Your photos. Your choice.

Who operates SPOT

SPOT is operated by Alexandre Kevin Sao Bento Barroso in France. For support, privacy questions, access or deletion requests, contact [email protected].

What the app collects and why

SPOT stores the car photos you submit, optional supporting views, capture times, image dimensions and hashes, and available camera motion or depth evidence. We use these to identify cars, assess captures, prevent duplicate or abusive submissions, and maintain your garage, collections, and challenges. Photos may contain people, license plates, or other personal information; please avoid including unnecessary personal details.

We assign account and installation identifiers and use Apple's App Attest to protect requests. If you connect with Sign in with Apple, we store your Apple account identifier and encrypted authorization tokens for account recovery and revocation. We store the display name you choose, your favorites, collection activity, friend relationships, invitations, sharing choices, corrections, and abuse reports. SPOT does not read your address book or request GPS location.

For SPOT Plus, monthly or annual, Apple handles payment. We store signed purchase and transaction identifiers, the plan, subscription status and expiration, and daily and monthly identification counts to provide the purchased allowance. We do not receive your payment card details. Servers and infrastructure providers may process IP addresses and technical request information to deliver and protect the service.

Spot Days and the free trial

From version 1.5, you can buy a Spot Day: a pass for up to 60 identifications within 24 hours. You do not need to sign in with Apple to buy one, and SPOT Plus includes one each month. Apple handles payment. When you buy a Spot Day, SPOT receives Apple's signed transaction and stores its transaction identifiers, the product, the purchase and pass dates and, if Apple refunds or revokes the purchase, its refund status. We use them to activate the pass, count the identifications it gives, make sure one purchase is credited only once, and end the pass if it is refunded. Photos you take during a Spot Day form an event in your garage, grouped by their capture time; if you name the event, we store that name.

From version 1.5, a new account can receive a 7-day SPOT Plus trial once, with no payment: an identification allowance of up to 10 a day and 30 in all. We store when it started and ends and its limits. Identifications during the trial are counted like any other identification. The 1-week free trial of the annual plan is a separate Apple offer, handled by Apple like any subscription.

Spot Days and the trial belong to your account: they move with it when you sign in with Apple, appear in your data export and are deleted with your account.

Notifications and usage hours

From version 1.2, after your first photo the app asks whether SPOT may send you notifications. If you allow them, the app sends SPOT your iPhone's Apple push notification token, which we store with your account and installation. From version 1.5, the app also sends the language it uses, which we save with the token so that collection names in notifications arrive in your language. From version 1.6, it also sends its build number, saved with the token, so that SPOT only sends notification wording that your version of the app can show in your language. We use the token to tell you when a photo finishes identification and, since October 17, 2026, whichever version of the app you use, when it is a gold card or completes a collection, and about swap offers, finished swaps, market cards swapped or wanted, and friends who accept your invitation or share a car with you. A notification can name a car, a collection or a friend's display name. Apple's Push Notification service delivers them. A new token replaces the old one. We delete a token when Apple reports it is no longer valid, for example after you remove the app, and when you delete your account.

From version 1.5, Settings → Notifications in SPOT lets you turn off identified cars, swaps and market, friends, and reminders separately. From version 1.6 there is also a community switch. We store your choices for all but reminders with your account; they are included in your data export and deleted with your account. Reminders are scheduled on your iPhone and are not sent by SPOT's server. To limit how often some notifications are sent, such as cards people want or cars a friend shares, we record when the last one was sent; these records are deleted with your account. Earlier versions of SPOT have no such switches: there, or to stop all notifications, use iOS Settings → Notifications → SPOT.

To know how many people use SPOT, the server also records each hour in which the app contacts it: your account identifier and that hour, nothing else. No device, place, or screen is recorded. We use these records only for overall numbers, such as how many people are active, how many come back, and the busiest hours, on a private, password-protected, read-only dashboard that shows no individual. They are deleted with your account.

From version 1.6, when the SPOT Plus page opens, the app also tells SPOT which part of the app opened it (for example, Settings or the daily limit), whether you tapped to subscribe, which plan you chose, and whether the purchase went through or you closed the page. We store that with your account identifier and the time, and use it only for overall numbers on the same dashboard, to see which SPOT Plus page works. These records are included in your data export and deleted with your account.

Screens and features you use

From version 1.8, the app tells SPOT which of its main screens you open (for example your garage, a car's page, Challenges, Cards or Settings) and which features you use (for example opening the camera and from where, sending a photo, a card's reveal and its finish, saving a studio image, offering a swap or sharing with the community), with the time and the app's version. It sends them a few at a time. No photo, car, place or contact details are included. We store them with your account and installation identifiers and use them only for overall numbers on the same private dashboard, to decide what to improve in SPOT. From version 2.5 this includes when SPOT asks you for an App Store rating (not your answer, which only Apple knows) and when you tap Rate SPOT in Settings.

These are SPOT's own records: no analytics company, advertising network or other third party receives them, and they are not used for advertising or tracking. We keep them for 180 days. They are included in your data export and deleted with your account.

AI processing is your choice

Before the app sends photos for AI processing, it asks for your permission. Submitted images, supporting views, derived crops or depth maps, and relevant car/capture context are sent to SPOT and through OpenRouter to the inference providers serving the selected AI models. This release uses OpenAI and Meta models through OpenRouter. While you choose the car after taking a photo, a small copy of it is also sent through OpenRouter to quick decision models from TypeSafe (Jev) and Inception (Mercury), which find the car to select and check whether the photo shows a real car or a screen; that copy is not stored by SPOT, and only their answers are kept, for seven days. We do not send your Apple authorization tokens or payment details to the AI models.

SPOT does not use your photos to train its own models. Our API requests use OpenRouter's setting that denies routing to providers requiring data collection. Provider operational retention and security processing can still apply. See OpenRouter's privacy policy and its data-collection documentation. AI results may be incorrect.

You can decline and continue viewing your garage. Once you allow processing, AI identification is enabled for the photos you submit, including saved photos waiting for submission. To stop sending new photos, stop submitting captures. You can delete saved photos or your account in Settings, or contact us to request deletion of associated records. Some earlier app versions also provide an AI processing switch. Processing that has already begun cannot be recalled.

Sharing and service providers

Your garage is private by default. Sharing a photo with accepted friends requires a separate action. The app offers masks for visible personal details before sharing; review the result yourself. Friends may save what you share. Removing or blocking a friend revokes their access through SPOT, but cannot erase copies they already made.

So your photos stay available when our main photo storage is down, we keep an encrypted backup copy of your uploaded photos with BunnyWay d.o.o. (Slovenia), using its Bunny Storage service in Frankfurt, Germany. Photos are encrypted on our own servers (AES-256-GCM) before they are sent, and Bunny never receives the key, so it cannot view them. The copy is deleted when you delete the photo or your account. Bunny processes this data only on our behalf, within the EU.

Hosting and storage providers, Cloudflare, Apple, and OpenRouter with its model inference providers process the information needed to operate their respective services. We do not sell personal information. The only cross-app tracking is the optional TikTok ad measurement described below, which runs only if you allow it. Processing may occur outside your country, including the United States, depending on the service provider. Contact us for questions about processors or international processing.

Cards and swaps

From version 1.3, each car SPOT counts for you becomes a collectible card in your binder, showing your photo, the car's make and model, and the card's number. Your binder is private. A card can leave your binder only after you prepare it: you cover faces, number plates and other details on a copy of your photo, and only that covered copy is ever shown to other people. You can offer a prepared card to a friend, who sees your display name with the offer, or list it on the market, where other collectors see the card and what you want for it, but not your name.

When a swap completes, the other collector holds your card and can view its covered copy, and you hold theirs. A swap never moves your original photo, your garage or your discoveries. If you delete the photo behind a card, or your account, the card and its covered copy are removed from whoever holds it, and its open swaps are cancelled. If you report a card, SPOT receives the card's identifier, your reason and your account, and blocks that collector for you unless you are friends. Your data export includes your cards and swaps.

