نبتتي – Privacy Policy

Last updated: 21 October 2026 · العربية

This policy covers the app "نبتتي – طبيب النباتات" (Nabtati). It explains what the app collects, why, who receives it, how long it is kept and how you can control or delete it. Nabtati identifies plants from your photos, checks a plant's health, gives care information and reminders, and answers questions about your plants with artificial intelligence (AI). It gives general gardening information only. It is not a substitute for a doctor, a vet or a licensed agricultural expert.

1. Who we are

The data controller is MASSALHA FZCO (developer name Massalha Development), a company registered in the United Arab Emirates ("we", "us"). Contact for privacy questions and requests: support@massalhafzco.com.

2. Summary

• No sign-up is needed. The app creates an anonymous account. Sign in with Apple is optional.
• When you identify or diagnose a plant, your photos are sent to our server, which stores them in your private folder and sends them to our AI provider, OpenAI (USA), to analyse them.
• Plant Advisor messages and questions you ask about a plant are also sent to OpenAI. Our server does not store your Plant Advisor chat; the chat history stays on your device.
• My Garden (your plants, nicknames, notes and their photos), reminders and your scan history list stay on your device.
• The app does not use your GPS location. You pick a city from a list, and we use that city for the weather and local tips.
• No ads in the app, and we never sell your data. To measure our ads, the app tells Meta (Facebook) about your install and a few steps in the app. If you allow it in Apple's "Allow tracking?" prompt, this includes your device's advertising identifier. If you don't allow it, Meta only gets these events in a limited form, without the advertising identifier, that it may use only in aggregated reports (see section 13).

3. Data that stays on your device

The following is stored on your device and is not sent to us (except where a later section says so):

• My Garden: your plants, their nicknames, notes, note photos, placement, collections and wishlist.
• Your care reminders and their schedule.
• Snap History: the list of your scans, their results and a copy of each photo.
• Your Plant Advisor chat history.
• Your settings (city, reminder time and so on), your consent choices, books you bought and your reading progress.

Data on your device can be included in your own device backup (for example iCloud Backup) if you use one; backups are turned off for the Android version. If you turn on "save photos to album", the app saves your plant photos and share cards to your photo library. The light meter takes one small, low-quality picture, measures its brightness on the device and deletes it right away; it is never uploaded. Deleting the app, or deleting your account in the app, removes the app's data from the device (photos you saved to your photo library stay there).

4. Your account and purchases

• Anonymous account. On first launch the app creates an anonymous account with Supabase (servers in Frankfurt, EU). It holds a random user ID and the date it was created, so that purchases, usage limits and your scans work. It does not contain your name or email.
• Sign in with Apple (optional) lets you keep your subscription on a new device. The app asks Apple only for your name, not your email. We receive your Apple account ID and, if you choose to share it, your name, which we keep with your account. We also keep an Apple sign-in token, encrypted, only so that we can revoke your Apple sign-in when you delete your account. Your garden and scan history are not copied to the account; they stay on your device.
• Purchases. Payments are handled by Apple; we never see your card details. RevenueCat (USA) receives your purchase receipts, the products you bought and your anonymous user ID (which is your RevenueCat ID) to manage your subscription and book purchases, and tells our server whether you are a subscriber. RevenueCat also uses these records to give us subscription statistics (for example how many people start or cancel a subscription). To stop one purchase from being shared across many accounts, our server keeps a one-way coded (hashed) usage counter per purchase. RevenueCat also tells Meta about your trial and subscription, linked to your device only if you allowed tracking (see section 13).

5. Plant photos (identify and diagnose)

• Before your first photo, the app asks for your consent: the photo button says "موافق، التقط صورة" and a line under it explains that the photo (and, for a health check, your answers about the plant) is sent to an external AI provider for analysis.
• When you take or choose a photo, the app first resizes it (long side up to 1024 pixels, JPEG); the resized copy carries no location data. Then 1 to 3 photos are sent to our server.
• Our server sends the photos to OpenAI (USA), which identifies the plant (or insect, bird, tree and so on) or checks its health. For a health check, your answers to the short questionnaire (indoor or outdoor, light, watering, pot or ground, and the city you picked) are sent too.
• Our server stores the photos in your private folder in Supabase Storage (Frankfurt) and keeps a record of each scan (the kind of scan, the AI result, the plant name, the time). Only our server and your own account can access your folder. We keep them so a retry returns the same result without a second charge, so we can check a result you report (section 8), and to keep the service secure.
• Scans and their photos are kept until you delete your account. Removing a scan from Snap History in the app removes it from your device only; to have a stored scan deleted sooner, email us. Unfinished or failed scan records are deleted after 1 day, and their photos within 2 days after that. If our AI finds no plant in your photos, the photos are deleted right away; only the result is kept.
• OpenAI processes the photos to give the result. It does not use them to train its models and may keep them for up to 30 days to monitor abuse, then deletes them. We send OpenAI a one-way coded (hashed) version of your account ID for abuse detection, never the ID itself, and never your name.
• Please photograph plants, not people. If a person or other personal details appear in a photo, they are processed and stored like the rest of the photo.

6. Plant Advisor (AI chat)

• Before your first chat the app asks for your consent ("موافق، ابدأ المحادثة") and explains that your messages and your plant's information are sent to an external AI provider.
• When you send a message, the conversation (your recent messages and the advisor's replies) and information about the plant are sent through our server to OpenAI (USA) to write the reply. The plant information is: its species and name, the nickname you gave it, indoor or outdoor, pot or ground, the city you picked, days since the last watering, recently diagnosed problems, a short care summary and the current month. Your notes and photos are never sent.
• Your messages in the conversation are also checked by OpenAI's moderation service to keep the chat safe.
• Our server does not store your chat messages and does not write them to logs. The chat history is kept on your device only, and you can clear it.
• OpenAI does not use this data to train its models and may keep it for up to 30 days to monitor abuse, then deletes it.
• Please don't share details that identify you (full name, phone number, address) in the chat.

7. Questions you ask about a plant

• Before your first question, the app asks for your consent: the send button says "موافق، أرسل السؤال" and a line under it explains that your questions are sent to an external AI provider for analysis.
• When you ask your own question on a plant's question page, the question and the plant's name are sent through our server to OpenAI, which first checks the question with its moderation service and then writes the answer.
• To answer the same question faster and at lower cost next time, our server stores a one-way code (hash) of the question and the answer with the plant's species. It does not store the question text, your user ID or any other link to you. Anyone who later asks the same question about the same plant gets the stored answer. These entries are deleted after 1 year. Because they are not linked to you, we can't find and delete them when you delete your account. The answer can repeat what you wrote, so please don't put personal details in a question.

8. Feedback and reports

If you send feedback on a result or a care page (for example "wrong identification", "helpful", a star rating or a comment), or report a Plant Advisor reply, we store: your user ID, the reason, the scan or plant concerned, the name you suggest, your comment and rating, and a copy of the AI result of that scan from our server. For a Plant Advisor report we store the text of the reported reply and whether it matches the reply our server sent (never the messages you wrote). We use this to review and improve results. Reports are deleted after 60 days, or earlier when you delete your account.

9. Contact Us

If you write to us in Settings → "تواصل معنا", we store your email address, your message, up to 3 screenshots you attach, and the app version and device platform, so we can answer you. Messages and their screenshots are deleted after 180 days (the screenshots within 2 days after their message), or earlier when you delete your account. If the form can't be sent, the app opens your email app instead. When you email us, we keep the conversation for as long as we need it to handle your request.

10. City, weather and local content

• The app has no location permission and never reads your GPS. You pick your city from a list in the app.
• Weather: the app sends the fixed coordinates of the city you picked (the city centre, from the app's list) to our server, which gets today's weather from Apple WeatherKit. Apple receives only those city coordinates from our server, not your user ID. We don't store this request (the result is cached for 30 minutes per area). Weather data is shown with the Apple Weather mark and a link to Apple's data sources (weatherkit.apple.com/legal-attribution.html); the Apple Weather logo is loaded from Apple's server.
• Monthly tips and plant lists: the app sends the city and country you picked to our server. For Arab countries outside the Gulf, the city, country and month may be sent to OpenAI to write tips for that place, possibly together with the one-way coded (hashed) account ID we send for abuse detection (section 5). The result is shared by everyone in that city and contains no personal data.

