In short
Effective date: 20 August 2026
This policy explains what happens to your data when you use Sabz, the iPhone plant-care app (sabz.life). We've written it to be read, not skimmed past. If anything is unclear, contact us at [email protected].
The short version: Sabz doesn't have an account system, doesn't track you, and doesn't run ads. Everything you record about your plants stays on your own devices — kept in sync through your personal iCloud, which only you can read — and we hold no copy of it. Two things leave your device, both only when you ask for them: a Check-up, which sends that plant's name and species, its care history, your answers, and — if you add them — your note and a photo; and adding a photo to a plant, which sends the photo to suggest its species. A random per-install identifier travels with those requests to stop abuse of the AI service. All of it is set out in full in section 5.
Who is responsible for your data
The "controller" of your personal data under UK data protection law — the party who decides why and how it's processed — is:
Nasim Keshavarz Trading as Sabz, a sole trader Registered/service address: Prime Apartments, 483 Green Lanes, London, N13 4FG, United Kingdom Contact: [email protected]
We refer to this party as "we," "us," or "the Operator" throughout this policy and the Terms of Use.
What this policy covers
This policy applies to the Sabz iPhone app and to sabz.life. It does not cover third-party services you may interact with around Sabz — most importantly Apple, whose own privacy policy governs the App Store, your Apple ID, in-app purchases, and the iCloud storage your Sabz records sync to (see section 8).
Sabz is available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). We apply the standards in this policy to everyone, wherever you are. If you are in the UK, UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply; if you are in the EU or EEA, EU GDPR applies. The rights in section 11 are materially the same under both.
What we don't collect
To be direct about it, Sabz does not have:
- user accounts, sign-in, or any form of registration;
- analytics, crash-reporting, or usage-tracking software of any kind;
- advertising SDKs, ad identifiers, or any advertising network integration;
- any mechanism for tracking you across other apps or websites.
We are not able to identify you, build a profile of you, or link your use of Sabz to you as an individual, because we deliberately haven't built anything that could do that.
What's stored on your devices, and stays yours
When you use Sabz, the app creates and maintains a local database on your iPhone containing:
- the plants you add, and any photos you attach to them;
- your watering and feeding schedules and reminders;
- your care history for each plant (what you've logged, and when);
- the results of any Check-up you've run (see section 5);
- optionally, a first name you can enter so the app can greet you on screen.
All of this is stored on your device, and synced to your own private iCloud database so that it survives a lost or replaced phone and appears on your other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. See section 8.
We hold no copy of it and we cannot see it. The iCloud database it syncs to is yours, not ours — it sits in your personal iCloud storage, governed by your Apple Account, and Apple’s design means we have no ability to read it, query it, or recover it on your behalf. There is still no Sabz account, no sign-in, and nothing for us to restore from. If you turn iCloud off for Sabz, the app keeps working and your data simply stays on that one device.
The optional first name is used solely to personalise the on-screen greeting. It is never transmitted anywhere, including in the requests described in section 5.
What leaves your device, and why
This is the section that matters most, so we've set out every case in full. Four things leave your device, and only these four.
5.1 Check-up (plant health assessment)
If you choose to run a Check-up — asking Sabz to help work out why a plant seems unwell — you can optionally add a photo and a short written note. If you do, the following is sent, over an encrypted connection, to our own server (a Cloudflare Worker that we operate as a proxy) and passed on to Anthropic's API for AI analysis:
- the photo you added (if you added one);
- any note you typed in your own words;
- the name you gave that plant and its species — the name is free text you chose, so please bear in mind it is included;
- a summary of that plant's recorded care history (e.g. watering dates, feeding dates) from your on-device log;
- the symptoms you selected and your answers to the Check-up's questions;
- the possible causes that Sabz's on-device reasoning has already ranked, so the analysis can weigh them.
Nothing else from your plant records is included. The response is generated and returned to your device.
This information is not used to train any AI model. We keep no copy of it: our proxy passes it straight through and stores nothing, and it is not written to any log. Anthropic processes it to generate the response under its commercial terms, which permit it to retain input and output for a limited period for safety and abuse-monitoring purposes before deletion. If you would like the current details of that arrangement, ask us at [email protected].