Community

From version 1.6, you can share a car you identified with the SPOT community, where other spotters can like it and reply in text. Reading the community needs no profile. Sharing and replying need Sign in with Apple and a community profile with a pseudonym you choose; liking needs Sign in with Apple. Nothing is shared until you choose a car and confirm its masks: the app suggests covers for faces and text, you adjust them, and SPOT burns them into a separate copy of your photo. Only that covered copy is ever shown.

From version 1.6, SPOT Plus Studio lifts the car out of your photo and places it on a SPOT backdrop. The car is separated from its background on your iPhone. If you make a studio image your card's picture, the app sends SPOT the car's outline (a small black-and-white shape, no photo) and the backdrop you chose; SPOT builds the picture from your original photo with your privacy masks applied and stores it like any card picture. It is deleted with the card's picture and with your account.

What other spotters see: your pseudonym, the covered photo (turned and cropped as you show it), the car's name, your card's finish, the day you spotted it, your replies, and how many people liked or replied. Your garage, cards and completed collections are private by default; you can show each of them on your profile in Settings → Community, as car names and spotted days, and only card artwork you already covered for swaps. Never shown: where or at what time you spotted a car, number plates or faces you covered, your Apple name or email, or any account identifier. Pseudonyms and replies are checked for offensive words, links and contact details before they are saved.

You can report a post or reply, which sends SPOT the item, your reason and your account; what you reported stops showing for you, and SPOT reviews reports within 24 hours and may remove content or suspend an author's community access. You can block a spotter: you stop seeing each other in the community, and a friendship between you ends. If you allow it, you are notified when someone likes or replies to what you shared, by their pseudonym; Settings → Notifications → Community turns this off. You can also let SPOT share new discoveries with your friends automatically, covering the faces and text your iPhone detects without a manual review; detection can miss details, so you can review or stop sharing any car from its page.

You can delete a post or reply at any time; deleting a post also deletes its likes and replies. Deleting the photo removes its post, and deleting your account removes your profile, posts, likes, replies, reports and community settings. Other spotters may have seen or saved what you shared before you deleted it. Your data export includes your community profile, posts, likes, replies, reports, the spotters you blocked and your auto-share setting.

Experience and levels: SPOT counts experience points (XP) from what your account already holds (identified cars, your cards' finishes, completed collections, swaps, what you share and the likes it receives) and keeps a list of what earned them. Only you see that list. Spotters with a community profile appear by pseudonym, level and XP in the community leaderboard and show their level on their profile, and your friends see your name, level and XP in their friends leaderboard; with a community profile, Settings → Community → Show my level and rank turns both off. Your data export includes your XP list, and deleting your account deletes it.

TikTok ad measurement

From version 1.1, SPOT measures whether its TikTok ads lead to installs, and from version 1.5 whether they lead to use and purchases. Apple's SKAdNetwork can send TikTok delayed, privacy-preserving attribution reports for installs that follow an ad. From version 1.5, the app also gives SKAdNetwork a milestone value (a coarse low, medium or high level and, when Apple allows it, a fine value) that records which of these steps have been reached: first photo sent, first car identified, signed in with Apple, the annual plan's free week started, subscribed, Spot Day bought. These reports do not include your advertising, vendor or account identifiers, and they work whatever you choose in the tracking prompt.

Only if you tap “Allow” in the iOS tracking prompt does the app also run the TikTok App Events SDK. It then sends TikTok an event when SPOT is installed and each time it is opened. From version 1.5, it also sends a “first car identified” event, and “trial started” (the annual plan's free week through Apple), “subscribed” and “Spot Day bought” events with the product, its price and its currency. The automatic trial for new accounts is not reported. Each event carries the information the SDK attaches: your device's advertising identifier (IDFA) and vendor identifier (IDFV), an identifier generated by the SDK, your IP address, user agent, device model, iOS version, language and region, your tracking-permission status, and the app's name, version and session identifiers. The SDK also sends TikTok diagnostics about its own performance and, if the SDK itself crashes, its crash report; these diagnostics carry the same device identifiers. TikTok uses this information to attribute installs, trials and purchases to our ads and report campaign results to us, and may link it with other information it holds under its own terms. SPOT does not send TikTok your photos, garage, collections, the cars you identify, account, display name, email, or payment details.

