If you appear in a photo on Jade and want it removed, email support@jade.eco.
5. Location
The app asks for permission to use your location. If you allow it, your location is used only while the app is open, to find and rank businesses near you. It is sent with your search to Jade's server and, for some searches, to Google's Places service. Jade does not store your location on your account and does not build a history of where you have been. Your phone keeps your last location so the app can open faster; that copy never leaves the device.
If you say no, the app still works. You can search by name or neighborhood.
6. Who processes your data
Jade is small and runs on a few service providers. Each one is bound by terms that limit what it can do with your data to running the service for us.
- Supabase (United States): database, file storage for photos, and sign-in. This is where your account lives.
- Apple: Sign in with Apple. If you choose "Hide My Email," Apple gives us a relay address instead of your real one.
- Google: Google sign-in, Places data about businesses, and the automated photo check in section 4. When you search, your location and search text go to Google's Places service under Google's privacy policy.
- PostHog (United States): the usage and error events in section 2. PostHog uses your IP address to estimate a rough location for each event.
- Resend: sends the emails in section 7.
- Cloudflare: hosts jade.eco, including the pages the app opens for Terms and Privacy.
Information about businesses is also received from other sources and shown with its source. Business names, addresses, hours, phone numbers, and some photos come from Google, with the photographer's name on Google photos. Certification facts come from B Lab (under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license) and the California Green Business Network, credited in the app. These are facts about businesses, not about you.
We do not use any provider for advertising or for tracking you across apps.
7. Email and who at Jade sees what
We email you only to sign in (a six-digit code or a password reset) and, rarely, about your account (for example, if content you posted was removed, or if these terms change). We do not send marketing email from the app.
New reviews and photos are sent to Jade staff in notification emails so we can read them for quality and moderation. Reports you file go to Jade staff the same way.
8. Deleting your account, and how long we keep things
You can delete your account in the app: Menu, then "Delete account." That permanently deletes your profile, email, display name, reviews, photos, favorites, the reports you filed, and your block list. Business suggestions you sent by email are kept, without your email address. Copies in our backups expire within 30 days.
Server logs are kept for up to 12 months and then deleted. Usage and error events in PostHog are kept for up to 12 months too. They carry your account's random ID, never your email or name, so once your account is deleted nothing links them back to you.
If we close your account for breaking the Terms, the same deletion applies, except that we may keep the minimum needed for safety, legal, or dispute reasons.
You can also email support@jade.eco to delete your account or to ask what we hold about you. We answer within 45 days.
9. What we never do
We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not show ads. If that ever changes, this page changes first and the app shows you a notice.
10. Children
Jade is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. We do not ask for a birthday. If we learn that an account belongs to a child under 13, we delete it. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email support@jade.eco.
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you, or ask that we stop using it. Email support@jade.eco. We answer within 45 days and may extend once by another 45 days if we tell you why. We will not treat you differently for asking.
If you live in California, these are your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, and we honor them even though Jade is smaller than the law's thresholds. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of.
12. Security
Your email and name are hidden from other members at the database level, not just in the app. Sign-in uses Apple, Google, or a code sent to your email; we never see your Apple or Google password. Photos are stored in a bucket that only your account can write to. No system is perfectly secure, so if you think something is wrong with your account, email support@jade.eco.
13. Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, the date at the top changes, and the app shows a notice on your next open. If a change would let us use your information in a new way, we will ask before we do it.
14. Using the jade.eco website
The website keeps a waitlist and measures how the site is used. It collects your email address when you join the waitlist, your neighborhood if you choose to share it, your business name and location if you sign up on the business page, anything you email in yourself, and usage data: pages visited and the link that brought you there.
On first visit, the site's server assigns your browser one random cookie. It contains no personal information. It tells returning visitors from new ones and connects a signup to that visitor's earlier visits. It expires after 13 months and is set and readable only by Jade. Visitors in the EU and UK are asked before it is set. Anyone can opt out here; the site works the same without it.
Cloudflare (hosting and waitlist storage) and Resend (email delivery) process the site's data on Jade's behalf. Signup forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to filter bots; it checks the browser, not the person. Some pages embed video from YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode, and Google's privacy policy applies to what the player loads.
Waitlist data is kept until your invitation is sent and acted on, or until you ask for deletion, whichever comes first. Usage records are kept 12 months. To be removed, email hello@jade.eco from the address you signed up with. The email and every detail tied to it are deleted from live systems within 7 days, and from backups within 30. Sections 9 and 11 apply to the website as they do to the app.