Your journal stays on your phone.
This is our privacy notice. It says what we keep, why, who helps us keep it, for how long, and how to ask for it back. Last updated 6 October 2026.
In short: we only receive your journal if you share an entry. Your exact location never leaves your phone at all. We set no cookies.
Who we are
GardenBirbs is made by AIntelligent Technologies Ltd, in Derbyshire, United Kingdom. We decide how your data is used, which makes us the controller under the UK GDPR. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, number ZB968420. Write to us at contact@gardenbirbs.com.
What we keep, and why
You can use the journal with no account. Only the community features need one, and an account is for adults. The first block is data that never reaches us. The rest is data we hold once you make an account, or join the waiting list. Without an account, these reach us: the rounded area, described under "Your rough location", anything you email us, and, on this website only, the internet address of each visit, which Netlify and Sentry both see.
Your journal
The photos, clips, recordings, notes and quotes you save, who and what you saw, where in the garden, the date and your time zone, your regular visitors, your care duties and your settings.
- Why:
- To be your journal.
- On what footing:
- None needed from us, because it never reaches us. It stays on your phone.
- How long:
- On your phone, until you delete the app. We do not hold a copy.
Your rough location
The app reads your position on the phone and turns it into a rounded area less than three kilometres across. Your exact position never leaves the phone. Only the rounded area is sent: when you open the Around screen, to show the gardens and bird sightings near you, which needs no account, and when you share something.
- Why:
- To place your garden on the neighbourhood map and to show the gardens and bird sightings near you.
- On what footing:
- Contract: it is part of the community features you asked for.
- How long:
- With your garden profile, until you delete your account. Looking at Around adds nothing to your account.
Your account
Your email address, or the sign-in you chose (an email code, or on iPhone, Sign in with Apple), any name that sign-in gives us, the time you told us you are 18 or over, and the time the account was made.
- Why:
- To sign you in and to keep one public garden for each person.
- On what footing:
- Contract: we need it to give you the community features.
- How long:
- Until you delete your account.
What you choose to publish
A public garden name, an optional bio, the garden traits you pick from a list, the regular visitors you pin, your rounded area, the spot you place on the drawn map, and any entry you share: the photo, clip or recording, the words, the bird, what it was doing, when it was shared and, if you chose them, an age group and a sex for the bird.
- Why:
- To show it to other gardeners nearby, because you asked us to.
- On what footing:
- Contract: you press share, and sharing is the service.
- How long:
- Until you remove it or delete your account. A removed entry leaves public view at once. We keep the entry itself, with its photo, clip or recording, out of public view, for appeals and abuse prevention, until you delete your account.
Kindnesses, watches, blocks and reports
The five kindnesses you leave (a feather, a seed, a heart, a sparkle, a cup of tea), gardens you watch, gardens you block, and reports you make about a post or a garden.
- Why:
- To run the community, and to keep it safe.
- On what footing:
- Contract for kindnesses and watches. Legitimate interests for blocks, reports and moderation, which is our interest in keeping people safe. A report is never shown to the person reported.
- How long:
- Kindnesses, watches and blocks until you delete your account. Reports and moderation records for as long as we need them to keep the community safe and to meet the law. If you delete your account, we take your name off the reports you made. Nobody can see them in the app.
The waiting list
If you join the waiting list we keep your email address. We do not ask for your name. The form is handled by Netlify, which hosts this website and stores the sign-ups for us. We will start using Resend to send the emails and will say so here first.
- Why:
- To tell you when the apps launch, and then to send a short note once a month.
- On what footing:
- Your consent. We ask for your agreement first, with a box you tick yourself. You can ask us to remove your address at any time by emailing contact@gardenbirbs.com.
- How long:
- Until you ask us to remove it or we close the list.
Messages to us
Whatever you put in an email, and your address.
- Why:
- To answer you.
- On what footing:
- Legitimate interests, which is our interest in replying to people who write to us.
- How long:
- For as long as it takes to deal with your message and any follow-up, then we delete it.
We do not collect your age. We do not use an advertising identifier. We do not track you across other apps or sites. This version of the app has no analytics tool and sends no error reports to us. If that changes, we will say so here first and ask you before anything is counted.
If you back your iPhone up with iCloud, the app's files may be part of that backup. That is your phone's setting, and it is between you and Apple. On Android™ phones the app is set to stay out of Google's backup.
Who else sees it
We do not sell your data and we do not share it for advertising. These are the people and services that handle it.
- Clerk
- Handles sign-in and holds your sign-in details. It acts for us, on our instructions.
- Convex
- Hosts the community side of the app: accounts, public gardens and posts, and the photos, clips and recordings you share. It acts for us, on our instructions.
