🌱 Privacy Policy

What We May Request

• With your explicit opt-in, the app may request your device location (latitude/longitude).

Why We Request It

We use device coordinates to perform detailed microclimate analysis for your exact location, providing far more precise planting recommendations than ZIP codes alone.

How We Use and Store It

• We request location permission when you enable the "Use my location" setting so you see the OS permission prompt immediately.
• When location is enabled: Your coordinates are sent to our backend and passed to our AI gardening assistant, which analyzes them to detect:
  • Coastal proximity (marine influence, fog, salt)
  • Elevation effects (each 1000ft ≈ 3.5°F cooler, shifts frost by 7-14 days)
  • Urban heat islands vs rural cooling (5-10°F temperature difference, extends growing season)
  • Proximity to large water bodies (temperature moderation)
  • Topography effects (frost pockets, drainage, aspect)
• When location is NOT enabled: We use your ZIP code to determine zone via:
  1. Check our backend cache (zip_zones table)
  2. If not found, query phzmapi.org (public USDA zone API)
• We do NOT store your raw coordinates long-term. The coordinates are used only during your specific guide request for microclimate analysis.
• We may cache the derived ZIP and zone from public APIs to improve performance for future lookups.

Opt-In, Control & Revocation

• Enabling location is explicit and optional. You can disable location usage at any time in the app settings (or via the toggle on the Micro Guide page). If you disable it, any short-lived cached coordinates are removed.

Third Parties

• We call phzmapi.org (a public USDA zone API) only when looking up zones for ZIP codes without cached results. Cached ZIP→zone entries are kept to reduce external requests.

Contact

• If you have questions or want us to remove cached ZIP entries associated with your account reports, contact us via the app Feedback form or the email address listed in our admin settings.