Face Garden
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 24 September 2026
Face Garden is a camera-powered facial-movement game. This policy describes exactly what the app does with your data. In short: your camera, your face measurements, and your practice journal never leave your device. The only thing Face Garden can send is anonymous usage counts, and only if you say yes.
Camera
Face Garden asks for access to your front camera so it can recognise the facial movements that control the game.
- Camera frames are analysed entirely on your device by Google's MediaPipe Face Landmarker, which is bundled inside the app.
- Camera frames are never uploaded, transmitted, recorded, or saved.
- No photograph or video of you is written to storage at any point.
- The camera runs only while a play session is on screen. It is released when you leave the session, exit the app, or switch to another app.
Face Garden does not identify you, match you against any other face, or build a face template. It only measures how far a movement has travelled relative to your own calibrated range.
What is stored on your device
The following is saved locally on your device (iOS user defaults, Android shared preferences) so the game works the way you left it:
- Calibration thresholds — a small set of numbers describing your comfortable movement range for each movement you have calibrated. These are aggregate measurements, not images and not a face identifier.
- Practice journal — a list of your finished sessions: the date, which movements each session asked for, repetition counts, and per-session aggregate numbers (movement range relative to your calibration, left/right balance, and a resting-ease value from the settle moment). These are single numbers per session step — never images, video, or a face template. The garden you see and the trends in Your progress are computed from this journal on your device each time.
- Preferences — whether sound cues and haptic cues are on, whether you chose a daily reminder time, and your answer about anonymous usage counts.
None of this leaves your device. There is no account, no login, and no sync. On Android, Face Garden also switches off the system's own app backup and its device-to-device transfer, so this data is not copied to Google Drive or moved to a new phone either. The trade is that a new phone starts with a fresh garden.
Anonymous usage counts (optional)
Starting with version 1.2, Face Garden asks once whether you would like to share anonymous usage counts. Nothing is sent unless you choose Share counts, and you can change your answer at any time on the home screen (Anonymous usage counts: Off / On).
If you say yes, the app sends a short message when certain things happen in the app. Each message contains only:
- the name of the event, from a fixed list: for example "finished calibration", "skipped a moment", "opened Your progress", or "opened the Full Bloom screen";
- a few details, each from a fixed list of values: for example where in the app it happened, which movement was skipped, or how many days you have practised, as a range such as "4–7";
- the app version, and whether it is the iPhone and iPad app or the Android app.
It never contains anything the camera sees or measures: no images, no video, no repetitions, no movement range, balance or resting-ease values, and no calibration values. It contains no name, account, device identifier or advertising identifier, and no location.
The messages go to Face Garden's own server, hosted by Vercel, which adds each one to a count for that day. The counts are stored with Upstash, a database service. Like any web request, a message reaches the server with your IP address, which Vercel needs to deliver it; Face Garden's server does not read, log or store it, or any other identifier. So the counts cannot be linked to you or to each other, and they are never combined with other data or used for advertising or tracking. Each day's counts are deleted automatically after about 13 months.
What is not collected
Face Garden has no advertising, no crash reporting, no tracking, no accounts, and no third-party SDKs that collect data. Apart from the optional usage counts above, the app makes no network requests while you play — every asset it needs, including the face-tracking model, ships inside the app.
Reminders and sharing
- The optional daily reminder is a local notification scheduled on your device. There is no push service and no server involved.
- Sharing a garden portrait creates an image of the drawn garden and your practice words (streak and session count) and hands it to the system share sheet. It contains no camera frames and no measurements. Where it goes from the share sheet is your choice; Face Garden itself does not upload it.
Purchases
The optional Full Bloom upgrade is bought through the store the app came from — Apple on iPhone, Google Play on Android. Payment, billing details, and subscription management are handled entirely by that store; Face Garden never sees or stores any payment information. Whether the upgrade is active is checked on your device (through StoreKit on iOS, Google Play Billing on Android) — there is no account and no server involved.
Children
Face Garden collects no personal data from anyone, including children. The optional usage counts are anonymous and contain no personal data.
Deleting your data
Deleting the app removes everything Face Garden has stored on your device. You can also clear your saved calibration at any time by choosing Not you? Recalibrate during the camera check and calibrating again.
The optional usage counts cannot be traced back to you, so there is nothing on the server that could be looked up or deleted for you. Turn them off on the home screen and nothing more is sent.
Not a medical product
Face Garden is a playful movement game. Recognising a movement means the camera matched a requested facial shape. It is not a medical assessment of muscle activation, exercise quality, or health, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional.
Changes
If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date above will change with it.
Contact
Questions about this policy: thewellfrogproject@gmail.com