Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated 8 September 2026

1. Who we are

Recess is an iPhone application operated by Save Smart Group PTY LTD, a company registered in South Africa (registered address 74 Queen Victoria Rd, Cape Town 8000, South Africa). In this policy, "Recess", "we", "us" and "our" mean Save Smart Group PTY LTD.

We are the responsible party (data controller) for the personal information described in this policy. You can reach us at pete@savesmart.co.za.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers the Recess iPhone app and this website. It explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.

3. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account details. Your email address, and a display name if you set one. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the identifier and email address that provider releases to us — including Apple's private relay address if you choose to hide your email.
• Photos and videos. The images you upload to make a creation, and any text you type when you describe an edit.
• Messages you send us. Anything you include when you contact support.

Information we generate

• Creations. The images or videos Recess produces for you, and the record of which finish produced them.
• Spark balance and ledger. Your credit balance and the record of grants, charges and refunds against it.
• Purchase records. Confirmation from Apple that a purchase completed, and which product it was. We never see your card details.
• Technical and security data. Account and device identifiers, session records, app version, and error and diagnostic logs needed to keep the service working and secure.

Advertising measurement

We use AppsFlyer to measure app installs, onboarding completion and visits to the subscription screen. If you allow tracking through Apple's permission prompt, AppsFlyer also receives device identifiers and our account identifier, and RevenueCat sends purchase events so we can measure advertising performance. AppsFlyer may share those events with the advertising partners enabled for Recess, such as Meta. We do not send your name, email address, photos or edit descriptions for this purpose.

If you decline or restrict tracking, we disable advertising and vendor identifier collection, remove the account identifier, request anonymized measurement, block AppsFlyer partner sharing, and do not link RevenueCat purchases to AppsFlyer. You can change tracking permission in iOS Settings. Apple may also provide aggregated install attribution through SKAdNetwork.

What we do not collect

We do not collect your contacts, precise location or health data. We never send your photos, face data or edit descriptions to our advertising measurement provider.

4. Why we use your information

We do not use your photos, videos or prompts to train AI models — ours or anyone else's.

5. How your photos are handled

This is the part that matters most, so we have set it out step by step.

1. When you upload a photo, it goes into a private Cloudflare R2 bucket that is not publicly readable and not browsable by URL.
2. To produce your creation, the photo is sent to the AI processing providers listed in section 6, who process it on our instructions solely to generate your result.
3. As soon as your creation reaches a final state — finished, failed or cancelled — your uploaded source photos are deleted automatically from our servers.
4. Your finished creation stays available in the app for a limited period (currently up to seven days) so you can save it to your device, after which it is removed from our servers. Anything you have already saved to your device stays with you.
5. You can delete a creation yourself at any time from inside the app.

Face data and face-containing photos

Recess does not use Face ID, ARKit face tracking, facial recognition, facial landmarks, face meshes, facial coordinates, face embeddings, facial templates or biometric matching. We do not create or retain a separate facial biometric record about you.

A photo you choose may contain a face. We use that image file only to provide the photo-editing or creation you request, including preserving the subject's visual identity where the selected creation requires it. We do not use face-containing photos for authentication, advertising, marketing, tracking, analytics, profiling, identity matching or AI-model training.

Recess does not request, upload or use a portrait or additional face photos during onboarding. When you choose a photo for an actual creation, the image is stored in our private Cloudflare R2 bucket and sent to the relevant AI processing provider listed in section 6. Recess deletes the uploaded source image from its server storage when the creation reaches a final state. The temporary on-device comparison copy is described below. For new requests, Recess sets a 24-hour expiry on source media uploaded to fal.ai and media generated there. fal.ai retains request records, including input and output URLs, for 30 days under its standard payload-retention policy. Expired media URLs no longer provide access to the files. These controls apply to fal.ai storage; any separate model-provider processing is governed by that provider’s terms. We do not claim that deleting a Recess account immediately purges every provider’s records.

On-device comparison photos

For before/after comparisons, Recess keeps a separate source-photo copy in the app's private device cache. It belongs to the signed-in account, uses iOS file protection and is excluded from device backups. The copy expires seven days after it is saved. Recess removes expired copies when the app next opens, returns to the foreground or tries to display them; iOS may clear its cache sooner. Recess also removes these copies when you sign out, delete your account, switch accounts or delete the corresponding cloud creation. Photos you separately save to your photo library remain under your control. These comparison copies are not sent to AppsFlyer or advertising partners.

6. Who we share information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share information with the providers needed to run Recess and, with tracking permission, to measure Recess advertising as explained in section 3.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to enforce our Terms of Service, to prevent fraud or abuse, or to protect someone's safety. If our business is ever sold or restructured, your information may transfer with it, and this policy will continue to apply until you are told otherwise.

7. International transfers

Our providers operate globally, so your information may be processed outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union. When information leaves South Africa or the European Economic Area, we rely on the safeguards available to us — including contractual protections such as standard contractual clauses — to require a comparable level of protection.

8. How long we keep things

• Uploaded source photos: deleted from our servers as soon as your creation reaches a final state. On-device comparison copies expire after seven days and are removed as described in section 5.
• fal.ai media copies: new uploads and generated files are configured to expire after 24 hours. Request records are retained for 30 days as explained in section 5.
• Finished creations: available in the app for a limited period (currently up to seven days), then removed from our servers.
• Account details: kept while your account is open.
• Sign-in codes and sessions: short-lived; codes expire quickly and sessions can be revoked by you at any time.
• Purchase and credit records: kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires, in a minimised form.

9. Deleting your account

You can delete your account from Profile → Account settings in the app. When you do, we remove your email address and display name, unlink your Apple, Google and email sign-in identities, revoke every active session, cancel any creation still in progress, and delete your uploaded photos and stored creations. We retain a minimal, anonymised record of the account and its transaction history where we are legally required to — for example for financial records — and that record cannot be used to identify you.

Deleting your account does not automatically refund unused Sparks. See the Terms of Service.

10. Security

Your sign-in tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain on your device. Access tokens are short-lived and refresh sessions rotate, so a stolen token stops working quickly. Media is held in private storage and served only through short-lived, authenticated links. Data is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, but we take this seriously and will tell you and the Information Regulator if a breach affects your personal information, as the law requires.

11. Your rights

Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), and under the GDPR if you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to:

• ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it;
• have inaccurate information corrected;
• have your information deleted;
• object to or ask us to restrict certain processing;
• receive your information in a portable format;
• withdraw consent where we relied on it, without affecting what we did before you withdrew it; and
• complain to a regulator.

Email pete@savesmart.co.za to exercise any of these. We will respond within the time the law allows. If you are unhappy with our response, you can complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) or, in the EEA or UK, to your local supervisory authority.

12. Children

Recess is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you are between 13 and 18, you may only use Recess with the consent of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email us and we will delete it.

13. Photos of other people

If you upload a photo that includes someone else, you are responsible for having their permission. Please do not upload photos of other people without their consent, and never upload photos of children who are not in your care.

14. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If the change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

15. Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints: pete@savesmart.co.za.