Mino – Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 2026
Mino is developed by Didier Fuentes. This Privacy Policy explains what Mino does with your information.
The Short Version
Your Dex lives on your iPhone. The only thing Mino sends anywhere is the photos you ask it to identify, with their location and other metadata removed. They go to Mino's server and on to Anthropic's Claude to identify the animal, and they are not stored once the answer comes back. There is no account, no analytics, and no tracking.
Information We Collect
When you identify a sighting, Mino sends:
- The photos of that sighting (up to five), resized and re-encoded first, so they carry no location, date, camera details or other metadata.
- The names of the entries already in your Dex (common name, scientific name and an internal key), so a new sighting of an animal you've already found joins the same entry.
- An anonymous installation ID generated by Firebase for this copy of the app. It is used only to count requests for the daily limit. It is not linked to your name, Apple ID, email, or anything else about you.
- An App Check token from Apple's App Attest, which proves the request comes from a genuine copy of Mino. It contains no information about you.
Your photos and Dex names are used only to produce the identification. Mino's server passes them to Claude and returns the answer; it does not store your photos.
What we keep on the server is a count of identifications per installation ID per day, for the daily limits. Like any server, it also keeps short-lived operational logs (timing and errors), which do not contain your photos.
Never sent: your locations, dates, nicknames, notes, tags, or the rest of your Dex. Mino does not collect analytics, usage data, or crash reports.
Data Storage
Everything else Mino keeps is on your device:
- Sightings — photos, date, location, place name, nickname, note and tags.
- Dex entries — the identifications Claude returned.
You can delete any sighting in the app. Deleting the app removes all of it. Mino has no account and no cloud sync, so nothing in your Dex exists anywhere else.
Permissions
Mino asks for two iOS permissions, each only when it's needed:
- Camera — to photograph animals.
- Location (While Using) — to record where you saw each animal and show it on your map.
Declining either still lets you use Mino: you can pick photos from your library, and set or skip a sighting's location yourself. Choosing photos from your library uses the system photo picker, so Mino only sees the photos you select. Location read from a photo's own metadata stays on your device.
Third-Party Services
Mino contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or attribution SDKs. The services it relies on are:
- Anthropic (Claude) — identifies the animal in your photos. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, this data is not used to train its models. Governed by the Anthropic Privacy Policy.
- Google Firebase — runs Mino's server, App Check and the anonymous installation ID. Governed by the Google Privacy Policy and Firebase's privacy information.
- Neon — the database that stores the daily request counts. Governed by the Neon Privacy Policy.
- Apple — App Attest; maps and place names on your device are provided by Apple Maps, which receives the coordinates being looked up. Governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.
Tracking
Mino does not track you across apps or websites, does not use your data for targeted advertising, and does not sell, rent, or share your data.
Children's Privacy
Mino is not directed at children under the age of 13 and does not knowingly collect data from children.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the app changes, for example if accounts or sharing features are added. The "last updated" date above always reflects the current version.
Contact
Questions about this policy: [email protected]
By using Mino, you agree to this Privacy Policy.