Legal
Privacy policyIn plain English.
Last updated [date]
Draft for legal review. Not yet in force. Highlighted items in brackets still need to be filled in.
- Who we are
- Our role
- What we collect
- Face data
- How we use data
- Legal bases
- Who we share data with
- Where data is stored
- How long we keep data
- Security
- Your rights
- Children
- Cookies and local storage
- Changes to this policy
- Contact
Who we are
YaPhoto is operated by [legal entity name], [registered address] ("YaPhoto", "we", "us"). You can reach us about privacy at [privacy@ email].
This policy explains what personal data we handle when you use YaPhoto as an organiser (a photographer, planner, venue or host who runs events) or as a guest (someone looking for their photos from an event).
Our role
For organisers' accounts, YaPhoto decides how that data is used, so we are the controller.
For event photos and guests' data, the organiser decides to run the event and which photos to upload. We process that data on the organiser's behalf and on their instructions, as a processor. Organisers are responsible for having a lawful basis to share event photos and for telling guests about the event gallery. Guest questions about a specific event can go to its organiser or to us, and we will pass them on where needed.
What we collect
Organisers
- Name, email address and sign-in details.
- Studio details you add: business name, logo, booking link and social handles.
- Event details: names, dates, venue, schedule and anything else you put on the event page.
- Billing details, handled by our payment provider (we don't store card numbers).
- Email addresses you give us to send upload links to.
Guests
- Your selfie, used once to find your photos and not stored.
- A face signature, only if you turn on live updates. This is a set of numbers describing your face, not a photo.
- A session record that remembers which photos you're in, so you can come back without another selfie.
- Basic usage records: which photos were viewed or downloaded, for the organiser's stats.
People in event photos
- The photos the organiser uploads, and face data taken from them so guests can be matched.
- Photos of the event's hosts that the organiser adds so they're recognised.
Technical data
- IP address, browser type and request logs, used to run and secure the service.
Print orders
- If you order prints: your name, email, phone number if you give it, delivery address if your prints are posted, and what you ordered.
- Payment is taken on Stripe's or Paystack's own page. We never see or store card details; we receive a confirmation and the amount.
- Organisers who sell prints give their bank details to Stripe or Paystack directly or through our dashboard. We keep only the last four digits of a bank account to show which one is connected.
Face data
Face matching is the core of YaPhoto, so we treat face data with extra care.
- Consent first. A guest's selfie is only compared after they agree on the event page.
- One event only. Each event has its own face collection. Faces from one event are never searched at another, and we never build a database of people across events.
- Selfies are not stored. The selfie is compared and discarded.
- Live updates are optional. The face signature is deleted when the guest turns live updates off, when their session ends after 30 days, or when the event is deleted, whichever comes first.
- Deleted with the event. All face data for an event is deleted when the event is deleted, by default 60 days after it ends.
- Never sold or used for anything else. We don't use face data for advertising, profiling or to train our own models.
Where the law treats face data as sensitive or biometric data, we rely on your explicit consent. You can withdraw it at any time by turning off live updates or contacting us at [privacy@ email].
How we use data
- To run the service: sign-in, events, uploads, matching guests to photos and showing galleries.
- To sort photos: when AI sorting is on, photos are analysed to decide whether each should be shared with everyone or kept with the people in it.
- To send emails you asked for, such as upload links to a photographer.
- To take print orders: we share the order and the photos to print with the photographer who prints it, or with our print lab, and send you a receipt and updates.
- To keep the service secure, prevent abuse and fix problems.
- To bill organisers and keep business records.
- To meet legal obligations.
We don't sell personal data, and we don't use guests' data for marketing.
Legal bases
- Contract: to provide the service an organiser signed up for.
- Consent: for comparing a guest's selfie and for live updates.
- Legitimate interests: for security, preventing abuse and improving the service, balanced against your rights.
- Legal obligation: for tax and accounting records.
Who we share data with
We use a small number of service providers who process data for us under contract:
| Provider | What for |
|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services | Hosting, storage, databases, sign-in (Cognito), face matching (Rekognition) and email (SES). |
| Anthropic, via Amazon Bedrock | AI sorting of photos, when turned on. Photos are processed to make a sorting decision and are not used to train models. |
| Stripe | Card payments for print orders (and organiser plans), and paying organisers their share. |
| Paystack | Naira payments for print orders, and paying organisers their share. |
| Prodigi | Printing and posting prints, when the organiser uses our print lab. Receives the photos to print and the delivery address. |
Guests' photos are shown to other guests only according to the event's sharing rules. We may disclose data if the law requires it, or to protect people's safety or our rights. If YaPhoto is sold or merged, data would transfer under the same protections.
Where data is stored
Our servers are in [AWS region, currently United States (us-east-1)]. If you are in Nigeria, the UK or the EU, this means your data is transferred abroad. We protect those transfers with contractual safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, and the security measures described below.
How long we keep data
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Guest selfie | Not stored. |
| Guest session | 30 days. |
| Live face signature | Until the guest stops live updates, the session ends or the event is deleted. |
| Event photos and face data | Until the organiser deletes the event, and no later than 60 days after the event ends unless the organiser sets a different period. |
| Full-size originals | 7, 14 or 30 days, as the organiser chooses. |
| Organiser account | Until the account is closed, then up to [90] days. |
| Print orders | 1 year after payment. Copies of the photos to print are deleted after 90 days. |
| Unpaid print orders | 2 days. |
| Billing records | As long as tax law requires, typically [6] years. |
| Server logs | [30] days. |
| Backups | Database backups roll over within 35 days, so deleted records disappear from backups within that time. |
Security
- Data is encrypted in storage and sent only over HTTPS.
- Event and upload codes are stored only in hashed form.
- Photos are served through private links that expire after two hours.
- Each event's photos and face data are kept separate from every other event.
- Access to production systems is limited and protected with multi-factor authentication.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask us to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- correct it;
- delete it, including your face data;
- restrict or object to how we use it;
- give you a copy in a portable format;
- withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what we did before.
Email [privacy@ email]. We'll reply within one month. For event photos, we may involve the event's organiser.
You can also complain to a data protection regulator: in Nigeria, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC); in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EU, your local authority. California residents have rights under the CCPA, and we don't sell or share personal information for advertising.
Children
Organiser accounts are for adults. Children may appear in event photos uploaded by an organiser. A child should only use the guest selfie feature with a parent's or guardian's permission, and a parent can ask us to delete a child's data at any time.
Cookies and local storage
We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. Our pages store a small amount of data in your browser so you stay signed in and so guests can return to their gallery.
Changes to this policy
If we make important changes, we'll tell organisers by email and update the date at the top of this page.
Contact
[legal entity name], [registered address]
[privacy@ email]