The short version
- Your photo is used to answer your request and is not stored by us.
- Before upload, your browser shrinks the photo and removes its metadata, including location.
- Analytics and advertising cookies are set only if you agree to them.
- Shop links may be affiliate links; the retailer you visit has its own privacy policy.
Photos you upload
When you identify an item, your browser re-encodes the photo to at most 1024 pixels on the longest edge. This strips the file's EXIF metadata — camera details and GPS location — before anything leaves your device.
The resized image is sent to our server and passed to Anthropic, whose Claude model reads it and returns the brand, model and our confidence. We do not save the image or attach it to an account. Anthropic processes it under its commercial API terms, which do not allow API data to be used to train its models; it may keep request data for a limited period for safety and abuse monitoring. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
Please only upload photos you have the right to share, and avoid photos that show people's faces where you can crop them out.
Information we collect
Technical data. Our hosting and security provider, Cloudflare, processes your IP address and request details to deliver the site, block abuse and apply rate limits (a cap on how many photos one visitor can identify per hour). A Cloudflare Turnstile check may run to tell people from bots.
Usage events. We record events such as "photo uploaded", "result shown", "shop link clicked" and whether you marked an answer right or wrong. They contain no images. Unless you accept analytics cookies, they are sent without cookies or identifiers.
Messages. If you use the contact form, we receive your name, email address and message, delivered to us by email through our email provider, Resend.
Accounts and payments. If you create an account, we store your email address and name (or the profile details from Google if you sign in with Google). If you buy a paid feature, payment is handled by Stripe; we receive a record of the purchase but never your full card number. A Seller Pass is recorded against your account, with the Stripe payment reference and how many listings you have used.
Corrections. If you tell us an answer was wrong, we keep the answer and the correction you typed (not your photo), linked to your account if you are signed in, to check and improve the identifier.
Limits. We count identifications and listings per day: for accounts, against the account; for the one free try without an account, against a one-way hash of your IP address, kept for two days. We don't store the address itself.
Cookies and analytics
We use Google Analytics to understand which pages and features are used, and we may show ads through Google AdSense. Both use Google Consent Mode: their cookies are set only after you accept in the cookie banner. Until then — or if you decline — Google receives only limited, cookieless signals, and any ads shown are not personalised. Details are in the Cookie Policy.
Affiliate links
Results include links to retailers such as Amazon, eBay, StockX and others. Some are affiliate links: if you buy after clicking, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Once you leave our site, the retailer's privacy policy and cookies apply.
Who we share data with
We do not sell your personal information. We share data only with the service providers needed to run the site — Cloudflare (hosting and security), Anthropic (image recognition), Packet, KicksDB and eBay (market prices — they receive only the name of the identified item, never your photo), Google (analytics and ads, with consent), Skimlinks (affiliate links — when you click a shop link it records the click so the retailer can credit us), Resend (email) and Stripe (payments) — or where the law requires it.
How long we keep it
- Photos: not stored by us.
- Analytics events: kept in Google Analytics according to its retention setting (up to 14 months).
- Contact messages: kept until the conversation is finished, then deleted within 12 months.
- Account data: kept until you delete your account.
Your rights
Depending on where you live — including under the GDPR in the EU and UK and the CCPA in California — you can ask to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, or object to how we use it. You can withdraw cookie consent at any time from the cookie banner. Write to us at support@whatshoesarethese.com and we will reply within 30 days.
Children
The site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Changes
If we change how we handle data, we will update this page and the date at the top.