11. Care pages and reference photos

Plant care pages are written once per plant species (with AI, from our own checked plant data) and shared by every user. Only the species name goes into the page; the request may carry the one-way coded (hashed) account ID we send for abuse detection (section 5). Reference photos of plants come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Our server downloads them once and serves them from our own storage, so the app doesn't contact Wikimedia to show them and no data about you is sent to Wikimedia. Only if you tap a photo credit does the app open that photo's page on Wikimedia Commons.

12. Notifications

• Care reminders (watering, fertilizing and other care you set up). They are local notifications created on your device.
• We have no push notification server and send no marketing notifications.
• Turn care reminders off in Settings → "إشعارات العناية", or turn all notifications off in your device settings.

13. Ads measurement with Meta

The app shows no ads. We advertise Nabtati on Meta (Facebook, Instagram), and we use the Meta SDK, a tool from Meta Platforms (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. and Meta Platforms, Inc., USA), to see which of our ads bring new users and subscribers and to improve them.

• Apple's prompt decides. During the first setup, before the subscription screen, the app shows Apple's "Allow tracking?" prompt once. You can change your answer any time in iPhone Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
• If you allow tracking, the app sends Meta: that the app was installed and opened, that you finished the intro pages, that you saw the subscription screen and that you tapped a plan's buy button (with the plan's product ID). With these events Meta receives your device's advertising identifier (IDFA), an ID that Meta creates for this app on your device, basic device data (model, iOS and app version, language, time zone) and your IP address.
• If you don't allow tracking, the app never reads the advertising identifier and tells the Meta SDK that tracking is off. The same events (install and open, intro finished, subscription screen seen, buy button tapped) are still sent to Meta in a limited form: without the advertising identifier and with "advertiser tracking" turned off, so Meta may use them only in aggregated, anonymous ad reports (Aggregated Event Measurement), not to build a profile of you or to link you to other apps and websites. Meta still receives basic device data and your IP address with them.
• Before you answer Apple's prompt, the app sends no events to Meta. The Meta SDK may still contact Meta to load its settings or report errors in the SDK itself; this includes technical data such as your IP address, device model and app version, but no advertising identifier and no information about what you do in the app.
• Purchases. The app itself never sends purchases to Meta. Our purchase provider RevenueCat sends Meta, server to server, when a free trial or subscription starts or renews and when you buy a book (product, price, currency, time). These events are linked to Meta's ID for this app on your device and basic device data (an ID for apps from the same developer, IP address), so Meta can match them to our ads. The advertising identifier is included only if you allowed tracking; if you didn't, Meta may use them only in aggregated reports, not to build a profile of you.
• We never send Meta your name, email, photos, plants, garden, notes, questions or chat messages, and we don't use Meta to show you ads inside the app.

We don't use any analytics SDK (no Google Analytics or similar), we don't sell your data and we don't share it with data brokers. The app may show Apple's own rating prompt.

14. Why we use your data (legal bases)

• To provide the app and your subscription (account, purchases, restoring purchases, scans and their storage, weather, tips, answering your messages): performance of our contract with you.
• Sending your photos, chat messages and questions to the AI provider: your consent, given on the photo button, the Plant Advisor start button and the question send button. You can withdraw it in Settings → "السماح بالوصول" → "سحب الموافقة على التحليل بالذكاء الاصطناعي".
• Usage limits, abuse prevention, moderation, security, feedback and reports, the shared question cache: our legitimate interests in keeping the service safe, affordable and accurate. You can object by emailing us.
• Ads measurement with Meta: with the advertising identifier and Meta's ID for this app, your consent in Apple's tracking prompt (you can withdraw it in iPhone Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking); the limited, aggregated events without them, our legitimate interest in knowing which of our ads work.

15. Who receives your data

• Supabase (servers in Frankfurt, EU): your account, scan photos and records, usage counters, feedback and reports, Contact Us messages, the encrypted Apple sign-in token, the shared caches.
• Expo (EAS Hosting), which runs on Cloudflare's network: runs our server code; your photos, messages and requests pass through it in transit. Expo also delivers app updates: when the app checks for an update, Expo receives your IP address, the device platform and app version, and a random installation ID that is not linked to your account.
• OpenAI (USA): analyses photos, writes Plant Advisor replies, answers questions, writes care pages and tips, and checks messages and questions for safety (moderation).
• RevenueCat (USA): manages subscriptions and in-app purchases, and gives us subscription statistics. It also sends your trial, subscription and book purchase events to Meta, with Meta's ID for this app and basic device data; with the advertising identifier only if you allowed tracking (see section 13).
• Meta Platforms (Ireland and USA): receives the app events and purchase events described in section 13, to measure our ads; with the advertising identifier only if you allowed tracking, otherwise in limited form for aggregated reports only. Meta uses this data under its own terms and privacy policy (facebook.com/privacy/policy).
• Apple: payments, Sign in with Apple, weather (WeatherKit) and the rating prompt.

