Privacy questions to ask before using an AI photo app
A single portrait carries more than you’d think: your face, the time it was taken, and often coordinates accurate to a few metres. Uploading it to an AI app hands all of that over at once.
Four questions to settle first
1. When is the metadata removed?
Phone photos carry EXIF: camera model, lens, aperture and shutter, the time, and GPS unless location is off. A selfie on your doorstep is tagged with your home.
What matters is where the stripping happens. If it’s cleaned after upload, the data has already left your phone and passed through server logs. Only re-encoding on the device means the coordinates never travel. Look for plain wording like “on your device” and “before upload”.
2. How long are originals kept?
Results have to be stored somewhere, but what about the source photo? Plenty of apps quietly keep it forever. You want a clear rule: how long, and whether deletion happens on its own or needs you to ask. “Retained as long as necessary” isn’t an answer.
3. Will my photos train a model?
This is the easiest one to blur. “To improve our services” often includes training. Look for a plain no: not used for training, no face or biometric database, not sold to third parties.
If all you get is a toggle you can switch off in settings, the default is on. Switch it off before you do anything else.
4. Can I delete it, and is it really gone?
Deletion has layers. Can you delete one result? A whole project, original included? Can you close the account and clear everything? And then the question few people ask: what happens to the files on the server afterwards, and how long does it take?
A quick way to read a policy: search it for retain, retention, training, third party, delete and account. If there’s no clear answer, assume the one that suits them rather than you.
How MuseFrame answers
Here are the same four questions, turned on us. The full terms are in the privacy policy.
- Your photo is re-encoded as a JPEG on your device, so GPS and camera details are gone before upload, not cleaned on a server afterwards.
- Originals and results stay on our servers while your account exists. There’s no automatic expiry at the moment.
- Your photo is used only to make the image you asked for. We don’t train models on it, build face databases or sell it. Generation is automated, and staff look only when handling a report, an appeal or a security incident.
- Deleting a project removes it from your library straight away. To clear its images from our servers, email us; we do it by hand and reply when it’s done, without a fixed deadline. Closing your account works the same way, see Account deletion.
- Android payments go through Google Play and web payments through our processor, Waffo Pancake. We never see your card.
What you can do yourself
No policy beats uploading less. Take ten seconds to look at what’s actually in the frame.
- Details that identify you, like house numbers, parcel labels, number plates, a screen on the desk or a calendar on the wall.
- Other people. Nobody else in a group shot agreed to this, so a photo of just you is simpler.
- Children. Be more careful by default, and keep their faces away from services that don’t need them.
- Your phone’s location switch. Turn location off in the camera settings and coordinates are never written, which protects you from every app.
- Cleaning up. Once the artwork is saved on your device, delete the project and email us to clear the server copy.
Location gone before it leaves your phone
Re-encoded on your device, with EXIF and GPS removed before upload. Your first 3 images are free.