FrameSeeker is a planning tool for landscape photography with a network attached. This describes exactly what it holds, why, on what legal basis, and for how long.
The controller for the purposes of the GDPR is the person named in the Impressum. There is no data protection officer: the processing here is not on a scale that requires one.
Your location is used to centre the map on where you are standing. It is not uploaded, not logged, and not shared. Elevation tiles, terrain and Google's photorealistic tiles are cached on the device so the app works without a signal; that cache holds map data, never anything about you.
Photographs you pick from your library are read for the coordinate, time, compass bearing and camera settings the camera recorded. Nothing is uploaded until you tap Post.
An account holds your e-mail address, display name, handle, biography and — if you choose one — a picture of yourself. A photograph you post is stored with its caption, coordinate, elevation, time, bearing and exposure.
Anything you mark public is public. A public photograph, including the coordinate where it was taken, is readable by anyone using the app. Mark a photograph or a spot Personal and only you can read it. Think about this before posting a coordinate you would not put on a map — your home, or a fragile place.
Running your account and showing what you post — Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, performance of the contract you enter into by creating an account. Without this data there is no account.
Moderation, blocking and keeping the network usable — Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. The legitimate interest is protecting the people here from abusive content, and it is what the Digital Services Act requires of a platform. You may object under Article 21 GDPR.
Keeping a record of reports and moderation decisions — Article 6(1)(c) GDPR, to meet the obligations the Digital Services Act places on this service, alongside the legitimate interest in being able to show a decision was properly taken.
There is no advertising, no analytics SDK, no tracking across apps, no profiling and no automated decision-making with legal effect. Nothing is sold or handed to a data broker, and nothing you do here is joined with data from anywhere else.
Accounts and photographs are stored with Google Firebase — Authentication, Firestore and Cloud Storage — which acts as a processor under Article 28 GDPR on the basis of Google's data processing terms. Signing in with Apple or Google sends that provider only what is needed to prove who you are.
The server is in the United States. The Firebase project behind FrameSeeker — Authentication, Firestore and Cloud Storage — runs in Google's US data centres, so everything described above leaves the European Economic Area from the moment you create an account or post.
That transfer is made on Google LLC's certification under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, which the European Commission recognised on 10 July 2023 as providing an adequate level of protection, and in addition on the Standard Contractual Clauses in Google's Cloud Data Processing Addendum. Write to the address below and a copy of those safeguards will be sent to you.
A photograph you mark Personal is stored on that same server. The only thing that never leaves your phone is a photograph you never add.
Your account and what you post are kept until you delete them, or until the account is closed. Reports and moderation decisions are kept for two years after the decision, so that an objection can still be answered and a pattern of abuse can still be seen; then they go.
You may ask for access to your data (Article 15), correction of it (16), its erasure (17), restriction of processing (18), a copy in a portable format (20), and you may object to processing based on legitimate interests (21). Where processing rests on consent you may withdraw it at any time, without affecting what was done before.
Write to the address below and you will have an answer within a month. Most of it you can also do yourself: correction in Edit profile, erasure in Profile → Account → Delete account.
You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority (Article 77). For this service that is the Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht, Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, Germany. You may instead complain to the authority where you live or work.
Profile → Account → Delete account removes your profile, your photographs and their image files, your spots, your comments, your likes and your follows, from the server as well as from this device. If you signed in with Apple, the app also revokes that grant so FrameSeeker stops appearing under Settings → Apple ID → Sign in with Apple. It cannot be undone and there is no grace period.
FrameSeeker is not for anyone under 16, and accounts are not knowingly created for them. Write to the address below if you believe one has been, and it will be removed.