Privacy Policy

Mote (“Mote”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is a mobile application that allows you to turn your photos into Moments, keep them as personal memories, share Moments with friends, and send private postcards.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, when we share it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights available to you.

Mote is operated by Yi-Wen, Chang, based in the United Kingdom.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact:

1. Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create or use a Mote account, we collect information such as:

• Email address
• Display name
• Username or handle
• Profile photo
• Account identifiers
• Authentication information associated with Apple, Google, or email sign-in

Authentication services may be provided by third-party authentication providers. Depending on the sign-in method you choose, Apple or Google may also process information in accordance with their own privacy policies.

Profile Information

Your Mote profile includes information you choose or are required to provide, such as:

• Profile photo
• Display name
• Handle
• Homebase

Your profile photo, display name, handle, and homebase are visible to other Mote users.

Homebase Information

Mote asks you to select a homebase, consisting of a city and country.

We also store generalized latitude and longitude coordinates representing that city. These coordinates represent the general location of the city and are not intended to represent your precise home or device location.

We use your homebase to support Mote features, including calculating or simulating how long postcards take to travel between users.

If Mote offers an option to use your device location to help suggest a homebase, use of device location for that purpose is optional and you may select your homebase manually.

We do not use your homebase for third-party advertising.

Photos and Moments

When you choose a photo to create a Moment, the selected photo is uploaded to Mote's infrastructure.

The original photo forms part of your Moment and is stored so that the Moment can continue to be displayed and used within Mote.

Mote removes EXIF metadata from uploaded photos before or during processing. However, location information associated with a photo may be separately extracted, provided, or stored as described below.

Original photos, generated Moment images, and profile images are stored using cloud storage providers.

Mote processes only photos you choose to provide. Where supported by iOS, Mote uses system photo-selection mechanisms and does not require unrestricted access to your entire photo library in order to create a Moment.

Photo Location Information

When location information is available for a photo you select, Mote may store:

• Latitude
• Longitude
• City
• Country

We use this information to associate a Moment with the place where the photo was taken, display relevant location information, support Mote features, and assist with Moment generation.

When Mote sends a photo to OpenAI for Moment generation, we may also send the city and country associated with the photo.

We do not send the stored latitude and longitude coordinates to OpenAI for this purpose.

Social Information

If you use Mote's social features, we process information such as:

• Friend connections
• Profiles associated with your friends
• Moments shared with friends
• Postcards sent and received
• Sender and recipient identifiers
• Delivery status
• Dates and location information associated with Moments or postcards

Moments you keep in Mote are visible to your Mote friends by default.

Postcards

Postcards sent through Mote are private between the sender and recipient.

A postcard is not intended to be visible to other Mote users outside that sender-recipient relationship.

We process information necessary to create, route, display, and track a postcard, including sender and recipient information, relevant Moment information, delivery status, and approximate origin and destination information.

Subscription and Purchase Information

If you purchase a Mote subscription through Apple's App Store, Apple processes your payment information.

Mote does not receive your full payment card details.

We may receive and process information such as:

• Subscription tier
• Subscription status
• Purchase status
• Renewal status
• Expiration date
• Transaction identifiers
• Entitlement information

We may use third-party service providers to help manage subscriptions, purchases, and entitlements.

Analytics Information

We use analytics services to understand how people interact with Mote and to improve the product.

Analytics information may include:

• A Mote user identifier
• Screens viewed
• Actions or buttons selected
• Other interaction events within the app

We do not send your photos or stored photo location coordinates to our analytics providers.

Device, Technical, and Security Information

We may process limited technical information necessary to operate, secure, diagnose, and maintain Mote, such as:

• Device and operating system information
• App version
• IP address
• Server and request logs
• Authentication and security information
• Information used to detect abuse, fraud, or unauthorized activity

Mote does not currently use a separate third-party crash-reporting SDK.

Push Notification Information

If you enable push notifications, Mote processes information necessary to send notifications to your device, including a device token used by the mobile platform notification service.

We may use our backend infrastructure together with mobile platform notification services to deliver notifications such as postcard status or delivery updates.

You can disable push notifications at any time through your device settings.