A Check-up that uses neither a photo nor a note is worked out entirely on your iPhone and sends nothing at all.
5.2 Automatic species identification
When you add a photo to a plant in Sabz, that photo is automatically sent by the same route — to our Cloudflare Worker and on to Anthropic's API — to suggest the plant's species. This happens automatically whenever you attach a photo to a plant; it is not a separate choice you make each time. If you don't want a photo analysed this way, don't attach one — the rest of the app's features (tracking, reminders, care history, the species library, and pet-safety information) work fully without any photo ever being added. As with Check-up, the photo is discarded after the species suggestion is returned and is not used to train any model.
5.3 Installation identifier (rate limiting only)
Every request described in 5.1 and 5.2 is accompanied by a random identifier generated on your device when you first install Sabz (a UUID). This identifier:
- is generated locally and is not derived from your Apple ID, device hardware, IP address, or any other identifying information;
- is used solely to limit how many AI requests a single installation can make, so that the free service isn't exhausted by abuse;
- is not linked to your identity, to your device beyond that one purpose, or to any other app;
- is removed from your phone when you uninstall Sabz, and a fresh one is generated if you reinstall. On our side it is held only as a short-lived daily counter, described in section 10.
5.4 Your IP address
Like any request over the internet, a Check-up or species identification necessarily reveals your device's IP address to the server receiving it. We do not store it. Before it is used at all, our proxy converts it into a salted, irreversible hash, and only that hash is kept — as a short-lived counter, for the same anti-abuse purpose as the installation identifier. The hash cannot be turned back into your IP address, and we never write raw IP addresses to storage or logs.
Nothing else leaves your device
Your plant list, your photos (other than the transient uses above), your full care history, your Check-up results, your reminders, and your optional first name are never transmitted, synced, or backed up by us. There is no server-side copy.
International transfers
Because Anthropic is based in the United States, sending a Check-up or species-identification request involves a transfer of personal data outside the UK. UK data protection law only permits this where an appropriate safeguard is in place. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses incorporating the UK Addendum (the International Data Transfer Addendum issued under section 119A of the Data Protection Act 2018). These are contained in Anthropic's Data Processing Addendum, which forms part of the commercial terms under which we use its API, and in Cloudflare's data processing terms. You can ask us for details of the safeguard in place, or a copy of the relevant transfer terms, by writing to [email protected].
iCloud sync and backup
Sync. Sabz stores your plant records, photos and care history in your private iCloud database, using Apple's CloudKit. This is what lets your records survive a lost phone and appear on your other devices. Three things are worth being precise about:
- The database is yours, held in your personal iCloud storage under your own Apple Account. It is not ours and not shared with us.
- We cannot read it. A private CloudKit database is accessible to the account that owns it; the developer has no route to its contents. We could not hand your records to anyone, or recover them for you, even if asked.
- It is governed by Apple's terms and privacy policy, not ours. We have no visibility into or control over how Apple stores it or for how long.
You can turn this off at any time in Settings → [your name] → iCloud, per app. Sabz keeps working without it; your data simply stays on the one device and is no longer protected against losing it.
Device backup. Separately, if you have iCloud device backup switched on, Apple's standard backup process may also include Sabz's app data as part of your overall device backup, in the same way it backs up other apps'. That too is governed entirely by Apple. See Apple's support documentation or your iPhone's Settings app.
Visiting sabz.life
The website is a small set of static pages. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and contains no third-party scripts, trackers, embeds or advertising — there is nothing on it that follows you, and nothing for you to consent to or opt out of.
The site is served by Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes your IP address and basic request information (the page requested, your browser type, the time) in order to deliver the page and to protect the site from attack and abuse. That is Cloudflare acting as our service provider; we do not build visitor profiles, and we do not receive or store any of it ourselves.
Links from the site to the App Store take you to Apple, whose own privacy policy governs what happens there.
