Privacy Policy
The short version. Loam has no accounts and no sign-up. To identify a plant or diagnose a problem, your photo is sent from the app to the Loam server, forwarded to the provider listed below for that task, and then dropped from memory. Loam stores no images, anywhere.
Photos you submit
When you identify or diagnose a plant, the photo travels from your device to the Loam server and is held in memory only for the duration of that request. It is forwarded to exactly these third parties, which process it to produce a result:
When you identify a plant
- Pl@ntNet (Inria / Cirad / IRD / CNRS / INRAE consortium, France) — plant identification. Your photo is sent to Pl@ntNet.
To write the plain-English explanation of an identification, Anthropic receives the candidate species names and scores, which parts of the plant you photographed (such as leaf or flower) and, if you shared your location, only a broad region label. It does not receive your photo.
When you diagnose a plant problem
- Anthropic (Anthropic, PBC, United States) — diagnoses plant health problems. Your photo is sent to Anthropic, because the diagnosis is made from the photo itself, together with the species name if you chose one.
If you answer the follow-up questions to refine a diagnosis, Anthropic receives the earlier diagnosis text and the answers you typed. The photos are not sent again.
When you open a plant's care guide and none is stored yet, Anthropic writes it from the species name alone. No photo, location or install identifier is sent.
Loam does not store photos on its servers, does not log them, and has no photo storage of any kind. Photos you save to My Plants or the journal stay on your device (and in your personal iCloud if you enable sync).
Once Loam forwards a photo, the provider that receives it handles it under its own terms. Loam cannot delete data a provider holds and does not promise that a provider deletes it.
Location
If you allow location access, an approximate latitude and longitude is sent with the identification request to pick the regional flora. Location is never embedded in the photo and is not stored.
What the server keeps
- A random install identifier, generated on your device, used only to enforce the identification and diagnosis allowances. It is not linked to you, your Apple Account or your photos.
- Anonymous identification events: the confidence band, the top score, the response time and which engines ran. No image, no location and no install identifier is written to these records.
- Care cards for plant species, which contain no personal data.
- If you typed your email address into the pre-launch waitlist page: that address, the coarse country Cloudflare reports for the request (no IP address), which link brought you to the page, and the date. It is never linked to an install identifier, an identification or a purchase, is never shared or sold, and is kept only until the launch email goes out and then deleted. The app itself never asks for an email address.
Purchases
Loam Pro is sold through Apple. Apple handles payment; Loam receives a signed receipt to confirm your subscription and never sees your payment details.
Your data, your choice
Everything you save in the app can be exported (CSV or JSON) and deleted from the app at any time. Deleting the app deletes its data from your device.
Children
Loam is rated 4+ and collects no personal information from anyone.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version is published here with a new effective date. Questions: amaardevx@gmail.com.