Object DetectiveThe internet’s object detective

Bureau records

Privacy Policy

Last updated 3 September 2026 · Applies to objectdetective.app and the Object Detective iOS and Android apps.

Who we are

Object Detective ("we", "us") is an object identification and research service operated from the United Kingdom. Questions about this policy: hello@objectdetective.app.

What we collect

  • Account details — email address, display name, optional profile picture and bio. If you sign in with Google or Apple we receive your name and email from that provider.
  • Photos and videos you upload — pictures of objects submitted for investigation, and any media you post to the Bureau feed or your profile.
  • Investigation answers — the optional notes you add about where an object was found, its size, markings and so on.
  • Community activity — posts, case notes, reactions (diamonds and rocks), mentions, reports and blocks.
  • Payment information — handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card number; we keep only a customer reference, plan, and payment status.
  • Technical data — IP address, device and browser type, and basic usage events used for security, rate limiting and to improve the service.

How we use it

  • To run investigations: your photos and notes are sent to AI vision and language models (via Lovable AI and Google Gemini) and to web search providers to identify the object and research its history. Photos are not used to train those models.
  • To operate your account, membership, receipts and access limits.
  • To run the Bureau community and keep it safe: spam screening, moderation, reports and blocks.
  • To send transactional emails (receipts, verification, password resets). We do not send marketing email without consent.

Public vs private

Investigations are private by default. Only you (and our moderators when handling a report) can see them. A case becomes public only when you publish it to the Mystery Wall, and you can unpublish it at any time. Bureau posts, case notes and your profile page are public.

Who we share it with

Service providers who process data on our behalf under contract: Lovable Cloud (hosting, database, storage, authentication), Stripe (payments), AI model providers (Google Gemini via Lovable AI) and web search providers (Brave Search, Firecrawl) for research queries, and Resend for email. We do not sell personal data.

Retention

We keep your data while your account is active. Deleting your account permanently removes your profile, investigations, uploaded photos and videos, posts, notes and reactions within 30 days. Payment records are retained by Stripe for the period required by tax law.

Delete your account

You can delete your account and all associated data at any time from inside the app or website:
  1. Sign in and open your detective profile.
  2. Scroll to Danger zone and choose Delete my account.
  3. Type DELETE to confirm.
Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. Any active membership is cancelled. If you cannot sign in, email hello@objectdetective.app from your account address and we will delete it for you.

Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you may access, correct, export or erase your data, object to processing, and complain to the ICO. Email us and we will respond within 30 days.

Children

Object Detective is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. Accounts found to belong to children are removed.

Changes

We will post any changes here and update the date above. Material changes are announced in the app.