Privacy policy

Last updated: October 14, 2026

This page explains what personal data Pomona (pomonagarden.app) collects, why, who else handles it, how long it's kept, and what you can do about it.

Who is responsible

Pomona is run by Sonia Koza, a private person in Poland, who is the controller of your personal data. In this policy, “we” means her. Write to hello@pomonagarden.app with any question about your data, in English or Polish.

What we collect and why

Your account. Your email address, your password (stored only as a salted hash, never in readable form), an optional display name, your language, and when you signed up and were last active. We need these to run your account and sign you in. Legal basis: our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

What you put into Pomona. Your gardens, boards, plants and where they grow, structures and labels, seasons, reminders, and journal notes and photos. Before a photo is uploaded, your browser shrinks it and removes its metadata (EXIF), including any location. This is the service itself. Legal basis: contract.

AI features. Only when you use one, the photos and text it needs are sent to Google's Gemini API. For a question about a journal entry, that's the entry's photos and note, earlier notes about the same spot, the plant's name and the dates. To identify a plant or read a seed packet, it's the photo or text you give. We keep your questions and the answers with the journal entry, and a record of each AI request (feature, model, size and cost) to count your monthly allowance. Legal basis: contract.

Payments. Only if you buy a paid plan. Payments go through Stripe, and your card details go straight to Stripe: we never see them. We store your plan, its status and dates, and the IDs Stripe gives you and your subscription. The payment records themselves stay with Stripe. Legal basis: contract.

Reminder notifications. Only if you turn them on: your browser's push subscription (an address at your browser maker's push service, plus encryption keys) and the name of your browser. Notifications are encrypted, so the push service can't read them. Legal basis: contract.

Emails. We only send emails about your account, such as password resets and confirmations of a new email address. No newsletters, no marketing. Legal basis: contract.

Security. To stop password guessing and other abuse, we count attempts per email address and per IP address, stored only as one-way hashes. Our servers also keep technical logs of requests: the time, the address requested, the IP address and the browser. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in keeping Pomona and your account secure (Article 6(1)(f)).

Analytics. Only if you accept analytics cookies; see the next section. Legal basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)).

Analytics

If you accept, Pomona uses Google Analytics to learn how people find and use it: which pages are visited, where visitors came from (for example a search engine or a link), their device and browser, and roughly where they are (country and city). Google Analytics sets the _ga cookies and doesn't store IP addresses. Google's advertising features are off, so nothing is used for ads or to personalize them. We keep this data for 14 months.

If you say no, nothing loads from Google. You can change your answer at any time under “Cookie settings”, at the bottom of the public pages and in Settings when you're signed in. Saying no after a yes deletes the Analytics cookies; it doesn't affect what was collected before.

Who else handles your data

We use these providers, each only for what's listed:

• Railway: hosts Pomona's servers and database in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• Cloudflare (USA): runs the domain, stores your photos, and forwards email sent to hello@pomonagarden.app.
• Google (USA): the Gemini API for AI features, and Google Analytics if you accept it.
• Stripe (USA and Ireland): payments, if you buy a plan. Stripe also processes payment data as an independent controller, under its own privacy policy.
• Resend (USA): sends account emails.
• Your browser's push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple): delivers the notifications you turn on.

We don't sell your data, and we don't use it for advertising.

Transfers outside the EU

Pomona's servers and database are in the EU, in Amsterdam. The providers above are US companies or belong to one, though, so some data can reach the USA: an AI request to Google, for example, or an email sent through Resend. Those transfers rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the company is certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep it

• Your account and everything in it: until you delete the account, which also deletes your photos at once. Copies can stay in database backups for a short time after that, until the backups expire.
• Password reset and email change links: they expire after one hour.
• Server logs: a few weeks, at most 90 days.
• AI requests at Google: Google keeps prompts and answers for up to 55 days to detect abuse, and doesn't use them to improve its products.
• Analytics: 14 months.
• Push subscriptions: until you turn notifications off, or the push service tells us the subscription has ended.

Cookies and storage on your device

The cookies other than Analytics sign you in, remember your choices or send you to the right page. They don't track you, so they need no consent.

So that Pomona works offline, the app keeps a copy of your gardens, and of pages it has loaded, in your browser's storage. It also remembers a few settings there, such as light or dark mode. This stays on the device until you clear the site's data in your browser.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can:

• get a copy of your data, and have it corrected;
• have it deleted, or its use restricted;
• receive it in a machine-readable format (you can also export boards as JSON from the editor);
• object to processing based on our legitimate interest;
• withdraw your consent at any time.

To use any of these rights, write to hello@pomonagarden.app from the address your account uses. We'll answer within a month. You can also delete your account yourself, in Settings: we email you a link to confirm, and the link deletes the account and everything in it, photos included, and cancels any subscription.

You can also complain to the Polish data protection authority: Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Danych Osobowych, ul. Stawki 2, 00-193 Warszawa, uodo.gov.pl.

Other things to know

• You need an email address and a password to create an account. Everything else is optional.
• Pomona doesn't make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.
• Pomona isn't meant for children under 16.
• When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. For significant changes, we'll also tell you in the app or by email.