PrivacyEffective 11 September 2026
Privacy Policy
Olfactory is a fragrance diary: the Olfactory app for iPhone and the website olfactory.app, including the public pages at olfactory.app/@handle, /f, /p and /l. This policy explains what we collect, why, where it lives, who can see it and how you delete it. Questions and requests: support@olfactory.app.
In short
- We collect what you put into your diary and what is needed to run your account. Nothing else.
- No advertising, no ad networks, no analytics trackers, no data brokers. The website sets no cookies.
- Your data is stored on servers in the European Union.
- You decide what is public. A closed diary is visible only to followers you accept.
- You can delete your account and everything in it from Settings, at any time.
What we collect
Account. Your email address, used to sign you in and to reach you about your account. With Sign in with Apple you may choose to share a private relay address instead of your real one; we never see your Apple password.
Profile. Your handle, display name, optional city and optional avatar. When you pick an avatar or attach a picture to a post, the app reads only the photo you chose from your photo library and uploads it to our storage.
Your diary. The fragrances you mark as tried, in your collection or on your wishlist; your scores; the days you log a wear; reviews, posts, comments, likes and collections; the people you follow, block or report; your notification preferences.
Derived from your diary. Your Scent DNA, the taste overlap with other people and the suggestions you see are computed on our servers from the entries above. They are part of your data and are deleted with it.
Technical. When the app or the website talks to our servers, standard server logs record the IP address, the time of the request and the app version. We keep these logs briefly, for security and troubleshooting only, and then they are discarded.
Why we use it
- To run your diary and show it back to you on every device you sign in on.
- To compute your Scent DNA, taste overlap and suggestions.
- To show the parts you made public to other people, in the app and on the public web pages.
- To keep the service safe: acting on reports and blocks, preventing abuse.
- To answer you when you write to us.
Under the GDPR we rely on the contract with you (running the service you signed up for), on our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure, and on your consent where the law requires it, for example when you allow access to your photo library.
Who can see what
Your public profile shows your handle, display name, city, avatar, level, your shelves with scores, your collections and posts, and an overview of your Scent DNA. It is visible to anyone in the app and on olfactory.app/@handle, which search engines may index.
If you close your diary in Settings, your shelves, calendar and posts are visible only to followers you have accepted; the public page then shows only your handle and display name and asks search engines not to index it. You separately choose who may see your wear calendar. Your email address and your notification preferences are never shown to anyone.
Where it lives and who helps us
We do not sell your data and we do not share it with advertisers. The service runs on infrastructure providers that process data on our instructions:
- Supabase (on Amazon Web Services, Frankfurt, Germany): database, sign-in and storage for avatars and post pictures.
- Hetzner Online (Finland): the website and the public web pages.
- Cloudflare: DNS for olfactory.app and delivery of the fragrance catalogue pictures, which contain no personal data.
- Apple: Sign in with Apple, TestFlight and App Store distribution, under Apple's own terms.
Where a provider processes data outside the European Economic Area, transfers are covered by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
How long we keep it
For as long as your account exists. When you delete your account in Settings, your account, your diary, your posts and comments, your pictures and everything derived from them are deleted at once. Copies in our backups are overwritten within 30 days. Server logs are kept only briefly, as described above.
Your rights
You can see and edit your data in the app. You have the right to access, correct, export or erase your data, to object to or restrict its processing, and to complain to a data protection authority. Write to support@olfactory.app and we will answer within 30 days.
Children
Olfactory is not directed to children under 13, and where the law sets a higher age for consenting to online services without a parent, not to anyone under that age. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will show the new version here with a new effective date and tell you in the app before it applies.