- Apple
- Runs Sign in with Apple on iPhone if you choose it. Apple has its own privacy notice and decides for itself how it uses what it receives.
- Netlify
- Hosts this website and takes the waiting-list sign-ups, which it stores for us. It also keeps ordinary server records.
- Sentry
- Collects error reports from this website, and sees your internet address when a page asks it for its small script. It handles them for us. The app sends no error reports.
- Xeno-canto
- Provides the reference bird calls. When you play one, your phone fetches it from xeno-canto.org, so that site can see your internet address.
- YouTube
- Plays the bird videos on this website, only after you press play. Then YouTube sees your internet address and may store data on your device under its own privacy notice.
- GBIF
- A bird sightings service. We ask it, from our servers and not from your phone, for recent sightings near a rounded area. We send it the area and nothing about you.
- The people who see what you publish
- Other people who use the app, if you share something, with only your rounded area shown. That is the point of sharing.
Where it is kept, and moving it abroad
Your journal is kept on your phone. Community data is kept by the services above. Some of them are based outside the United Kingdom or process data there. You can ask us about this at the address above.
Deleting your account
In the app, open Settings, find the community account section, choose delete my account, and confirm. That deletes your public garden, every post you shared, the photos, clips and recordings you uploaded, your kindnesses, watches and blocks, your account record and your sign-in. If you signed in with Apple, also remove GardenBirbs under Sign in with Apple in your Apple Account settings.
Your private journal stays on your phone, because it was never ours. Deleting your account does not remove it. Deleting the app from your phone does. Reports you made and moderation records stay for as long as "What we keep, and why" describes, and are not visible to anyone in the app. If you cannot open the app, the delete account page explains how to ask us to do it.
Your rights
You have the right:
- to be told what we hold about you, and to have a copy
- to have mistakes corrected
- to have your data deleted
- to ask us to stop using it for a time
- to receive the data you gave us in a form you can move
- to object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests
- to take back a consent you gave, whenever you like
Email us to use any of them. We will answer within one month. If a request is complicated we may need longer, and we will tell you why. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. We would like the chance to put it right first.
Children
Accounts, and everything public, are for people aged 18 and over. When you share something we ask you to confirm that you are, and the app may ask again after it restarts. We do not ask anyone's age and we cannot tell who is holding a phone. A child may use the private journal with an adult looking after them. It stays on the phone and we receive none of it. Please do not put a child's name or details that identify them in anything you share.
Cookies and this website
The app sets no cookies, and this website sets none of its own. This website serves its lettering from its own address, so no font company sees your visit. Each time a page opens, it asks Sentry's EU servers for a small script, so Sentry sees your internet address then. If a script on a page fails, a short error report goes to Sentry's EU servers, who handle it for us. A bird video loads from YouTube only after you press play. From then YouTube sees your internet address and may store data on your device under its own privacy notice. The page is hosted by Netlify, which keeps ordinary server records. We do not use the error reports or Netlify's records to follow you.
Joining the waiting list happens on this website. No other company's page or cookies are involved.
Changes to this notice
If we change how we use your data, we will change this page and its date first. If a change affects something you agreed to, we will ask you again.
Six things it will never do to you.
Every one of these is something the app will never ask of you. Not a feature waiting its turn, and not a setting buried somewhere. It simply does not do them.
- No leaderboards
No leaderboards and no rankings.
The robin on your spade handle is not a point. Give him a number and he becomes one more of a species you have already ticked, which is the opposite of noticing him.
- No audience
No follower counts and no public comment threads.
Nobody can count your followers, because the app does not show how many people watch a garden. Share something and it joins a map of nearby gardens, and a neighbour can leave you a feather or a seed.
- No guilt
No mandatory streaks and no cloud habit sync.
Scrubbing a bird bath is a chore, not an achievement.
- No homework
No wall of text, no paywalled articles, no raw spectrograms.
You are not here to read. What the app knows about a species arrives a little at a time as you watch one, and it sits beside your own notes rather than in a separate article.
- No admin
No folders to keep tidy, no separate place for photos, notes or sounds.
If logging a bird ever feels like filing something, we have got it wrong.
- Nobody knows where you live
No exact GPS, no street-level maps, no nest locations, no cloud backup made by the app.
Your garden is your home. Your exact location never leaves your phone. Anything you share is rounded, before it is sent, to an area less than three kilometres across, and the map is a drawing rather than a real place.
What it costs
Your journal is free, forever. So is seeing what your neighbours have shared, and sharing your own. A garden nobody can visit without paying is not much of a neighbourhood.
If you want to chip in, we plan an optional supporter membership at a couple of pounds a month. It buys you a seal on your garden and some nicer finishes. It will never buy you more reach than anyone else, and it will never be the thing standing between you and your own birds.