Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

PaintGuide.ai is operated by David Emery. When we say “we,” “us,” or “our,” we mean PaintGuide.ai and its operator. When we say “you” or “your,” we mean you as a user of our service.

For privacy questions, contact us at support@paintguide.ai.

2. What We Collect

We collect the following information:

• Account information — email address and password when you sign up, or your name and email via Google sign-in
• Paint collection — which paints you mark as owned in your Paint Rack
• Generated guides — the painting guides you create, including descriptions and reference photos you upload
• Course progress — which lessons you've completed
• Payment information — processed by Stripe (we never see or store your card number)
• Usage data — pages visited, features used, collected via Vercel Analytics (anonymous, no cookies)

3. How We Use Your Data

• To provide the service — generating personalized painting guides using your paint collection
• To save your guides, paint collection, and course progress so they persist across sessions
• To process payments and manage your subscription
• To improve the service — analyzing anonymized usage patterns to make PaintGuide better
• To contact you about your account (password resets, important service updates)

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not send marketing emails unless you opt in.

4. Reference Photos

When you upload a reference photo for guide generation, the image is sent to our AI provider (Anthropic) for analysis. The image is used solely to generate your painting guide and is not stored permanently on our servers. Anthropic's data retention policies apply to images processed through their API.

We do not use your uploaded photos for marketing, training, or any purpose other than generating your guide.

5. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate PaintGuide.ai:

• Supabase — database and authentication
• Anthropic (Claude) — AI guide generation and paint detection
• Stripe — payment processing
• Vercel — hosting and anonymous analytics
• Google — OAuth sign-in

Each service has its own privacy policy. We only share the minimum data necessary for each service to function.

6. Data Security

We use industry-standard security measures including encrypted connections (HTTPS), secure authentication (Supabase Auth), and PCI-compliant payment processing (Stripe). Your password is hashed and never stored in plain text.

7. Your Rights

You can:

• Access your data at any time through your account
• Delete your guides from the Saved Guides page
• Request a full export or deletion of your account data by emailing support@paintguide.ai

8. Cookies

We use essential cookies only — for authentication (keeping you logged in). We do not use advertising cookies or tracking cookies. Vercel Analytics is cookie-free and privacy-friendly.

9. Children

PaintGuide.ai is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at support@paintguide.ai.

10. Changes

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make significant changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on the site. Your continued use of PaintGuide.ai after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.