2. How We Use Information

We use personal information to:

• Create and maintain your Mote account
• Authenticate you and protect your account
• Create and display your profile
• Generate Moments from photos you select
• Store and display original photos and generated Moments
• Associate Moments with locations
• Enable friend connections and social features
• Display Moments to your friends
• Create, send, deliver, and display postcards
• Calculate or simulate postcard delivery timing
• Manage subscriptions, purchases, and entitlements
• Provide push notifications
• Understand how Mote is used
• Improve the reliability and functionality of Mote
• Provide customer support
• Detect and prevent abuse, fraud, and security incidents
• Diagnose technical problems
• Comply with legal obligations
• Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims
• Enforce our Terms of Service

We do not sell your personal information.

We do not use your photos or personal information for third-party advertising.

3. Artificial Intelligence Processing

Mote uses artificial intelligence to transform photos you select into Moments.

When you request Moment generation, Mote sends the selected photo and associated city and country information to OpenAI for AI image processing.

OpenAI processes this information to provide the image-generation functionality requested by Mote.

Mote does not send the stored latitude or longitude coordinates associated with the photo to OpenAI for Moment generation.

Before information is sent to OpenAI, Mote provides disclosure about this processing and obtains permission as required by applicable platform rules or law.

Data submitted through the OpenAI API is not used by OpenAI to train or improve its general-purpose models unless the API customer explicitly opts in to such data sharing. Mote does not currently opt in to using photos submitted through Mote for that purpose.

OpenAI may retain or process API data in accordance with its applicable API data-retention controls, security requirements, and legal obligations.

You should only submit photos that you have the right to upload and process through Mote.

4. How We Share Information

We share information with service providers where necessary to operate Mote.

These service providers support functions such as:

• Authentication and account management
• Cloud hosting, storage, databases, networking, and infrastructure
• AI-powered Moment generation
• Subscription and entitlement management
• Product analytics
• Mobile platform services, including purchases, authentication, and push notifications

When you request AI-powered Moment generation, the selected photo and associated city and country information are shared with OpenAI as described in the Artificial Intelligence Processing section.

We may also interact with Apple or Google when you choose to use their authentication, purchase, or platform services.

These providers process information according to their respective roles and contractual or legal obligations.

We may also disclose information where reasonably necessary to:

• Comply with applicable law, regulation, court order, legal process, or governmental request
• Protect the safety, security, rights, or property of Mote, our users, or others
• Detect or investigate fraud, abuse, security incidents, or violations of our agreements
• Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims

If Mote is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar business transaction, information may be transferred as part of that transaction subject to applicable law.

5. Visibility of Your Information and Content

Different information has different visibility within Mote.

Profile Information

Your:

• Profile photo
• Display name
• Handle
• Homebase

are visible to other Mote users.

Moments

Moments you keep in Mote are visible to your Mote friends by default.

This means that information included as part of a Moment may be visible to people you have connected with as friends.

Postcards

Postcards are private between the sender and recipient.

Other Mote users do not have access to those postcards through the normal operation of the service.

Mote and its service providers may process postcard content where necessary to provide, secure, troubleshoot, maintain, or comply with legal obligations relating to the service.

External Sharing

If you choose to share Mote content outside the app, the content will be processed by the platform or service you choose to share it with and may become visible according to the privacy settings and policies of that service.

You should avoid including information in shared content that you do not want the intended audience to see.

6. Data Retention

We retain account information, photos, Moments, social information, postcards, and associated data while your account remains active where that information is necessary to provide Mote.

When you request account deletion, your information enters the deletion process described below.

Certain technical, security, transaction, subscription, accounting, or fraud-prevention records may be retained for longer where reasonably necessary or required by law.

Information may also remain temporarily in backups or disaster-recovery systems until those backups expire through their normal lifecycle.

Third-party service providers may retain information according to their own applicable retention policies and legal obligations.

7. Account and Data Deletion

You may request deletion of your Mote account from within the app.

When you request account deletion:

• Your account becomes inaccessible
• You can no longer sign in or use the account
• Your profile and content are no longer visible to other Mote users
• Your Moments are no longer available to your friends
• Postcards associated with the deleted account are no longer available through Mote
• Your friend relationships become unavailable
• The account cannot be recovered

Account deletion is irreversible.