This measurement relies on your consent. You can withdraw it at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking; SPOT then stops sending events and diagnostics to TikTok. If you never allow tracking, the SDK does not start. TikTok's processing is described in TikTok's privacy policy.

Where installs come from

From version 2.5, the app tells SPOT which App Store country or region your iPhone uses, on its first launch and whenever it changes. This is the App Store you buy from, not your location. We store it with your account and use it only for overall numbers on the same private dashboard, such as how many people from each country find their first car, come back and subscribe.

From version 2.5, the first time SPOT opens, the app asks Apple's AdServices framework for an attribution token and sends it to SPOT. SPOT's server sends that token to Apple, which answers whether an Apple Ads campaign led to the download and, if so, its campaign, ad group, keyword and ad identifiers, the campaign's country or region, whether it was a download or a redownload and, only if you allowed tracking in the iOS prompt, the date you tapped the ad. This works whatever you choose in the tracking prompt and uses no advertising identifier (IDFA); SPOT does not store your IP address with it, and no ad network receives it. We keep Apple's answer with your account for 90 days to see whether people from each campaign find their first car, come back, sign in and subscribe. After 90 days we keep only daily totals per campaign, which identify no one, and delete the answer. It is included in your data export and deleted with your account. Apple's processing is described in Apple's privacy policy.

When you sign in with Apple, we also record when you first did so and, from version 2.5, which part of the app asked (for example the SPOT Plus page or Settings), to count sign-ins on the same dashboard.

Retention, export, and deletion

Kept garage photos and related records remain while your account keeps them. Unkept server previews expire after approximately 24 hours. Extra photos you take of a car on purpose (more angles, or another view added later) stay with it while you keep it, and are removed with it. Other supporting verification images become eligible for deletion after the verification retention window, generally seven days once that window is scheduled. Cleanup is asynchronous and may take longer during an outage. Daily identification usage records are normally removed after 30 days. Spot Day passes, event names and trial dates stay with your account until you delete it.

Use Settings → Export account data for a JSON copy of your account and collection records, or Settings → Delete account to request deletion of your account, photos, friendships, and billing links. Linked accounts require fresh Apple authorization; guest accounts can be deleted directly. The service retries interrupted deletion. Minimal security and erasure records may remain to prevent deleted accounts from being restored from backups. Restricted backup copies are retained for recovery and deletion records are reapplied during restoration.

Deleting your SPOT account does not cancel an Apple subscription. Cancel it in Apple's subscription settings. Apple retains payment records under its own policies. You may also contact us for access, correction, deletion, or other privacy requests. We may need to verify that you control the relevant account. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights or the right to complain to your data protection authority, including the CNIL in France.

Security and children

We use HTTPS, access controls, private media storage, and protected credentials. No system guarantees perfect security. SPOT is intended for people aged 13 and over and is not directed to children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can investigate and remove it.

App Store campaign links

Our App Store buttons include a campaign code to distinguish marketing sources, including the three SPOT TikTok videos. The code identifies the campaign, not an individual visitor. Apple uses these links to report aggregate campaign performance, including downloads when its reporting thresholds are met. These links do not connect your website visit to your SPOT account.

Website launch list

The following sections describe the separate, optional launch mailing list. Joining does not create an app account.

What we collect

When you sign up, we store your email address in normalized form, the time you agreed to launch updates, the version of that consent, and a hash of a withdrawal key. The key itself stays in this browser. The launch list is separate from SPOT accounts and car photos.

Why we use it

We use the email address to tell you about SPOT's launch and early access. Joining the list does not create an app account. The site does not use advertising trackers or analytics cookies.

Leaving the list

If you signed up from this browser, use the control below to withdraw. The request removes the matching email from the launch list. Keep this browser's storage until you no longer need that control. If you clear it, the saved withdrawal key is lost; a duplicate signup from a different browser cannot replace the original key.

Storage and changes

Launch-list records stay on the SPOT server until you withdraw or the list is closed. Contact [email protected] if you cannot use the withdrawal control. We may update this policy as the service changes. Material changes to photo processing will require a new in-app consent choice.