Privacy Policy

1. Overview & Our Commitment

At Insect Identifier (operated at insectidentifier.org), we believe in absolute transparency and respectful stewardship of your digital privacy. This Privacy Policy details the types of information we collect when you visit our website, utilize our free online insect scanning tool, or download our mobile application, and how that information is utilized and secured.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data or uploaded photos to third-party data brokers. Our tools are built to help nature lovers, gardeners, homeowners, and researchers identify arthropods safely and easily.

2. Information We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to provide accurate identification results and deliver a reliable user experience:

• Photographic Uploads: When you snap or upload a photo of a bug, spider, or butterfly, the image file is temporarily processed by our computer vision neural network to detect visual markers and return species matches.
• Voluntary Information: If you contact us through our contact form, email support, or bug report submissions, we receive your name, email address, and message content.
• Technical & Device Data: Like most web platforms, we automatically collect basic non-identifiable technical logs including your browser type, device operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, and approximate geographic region (country/city level).
• Cookies & Local Storage: We use essential cookies and local storage to remember your website preferences (such as dark/light preferences or recent sample selections) and measure aggregate performance.

3. How We Process & Store Photos

Photos uploaded to our universal scanner are analyzed in real-time. We extract visual biological cues (wing venation, antenna shape, carapace geometry, leg count). Uploaded photos are securely processed in encrypted transit (TLS/SSL). We do not correlate your uploaded bug pictures with any government-issued ID, real name, or physical residential address.

4. Third-Party Analytics & Advertising

We may use trusted privacy-compliant analytics tools (such as Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics) to assess website traffic patterns and improve performance. These providers use pseudonymous identifiers and do not receive sensitive personal information from us. You may block cookies through your individual browser settings at any time without impacting your ability to use the free scanner.

5. Your Data Protection Rights (GDPR, UK GDPR & CCPA/CPRA)

Depending on your location, you may have statutory rights regarding your personal information, including:

• The right to access, review, or receive a portable copy of personal data we maintain about you.
• The right to request the permanent deletion of your communications and account data.
• The right to rectify inaccurate or incomplete records.
• The right to opt-out of non-essential cookies and marketing communications.

To exercise any of these privacy rights, please reach out directly to our privacy compliance officer at privacy@insectidentifier.org.

6. Children's Online Privacy Protection (COPPA)

Insect Identifier is an educational and utility platform suitable for nature explorers of all ages. We do not knowingly collect personal contact information from children under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent. If a parent or guardian discovers that a child has provided personal information to us, please notify us and we will promptly purge the data.

7. Security Measures

We implement industry-standard technical safeguards, including HTTPS protocol, cloud encryption at rest, restricted internal access permissions, and periodic vulnerability reviews to guard against unauthorized access, loss, or misuse of data.

8. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may periodically update this policy to reflect enhancements in technology, statutory requirements, or our services. Any revisions will be accompanied by an updated “Last Updated” timestamp at the top of this page.