We may retain your account and associated data for up to 30 days solely to complete the deletion process.

Within that period, we will delete or anonymize personal information associated with your account from our active systems, including, where applicable:

• Account and profile information
• Profile images
• Original uploaded photos
• Generated Moments
• Stored photo location information
• Homebase information
• Friend relationships
• Postcards
• Push-notification device information
• Analytics information associated with your Mote user identifier

We will also request deletion or removal of associated analytics data as part of this process.

Certain subscription, transaction, accounting, fraud-prevention, security, or legally required records may be retained after account deletion.

In particular, subscription and purchase records may remain with the relevant app marketplace and subscription service providers in accordance with their applicable retention practices and where reasonably necessary to maintain transaction, subscription, accounting, fraud-prevention, or legal records.

Some information may remain temporarily in backups until those backups expire through their normal lifecycle.

You may contact contact@heymote.com if you have questions about account deletion or personal information associated with your account.

8. Legal Bases for Processing

Where the UK GDPR applies, we process personal information using one or more lawful bases depending on the purpose of the processing.

Performance of a Contract

We process information where necessary to provide Mote and the features you request, including:

• Account creation and authentication
• Profile functionality
• Moment creation
• Photo storage
• Friend connections
• Postcard functionality
• Subscription and entitlement management

Consent

We rely on consent or permission where required for particular processing, such as:

• Accessing device features that require permission
• Sending push notifications
• Sharing personal information with third-party AI providers where consent or explicit permission is required
• Other optional processing where consent is the appropriate lawful basis

Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing that occurred before consent was withdrawn.

Legitimate Interests

We may rely on our legitimate interests where necessary to:

• Operate and maintain Mote
• Understand how the product is used
• Improve product functionality and reliability
• Diagnose technical problems
• Maintain service security
• Prevent fraud and abuse
• Protect Mote and its users

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the nature of the information, the purpose of the processing, users' reasonable expectations, and the potential impact on their privacy rights.

Legal Obligations

We may process or retain information where necessary to comply with applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or law-enforcement obligations.

9. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on applicable law, you may have rights concerning your personal information, including the right to:

• Request access to personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Request deletion of your information
• Request restriction of certain processing
• Object to certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
• Receive certain personal information in a portable format
• Lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority

If you are in the United Kingdom, you may have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

To exercise a privacy right or ask a privacy-related question, contact:

contact@heymote.com

We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

10. International Data Transfers

Mote is operated from the United Kingdom, but some of our service providers may process information in other countries, including countries outside the United Kingdom.

Where UK data-protection law requires safeguards for an international transfer, we use or rely on appropriate mechanisms such as:

• UK adequacy regulations
• Contractual protections
• The UK International Data Transfer Agreement
• The UK Addendum to approved standard contractual clauses
• Other transfer mechanisms permitted by applicable law

The specific mechanism may depend on the service provider and destination country.

You may contact us at contact@heymote.com if you would like more information about safeguards relevant to international transfers of your personal information.

11. Children's Privacy

Mote is intended only for users who are 18 years of age or older.

We do not knowingly allow individuals under the age of 18 to create or use a Mote account.

If we learn that an individual under 18 has provided personal information through Mote, we may take steps to remove the account and associated information.

If you believe that an individual under 18 is using Mote, please contact us at:

contact@heymote.com

12. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect information against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, loss, destruction, or misuse.

These measures may include access controls, authentication protections, infrastructure security controls, and other safeguards appropriate to the information being processed.

However, no method of transmitting or storing information can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

13. Third-Party Services

Mote relies on third-party services to provide certain functionality.

Those providers may process information on our behalf or, in some circumstances, act independently under their own privacy terms.

Their processing may be governed by their own privacy policies, contractual terms, and applicable laws.

Where you interact directly with a third-party service, such as Apple or Google during authentication or Apple when purchasing a subscription, that provider's privacy practices may also apply.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as Mote evolves, our practices change, or legal or regulatory requirements change.

If we make material changes, we may notify you through Mote, by email, or through another appropriate method.

Where required, we will obtain additional consent or permission before applying a material change to processing that requires it.

The effective date at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when the Policy was last updated.

15. Contact Us

For questions, concerns, privacy requests, or account-deletion questions, contact: