Zarden Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 21, 2026

This privacy policy applies to Zarden, our plant companion app. It explains what we collect, what we do not, and how your garden stays yours.

Zarden is part of the Zovia Studio family of apps. This page covers data collection specific to Zarden. For our complete privacy practices across all Zovia apps, see the main Privacy Policy.

What Information Zarden Collects

Account Information

  • •An anonymous device credential, automatically generated on first launch (no email or password required)
  • •Display name (auto-generated at sign-up, editable any time)
  • •A 28-character recovery code shown once at sign-up (only you have it)
  • •An optional passkey backed by Face ID, Touch ID, or your device passcode (stored in your device Secure Enclave or StrongBox)
  • •An optional email address you can add later for notifications or recovery messages

Your Garden Data

The plants and activity you record in Zarden:

  • •Plants: Names, species, photos, locations within your home, pot size, custom notes
  • •Care log: Watering, fertilizing, repotting, pruning, health-check, treatment, and propagation events with timestamps
  • •Photos: Plant, check-in, treatment, and propagation photos you upload, used for identification, health checks, and your timeline
  • •Gardener profile: Your experience level and any pets you note, so care advice and toxicity warnings fit your home
  • •Light readings: If you use the in-app light meter, the resulting brightness value is computed on your device and may be saved to a plant. The camera frames it measures are never uploaded or stored.
  • •Preferences: Reminder rhythm, preferred reminder time, indoor or outdoor flag, room labels

Plant Identification and Health Checks

When you point your camera at a plant or run a health diagnostic:

  • •On-device check first: Before any photo leaves your phone, Zarden checks on your device that it looks like a plant and is not a person, so unintended photos are not sent
  • •Photo processing: The photo is then sent to Google's Gemini AI, through our secure cloud functions, for species recognition and health analysis
  • •Identification result: The species name, confidence score, and care profile returned by the model are saved with the plant
  • •Health diagnosis: When you snap a health check, the photo plus the diagnosis text is saved to your plant timeline for your reference

Important: Photos sent to Google for processing are not retained by Google for model training and are processed server-side through our secure cloud functions.

Location for Growing Zone and Weather

Zarden tunes care advice to your local climate:

  • •Growing zone: Detected once from your approximate location, then cached. Used to adjust species-level care advice for your climate.
  • •Local weather: Your approximate location is sent to Google's Weather and Air Quality services to fetch forecast, recent rainfall, and air-quality data that shape your daily care plan (for example, skipping a watering reminder after rain).
  • •No continuous tracking: Zarden never tracks your location in the background. You can update or remove your zone any time from settings.

Shared Garden (Spaces)

If you share your garden with household members through a Zovia Space:

  • •Space name and member display names
  • •Member roles and permissions
  • •Invite tokens (short-lived QR pairing codes)
  • •Garden activity attribution (who watered what, when)

Home-Screen Widgets

If you add a Zarden widget to your home or lock screen, a small snapshot of your garden (a plant photo, the next care task, and a weather line) is written to a private storage area on your device that the widget reads. This snapshot stays on your device and is not shared.

Technical and Usage Data

  • •Device information (phone model, OS version)
  • •App version
  • •A push notification token, so we can deliver the reminders you turn on
  • •Crash reports and error logs
  • •Anonymized feature and milestone usage (for example, that a scan was run or the paywall was viewed), never your plant data or photos

What Zarden Does NOT Collect

  • Email or password: Zarden never requires either at sign-up. Email is optional and only used if you opt in later.
  • Background location: Zarden does not track your location continuously. Growing zone is detected once and cached, and weather lookups happen only while you use the app.
  • Light-meter imagery: The light meter reads brightness on your device. The camera frames it samples are never uploaded or saved.
  • Photo metadata for tracking: Plant photos are used for identification, health, and your timeline. They are not analyzed for facial recognition or shared with advertisers.
  • Payment information: All payments go through Apple App Store or Google Play Store. We never see your card.
  • Contacts: We never access your phone's contact list.

Third-Party Services Zarden Uses

Zarden relies on a small set of carefully chosen services for the features that need them:

Google Gemini AI

Used for species identification, health diagnostics, and care profile generation against our Global Plant Master Model catalog. The plant photos and text prompts we send are processed for inference and are not retained by Google or used for model training.

Google Weather and Air Quality

Used to fetch local forecast, rainfall, and air-quality data for your daily care plan. We send your approximate location coordinates with the request. We do not send your identity or your plant data.

Wikipedia

Used to show a reference photo for a plant species. We send only the species name to look up the image. No personal data is involved.

Back4App (Parse Server)

Your garden data, including plants, care log, and the photos you upload, is stored in our Parse backend hosted on Back4App. Encrypted at rest and in transit.

Firebase (Google)

Push notification delivery, crash reporting, and anonymized usage analytics. We do not send your plant photos or plant notes to Firebase.

Your Rights

Export your data: Export your garden data as JSON or CSV from the app, or email us and we will send you a copy.

Delete your data: Delete only Zarden's data, or your entire Zovia account, directly from the app. Biometric confirmation required. See the Data Deletion page for full details.

Update your data: Edit any plant, photo, or log entry at any time. Update your display name, optional email, and growing zone from settings.

Contact us: Email hello@zovia.studio with any privacy questions.