Privacy Policy — Android

This policy covers the Android version of PhotoDiff distributed on Google Play. The iOS version is a separate build with a separate policy — see the PhotoDiff Privacy Policy for iOS.

Your photos never leave your device. PhotoDiff has no account, no upload, and no server of ours. The only thing the app sends anywhere is pseudonymous usage analytics, described below, which never contains your photos or any data derived from a face.

PhotoDiff does not browse your gallery. When you add a photo, Android's system photo picker opens in a separate process, you choose the images, and the app receives only those images. Because the picker does this, PhotoDiff declares no storage, media, or camera permission at all and never asks you for one.

Photos you add are copied as JPEG files into the app's own private storage directory, which only PhotoDiff can read. They are not written to your gallery, not indexed by other apps, and not uploaded anywhere. Clearing the app's data or uninstalling the app deletes them.

To line two photos up, PhotoDiff can locate faces in the photos you have selected. This uses Google ML Kit running entirely on your device with a model bundled inside the app. No network request is made, and no image or face data is sent anywhere.

• What is computed: the position of a face and two eye landmarks, used as alignment points, and — if you turn on the optional mosaic — the rectangles to blur.
• This is face detection, not face recognition. PhotoDiff finds where a face is in a picture; it does not work out whose face it is.
• Nothing derived from a face is saved to disk, included in a saved project, or transmitted. It exists only in memory while the alignment or mosaic is being computed, and is discarded immediately after.
• Face data is never used for identification, authentication, advertising, or analytics.

• The photos you added, as JPEG files in the app’s private directory
• Your comparison projects, groups, and the alignment, mosaic, and brightness settings you applied
• App settings and preferences

All of it is app-private. Uninstalling PhotoDiff, or clearing its data from Android Settings, removes it permanently.

To understand how the app is used and to improve it, PhotoDiff sends usage events to an analytics service that Pentarab runs itself. It is not Google Analytics, and the data is not passed on to any third party. The events record which screens you open and which features you use. This is the complete list of what that service receives:

• The app identifier, the platform, and the app version and build number.
• An install identifier — a random value the app generates on first launch. It is not derived from your device, your Google account, or any advertising identifier, and reinstalling the app produces a new one.
• A session identifier, so one run of the app can be told apart from the next.
• Screen names, and how long each screen was open. The duration is measured from a matching open and close, not guessed from the gap between events.
• The UTC time of each event, plus your time-zone offset so local time can be reconstructed.
• Device information: the operating system and its version, the screen size, and the locale. The device model is not sent.
• A country. This is worked out by the receiving server from the connection itself — the app never sends it, and it is country-level only.

The service does not store your IP address. It is read at the edge only to derive the country and is then discarded. It collects no advertising identifier, no precise location, and no personal identifier such as a name, email address, or phone number. Nothing you create or enter in PhotoDiff is part of an analytics event.

The values in those events are screen names and feature names only. Your photos, file names, group names, and dates are not carried in any analytics event. The app works fully without analytics; if the service cannot be reached, analytics silently does nothing and everything else behaves the same.

PhotoDiff does not collect the Android Advertising ID. Both advertising-ID permissions (com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID and android.permission.ACCESS_ADSERVICES_AD_ID) are explicitly removed from the app's manifest and are absent from the build published on Google Play. PhotoDiff does not use crash reporting or performance monitoring, so no crash logs or diagnostics are collected.

PhotoDiff requests no runtime permissions. The permissions Android lists for the app are ordinary ones merged in by the analytics library — internet and network state, wake lock, and Google Play install-referrer access — none of which shows a prompt. There is no camera, microphone, storage, media, location, contacts, or calendar permission.

Export hands your finished comparison to the Android share sheet only when you tap share. You choose the destination; PhotoDiff does not upload anything and has no say in where the file goes afterward.

PhotoDiff is a paid app: you buy it once on Google Play. It contains no in-app purchases, no subscriptions, and no ads. Payment is handled entirely by Google — Pentarab never sees your card details, your Google account details, or your billing address.

• Everything stays on your device — there is nothing on a server for us to hand over or lose
• You can delete individual photos, comparisons, and groups inside the app
• Uninstalling the app, or clearing its data from Android Settings → Apps → PhotoDiff → Storage, removes everything permanently
• If you want the analytics associated with your install removed, email us and we will act on it

PhotoDiff is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided information through the app, please contact us so we can address it.

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date.

Questions about this policy? Email us: