Hearts Not Faces — Privacy Policy

Who we are

Hearts Not Faces is an independent iOS app built to protect infant privacy before sharing photos on social media. It is not affiliated with Apple, Instagram, or Meta.

What happens to your photos

Nothing leaves your device. Ever.

When you use Hearts Not Faces, all face detection and erasure happens entirely on your iPhone using Apple's built-in Vision framework. Your photos are not uploaded to any server, not stored by us, and not transmitted anywhere. We have no access to your photos and no way to receive them even if we wanted to.

What we collect

We collect a small number of anonymous usage events to understand whether the app is working correctly. These events contain no personal information, no photos, no device identifiers, and no location data.

An example event looks like this:

"A photo was processed. 2 faces were detected. Processing took 1.3 seconds. Location data was stripped."

That is all. These events are collected via PostHog, an open-source analytics tool. You cannot be identified from these events. We do not link them to you, your device, or your Apple ID.

What we do not collect

• Your photos or any image data
• Your name, email, or any account information
• Your location
• Your device identifier or advertising ID
• Any information about your infant or family

Third-party services

We use two third-party tools:

• PostHog — anonymous usage analytics. PostHog Privacy Policy →
• Sentry — anonymous crash reporting. Sentry Privacy Policy →

Neither service receives your photos or any personal information.

Data retention

Because we collect no personal data, there is nothing to delete or retain. Anonymous usage events are retained for 90 days for debugging purposes and then deleted automatically.

Children's privacy

Hearts Not Faces is designed to protect the privacy of infants and children, not to collect data about them. We collect no information about the children who appear in photos processed by the app.

What this app cannot do

Hearts Not Faces protects photos at the moment you share them through the share sheet. It cannot:

• Protect photos you have already shared publicly without using Hearts Not Faces
• Protect photos shared through other apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, or email, where the original unprocessed image is sent directly
• Guarantee detection of every face in every photo — very small faces, side profiles, and partially obscured faces may occasionally be missed. We show a warning when our confidence is low.
• Protect against a platform that already has access to the original photo through another channel
• Remove faces from videos

iCloud and your photos

Protected photos are saved to a "Hearts Not Faces" album in your Photos app. Like all photos on your device, this album syncs to iCloud by default. Hearts Not Faces has no control over iCloud. For maximum privacy, you can disable iCloud Photos or enable Advanced Data Protection under your Apple ID settings.

Your rights

Because we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing to access, correct, or delete. If you have questions, contact us below.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will update the date at the top. We will never introduce data collection practices that contradict the core promise of this app.