Why we're allowed to process this data (lawful basis)
For the limited processing described above, our lawful bases under UK GDPR Article 6 are:
- Check-up and species identification (sections 5.1–5.2): processing is necessary to provide the specific feature you've actively requested by adding a photo or note — this is processing necessary for the performance of the arrangement under which you use that feature (Article 6(1)(b)), and in any event you control whether it happens at all by choosing whether to attach a photo.
- Installation identifier / rate limiting (section 5.3): our legitimate interest in preventing abuse of a costly third-party AI service and keeping it available to genuine users (Article 6(1)(f)). This has minimal impact on your privacy, since the identifier is random, device-generated, and not linked to you.
- Data stored on your devices and in your private iCloud (section 4): since we do not receive, see, or hold this data, we are not processing it as a controller in any way that requires a lawful basis on our part — it is under your control, on your own devices and in your own iCloud storage.
We do not process any special category data (such as health data) about you. Information about plant toxicity to pets is general reference information about plant species, not personal data about you or your animal.
How long we keep data
Our own service keeps none of it. The proxy passes each request straight through and writes nothing to storage; it records only the HTTP status of the upstream call, never the photo, note, plant name or care history. Anthropic retains input and output for a limited period for safety and abuse-monitoring purposes, as described in section 6, and then deletes it.
The installation identifier and the hashed IP address are held by our service only as short-lived daily counters, which expire automatically 48 hours after the last request. Uninstalling Sabz removes the identifier from your phone; the expiring counter is unrelated to whether the app is still installed.
Data stored on your devices and in your private iCloud (section 4) stays there until you delete it — individual plants, everything at once from Settings, or by deleting the app. Deleting from within the app removes it from your iCloud database too, on every device signed in to your Apple Account.
Your rights
Because we hold effectively no personal data about you on our servers (only a transient, non-identifying installation ID, and request content that is discarded immediately), most requests will simply confirm that we don't hold anything to give you, correct, or delete. That said, you have the following rights under UK GDPR — and, if you are in the EU or EEA, the equivalent rights under EU GDPR. We'll respond to any request:
- Access — a copy of personal data we hold about you.
- Rectification — correction of inaccurate data.
- Erasure — deletion of personal data we hold (for on-device data, this is entirely in your hands via the app itself or by deleting the app).
- Restriction — limiting how we use your data in certain circumstances.
- Portability — receiving certain data in a portable format.
- Objection — objecting to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Withdrawing consent — where processing relies on consent, at any time, without affecting anything already done.
To exercise any of these, contact us at [email protected]. If you're unhappy with our response, you have the right to complain to a data protection regulator.
Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF ico.org.uk | 0303 123 1113
If you are in the EU or EEA, you can instead complain to the supervisory authority where you live, where you work, or where you think the problem happened. The European Data Protection Board publishes the list of national authorities at edpb.europa.eu.
Sabz has been trading since 13 August 2026, so the position described in our earlier fee self-assessment no longer applies. Nasim Keshavarz, trading as Sabz, is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller under registration reference ZC227246. The annual data protection fee is paid by direct debit. The registration took effect on 19 August 2026 and runs to 18 August 2027, at Tier 1. The entry is on the ICO's public register of fee payers and can be checked there against the reference above.
Children
Sabz is not directed at, or intended for, children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Because the app requires no account and no personal information beyond an optional first name stored only on-device, the practical risk here is low, but if you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal data (for example, via a support email), contact us at [email protected] and we will address it.
Security
We use industry-standard encryption (HTTPS/TLS) for the transient requests described in section 5. Data stored on your device is protected by whatever device-level security you have configured on your iPhone (passcode, Face ID/Touch ID, device encryption), and data synced to your private iCloud is protected by Apple’s encryption and by your Apple Account security. We recommend keeping your device's operating system up to date and using a passcode or biometric lock.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time — for example, if we add a new feature that changes what data leaves your device. We'll update the effective date at the top, and where a change is material, we'll make reasonable efforts to bring it to your attention in the app before it takes effect.
Contact us
Questions, requests, or complaints about this policy or your data:
Nasim Keshavarz, trading as Sabz Prime Apartments, 483 Green Lanes, London, N13 4FG, United Kingdom [email protected]