Privacy policy

Who is responsible

Lithos (getlithos.com) is run by Techbyte OÜ, registry code 16817909, Ruunaoja tn 3, 11415 Tallinn, Estonia. Techbyte OÜ is the controller of the personal data described here. Write to hola@getlithos.com for anything about your data.

What we collect

Only what the service needs to work:

• Account: email address, username, an optional display name and avatar, your language and grading scale, and a hash of your password (never the password itself). If you sign in with Google or Apple, the identifier they give us for your account.
• What you create: the areas you scan and their results, your pins and sectors (with their location, notes, access directions and photos), your lines, ascents, grade votes and comments.
• Photos: resized and re-encoded on upload, which removes their metadata (including the location the camera recorded).
• Plan and payments: your plan, your km² balance and top-ups. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see or store them.
• Technical: the session cookie, and server logs (IP address, time and requested address) kept to run and protect the service.

Why, and on what basis

• To provide the service you signed up for: your account, scans, pins, sharing, offline areas and the radar (performance of a contract, GDPR art. 6.1.b).
• To charge for paid plans and keep the accounting records the law requires (art. 6.1.b and 6.1.c).
• To keep the service secure: rate limits, abuse prevention and the bot check at sign-up (legitimate interest, art. 6.1.f).
• To send the emails the account needs: confirming your address, resetting your password and notices about your account (art. 6.1.b).

Who processes it for us

These providers process data on our behalf, under data processing agreements, and only for the purpose given:

• DigitalOcean (servers, database and photo storage; data centre in London, United Kingdom).
• Anthropic (the AI that reads the aerial imagery, checks what a scan is asked to look for and translates geological names). It receives map imagery and the text you write for a scan, never your email or account details.
• Stripe (payments and invoices).
• Resend (sending the account emails).
• Cloudflare Turnstile (the bot check on the sign-up form).
• Google and Apple, only if you choose to sign in with them.

Transfers outside the EU

The United Kingdom is covered by an EU adequacy decision. Anthropic, Stripe, Resend, Cloudflare, Google and Apple may process data in the United States; those transfers rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, and on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses otherwise.

Searching OpenStreetMap for a place

The map’s search box looks in our own list of places. If what you look for is not there and you press “Search all of OpenStreetMap”, our server sends the text you typed to the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s Nominatim service (United Kingdom) to find that place. Only that text and the page’s language are sent: never your IP address, your account or anything else. We do it because you ask for it (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

That text is not written to our logs. The answer is kept for a few days in the server’s memory only, so the same question is not asked again. If you type an address, bear in mind that it reaches that service, which has its own privacy policy.

Who else sees what you create

Your scans, pins and sectors are private. Nobody else sees them unless you share them by link or publish them. Signed-out visitors see public sectors only at an approximate location, never the exact spot. When you share or publish a pin, the people who open it see what is on it, and your username next to your ascents and comments.

We do not sell personal data, show advertising or use advertising trackers.

Cookies and storage on your device

Lithos sets one cookie, lithos_session: it keeps you signed in, is only readable by our servers (httpOnly) and lasts 30 days. It is strictly necessary, so it needs no consent.

Your browser also keeps, on your device only, your preferences (language, map layers) and, if you save areas for offline use, their imagery and your pins in those areas. Signing out removes the offline data.

The sign-up form loads Cloudflare Turnstile and, if you use them, the Google or Apple sign-in buttons, which may set their own cookies under their policies.

How long we keep it

Your data is kept while your account exists. Deleting your account (Profile, delete account) is immediate: your email and name are scrubbed, your pins, sectors, scans, ascents and photos are deleted, and your comments in other people’s threads lose their text and author. Of your email address, only a one-way code that cannot be turned back into it is kept, for up to two months, so that a new account with the same address does not get that month’s free km² again (fraud prevention, legitimate interest). Payment records are kept for seven years, as Estonian accounting law requires. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days. Copies in backups are overwritten within 60 days.

Your rights

You can access, correct, export and delete your data, object to or restrict its processing, and withdraw any consent you gave. Most of it you can do yourself from your profile; for the rest, write to hola@getlithos.com. We answer within one month.

You can also complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, aki.ee) or to the authority of the country where you live.

Children

Lithos is not meant for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will tell you by email or in the app before the change applies.