Our providers process data under their data processing terms and give it protection equal to or stronger than this policy. Our hosting providers keep standard request logs (such as IP address and time) for a limited period under their own retention rules; we do not write your photos, chat messages, questions or contact messages to our logs. We may disclose data if the law requires it.

16. International transfers

We are based in the UAE. Your data is stored in the EU (Supabase) and processed in the USA and other countries where OpenAI, RevenueCat, Expo, Cloudflare, Apple and Meta operate. Where the law requires it (for example for users in the EU or UK), these transfers rely on the providers' Standard Contractual Clauses or other approved safeguards.

17. How long we keep data

• Data on your device: until you delete it, delete your account in the app or delete the app.
• Anonymous or Apple account (and your name, if you shared it): until you delete your account.
• Scan photos and scan records: until you delete your account (unfinished or failed scan records: 1 day; their photos: up to 2 days after that).
• Usage counters: 30 days.
• Feedback and reports: 60 days.
• Contact Us messages and their screenshots: 180 days (screenshots within 2 days after their message), or until you delete your account if that is sooner.
• Answers in the shared question cache (stored with a hash of the question, not the question text, and not linked to you): 1 year.
• Encrypted Apple sign-in token: until you delete your account (it is then revoked and deleted).
• Data at OpenAI: up to 30 days.
• Purchase records at RevenueCat: until you delete your account. Apple keeps its own transaction records.
• Meta's ID for this app on your device, kept by RevenueCat: until you delete your account.
• Data at Meta: as long as Meta's own terms and privacy policy allow; we can't delete it for you (you can ask Meta).
• Plant Advisor chat: never stored on our server.
• Hosting request logs: a limited period set by each provider.

18. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live (for example in the EU or UK), you have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your data, to restrict or object to its use, and to withdraw consent at any time (this does not affect what was done before). You can also complain to your local data protection authority. How to exercise them:

• Delete everything: in the app, Settings → "إدارة الحساب" → "حذف الحساب وكل البيانات" (if you haven't signed in: Settings → "حذف بياناتي", or Settings → "تسجيل الدخول" → "حذف بياناتي من نبتتي"). This permanently deletes your account, all your rows on our server (scans, feedback and reports, Contact Us messages, usage counters), all photos and screenshots in your folder, your RevenueCat purchase records, and revokes your Apple sign-in. It also wipes the app's data, photos and scheduled notifications on your device. It does not cancel an App Store subscription: manage that in your Apple ID settings. Copies kept by OpenAI for up to 30 days and the shared question cache (not linked to you) are not affected.
• Withdraw AI consent: Settings → "السماح بالوصول" → "سحب الموافقة على التحليل بالذكاء الاصطناعي". This covers photos, diagnosis answers, Plant Advisor messages and questions. Nothing is sent to the AI provider until you agree again.
• Stop ads measurement: iPhone Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → turn off Nabtati. From the next app start the advertising identifier is no longer used, and Meta may use our events only in aggregated reports (section 13). Data Meta already received stays under Meta's terms.
• Clear your Plant Advisor chat: in the chat on your device.
• Anything else (for example a copy of your data, or deleting one stored scan): email support@massalhafzco.com. Because the account is anonymous, we may need details from the app to find your data; in-app deletion is the fastest way. We reply within 30 days.

19. Security

Data is sent over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Server data is protected by access controls: each user's photos are in a private folder that only our server and that user's account can access, and the Apple sign-in token is stored encrypted. No method is 100% secure, so we keep as little data as possible on our servers.

20. Children

Nabtati is a general gardening app. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country). If you believe a child has sent us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

21. Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date above and, for important changes, tell you in the app or in the App Store listing before they apply.

22. Contact

MASSALHA FZCO, United Arab Emirates · support@massalhafzco.com · Support page: legal.massalhafzco.com/nabtati/support · Terms of use: Apple's standard EULA.