This Privacy Policy explains how Partivize ("Partivize", "we", "us") collects, uses, discloses and protects personal information when you use the Partivize mobile app (the "App"), our website at partivize.app (the "Site"), and related services (together, the "Services").
We are based in New Zealand and handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles (IPPs).
1. Information we collect
A. Information you give us
| What | Why we have it |
|---|---|
| Name and email address | To create and identify your account (via Clerk, our authentication provider). If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile image from Google. |
| Photos you scan | To identify a part or vehicle. See section 3. |
| Typed and spoken searches | To answer the search. Voice input is converted to text on your device by the operating system. |
| Your garage | Vehicles you save: make, model, year, engine and chassis codes, trim, drivetrain, transmission, odometer reading, purchase date, your notes and nickname, and - if you enter one - a VIN or a number-plate label. |
| Maintenance records | Services you log, build lists, and parts checklists. |
| Feedback and corrections | When you mark a result right or wrong, or submit a correction, we store your query, what was shown to you, and anything you type. |
| Payment details | Handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number. We store only your Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, your plan, and its renewal date. |
B. Information collected automatically
- Usage and diagnostics - errors and crash reports (via Sentry), API request logs, timestamps and IP address, retained for security, debugging and abuse prevention.
- Scan metering - a count of scans per day, to enforce free-plan limits.
- Device integrity - on Android we may check the app's integrity with Google Play Integrity to prevent fraudulent access to paid features.
C. What we do not collect
We do not collect your location, your contacts, or your device's photo library. The App only receives the specific photos you choose to scan.
2. Vehicle register lookups
If you enter a New Zealand number plate or a VIN, we send it to a third-party vehicle data provider (CarJam for New Zealand registrations, GlobalVIN or the public NHTSA decoder for other VINs) to return details about that vehicle.
Please note:
- A number plate or VIN may constitute personal information about the vehicle's owner. Only look up vehicles you own or are lawfully working on.
- The information returned comes from the register and its providers. We do not control it and cannot guarantee it is accurate or current.
- Register results are cached for up to 30 days so repeat lookups do not incur repeat charges.
3. How we handle your photos
This is the part people ask about most, so we are specific.
- Your photo is sent to our server, and from there to Google Cloud Vision (to read any text on the part) and to Mistral AI (to identify the part visually).
- We may then send the extracted text and part numbers - not the image - to Perplexity and SerpAPI to find catalogue and fitment information, and reference images.
- We do not store your photograph on our servers. What we retain against your scan history is the text read from the image, the identification result, its confidence, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the image (used to detect duplicate scans and to link corrections).
- The photo remains on your own device in your camera roll or gallery, under your control.
Our automated identification providers process the image to return a result and are contractually engaged to act on our instructions. Their own retention practices are governed by their terms.
4. How we use information
We use personal information to:
- Provide the Services - identify parts and vehicles, maintain your garage, and generate maintenance schedules
- Create and secure your account and keep you signed in
- Process subscriptions and manage billing
- Enforce the plan limits shown in the App when plans become available
- Improve accuracy - corrections and feedback are reviewed to fix our parts catalogue and search behaviour
- Diagnose faults, monitor performance, and prevent fraud, spam and abuse
- Communicate with you about your account, and respond to your enquiries
- Comply with legal obligations
We do not use your personal information for third-party advertising, and we do not sell it.
5. Disclosure and overseas storage
We disclose personal information to the service providers that operate the Services. Because we are a New Zealand business using international infrastructure, your information is stored and processed outside New Zealand, including in Australia, the United States and the European Union.
| Provider | Purpose | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk | Authentication and account management | United States |
| Neon | Database hosting | United States / EU |
| Railway | Application server hosting | United States |
| Stripe | Payment and subscription processing | United States |
| Google Cloud Vision | Optical character recognition on scanned photos | United States |
| Mistral AI | Visual part and vehicle identification | European Union |
| Perplexity | Catalogue and fitment web grounding | United States |
| SerpAPI | Reference image search | United States |
| CarJam | New Zealand vehicle register lookups | New Zealand |
| GlobalVIN / NHTSA | VIN decoding | United States |
| Resend | Transactional and notification email | United States |
| Sentry | Error and crash monitoring | United States |
| Google Play Integrity | Android app integrity checks | United States |
Where we send personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient protects it with comparable safeguards to those required under the Privacy Act 2020, as required by IPP 12.
We may also disclose personal information where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to comply with the law or a lawful request, to enforce our Terms, to protect the rights, property or safety of any person, or in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets (in which case we will take reasonable steps to ensure it remains subject to this policy).
6. Retention
- Account information - kept while your account is open.
- Garage, scan history, maintenance records - kept while your account is open, so they are available across your devices.
- Feedback and corrections - retained after your account closes, in de-identified form. See section 7.
- Payment records - Stripe retains transaction records as required by financial and tax law, independently of your account.
- Logs and crash reports - retained for a limited period for security and diagnostics, according to each provider's settings.
- Register lookup cache - up to 30 days.
7. Deleting your account
You can delete your account at any time: Account → Delete Account, then type DELETE to confirm.
This permanently removes your account and the personal information we hold in the App: your profile, saved vehicles, maintenance logs, build lists, parts checklists and scan history. Your sign-in credentials are revoked so the account cannot be used again. It cannot be undone.
Three things survive deletion, and we would rather say so:
- Payment records held by Stripe, which we are required to keep for tax and accounting purposes.
- Search feedback and corrections, de-identified. When you tell us a result was wrong, that report is what we use to fix the underlying parts data - so we keep it, but we detach it from you rather than delete it. At deletion we remove your identifier from the record, strip the number plate and VIN from any vehicle it was anchored to, and delete the search term itself where that term was a plate or VIN. What remains is the technical signal - make, model, year, engine and chassis codes, what we showed, and what you told us was wrong - with nothing pointing back to you.
- Aggregated and de-identified information - for example, corrections already applied to our parts catalogue - which no longer identifies you.
If you have an active subscription, cancel it before deleting your account, or contact us.
8. Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you have the right to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you
- Correct it if it is wrong - you can edit your garage and profile in the App directly, or ask us
- Ask us to delete it (see section 7)
- Complain about how we have handled it
To make a request, email partivize@gmail.com. We may need to verify your identity first. We will respond within 20 working days, as the Act requires.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner - privacy.org.nz - or 0800 803 909.
9. Security
We protect your information with measures including encryption in transit (HTTPS with HSTS), authenticated and access-scoped API routes, rate limiting, and restricted credentials for our providers. We do not store card numbers, and we do not store your scanned photographs.
No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a privacy breach that has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner as required by the Privacy Act 2020.
10. Children
The Services are not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. If we do, we will change the "Last updated" date above, and for material changes we will give notice in the App or by email. Continued use of the Services after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy.
12. Contact
Questions, requests or complaints about privacy:
Email: partivize@gmail.com