Privacy & GDPR

Who is responsible

The data controller for your data is the provider of 12Collect:

Cornelis Essaadi
De Duinsloot 31
2211 DP Noordwijkerhout
Chamber of Commerce number: coming soon
Contact: support@12collect.com

Do you have a question about your privacy or would you like to exercise one of your rights? Email support@12collect.com and we will help you.

What data we process

When you sign up for the waiting list

• your email address;
• your language preference (nl/en), so we email you in the right language;
• the time of sign-up and confirmation.

When you create an account

• your email address (your login name);
• your password, never stored in readable form but encrypted;
• your preferences, such as language, theme and last opened collection;
• usage moments: when your account was created, your last login and last activity, and the moment you agreed to this statement;
• your subscription type (free, plus or pro) and, where applicable, payment details.

You log in with an email address and password, or with your Google account. If you log in with Google, we receive your name and email address from Google to link your account; the privacy policy of Google also applies to that.

The contents of your collection

Everything you enter to record your collection: titles, descriptions, material, dating, dimensions, condition, value and purchase price, tags, references, the photos you upload and the files you add, such as a proof of purchase, certificate or valuation report (PDF, Word, Excel or email). This data is yours and we use it to provide the service to you. From confirmed items we also derive de-identified, general object knowledge for a shared knowledge base; what that involves is explained under 'Shared object knowledge' below.

Find-site and location data

For collection types about finds (such as archaeology or metal detecting) you can record a find site, a place name and/or coordinates on the map. You decide whether and how precisely you fill this in.

If you turn on ‘Suggest date and location from photos’ for a collection, the app reads the capture date and the location from your photos on your own device and suggests them for empty fields. If you take the photo in the app, it uses the date of that moment and asks your browser for your location, only if you allow it. We only store this data if you accept a suggestion, or while the photo is in your queue, and it never goes to the AI.

If ‘Also suggest title, description and tags’ is on as well, the app also reads the title, description and keywords you added to a photo yourself, for example in Windows or Lightroom. If you accept them, they are in your item just like text you type yourself, and the AI reads them when you start an analysis. Date and location never go to the AI.

If you put a pin or area on the map, or accept a location from a photo, the app fills in the Place field if it is still empty. The app looks up that place name in its own list of places (from GeoNames) in our own database. Your location is not sent to another company for this, nor to the AI.

Technical data

To keep the service secure we temporarily process your IP address (for example against form abuse and login attempts). We only use functional cookies, no third-party tracking, advertising or analytics. See our cookie policy.

Why we process it and on what legal basis

• To provide your account and the service (storing and displaying your collection): on the basis of performing our agreement with you.
• To email you once when you can create an account (waiting list): on the basis of your consent, which you give via the confirmation email and can withdraw at any time.
• To provide AI suggestions when you request them (see below): on the basis of performing the agreement, at your request.
• To improve recognition and keep AI costs manageable through a shared knowledge base with de-identified object knowledge (see below): on the basis of our legitimate interest, weighed against your privacy.
• To secure the service and prevent abuse: on the basis of our legitimate interest in a secure service.

AI features (photo analysis, market value and identification)

12Collect can help you describe an item, identify it or give an indication of its market value. This happens only when you request it yourself by clicking the relevant button, never automatically. There is one exception: when you confirm an item, we have its title and description rewritten in the background into general object knowledge without personal details. What that involves is explained under 'Shared object knowledge' below.

When you request an AI suggestion, we send the relevant photo and the data you have already entered to our AI processor Anthropic, which returns a suggestion based on it. Anthropic processes this data on our behalf to create the suggestion and does not use it to train its own models. Because Anthropic processes outside the EU (United States), this is done with appropriate safeguards (a data processing agreement with EU standard contractual clauses).

AI suggestions are indicative, estimates, not guarantees. You always decide yourself what to accept and save. To manage cost and speed, results may be kept briefly for reuse; de-identified, general object knowledge we keep longer in our shared knowledge base (see below).

Shared object knowledge (de-identified knowledge base)

To recognize objects faster and better and to make the app work as efficiently as possible, we build a shared knowledge base with general information about types of objects. When you confirm an item, we derive de-identified, general knowledge about that object type from it: for example the material, the period, and a factual title and description of the kind of object. We store that general knowledge separately from your account, so that a next similar object, whether yours or someone else's, is recognized faster.

To derive that general knowledge, we send the title and description of the confirmed item to the same AI processor (Anthropic). It rewrites them into a factual description of the type of object, without names, prices, locations or personal details. Your photos themselves are not included. If that rewriting fails, we skip the contribution entirely.

We also enrich this general object knowledge with public sources that are freely reusable under an open license, so that recognition is already useful even without your own contributions. For example, we use general product data from Open Food Facts, available under the Open Database License (ODbL), and general coin type data from Nomisma.org, available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). This too concerns only general object information, not personal data.

What we never keep in this: your personal data, your photos themselves, your purchase price or market value, your find or storage location, your notes, and anything traceable to you. Of your photos we keep at most an irreversible image fingerprint, a short code from which the photo cannot be reconstructed, and only for types of objects that are generally available online, such as coins, stamps or books. For unique or sensitive items, such as archaeological finds, we do not do this.

We may also keep a general, anonymized market reference per object type, with the date, so that a next value estimate has an up-to-date reference point. This is never the value of your specific item.

We do this on the basis of our legitimate interest to improve the service and keep it affordable, weighed against your privacy: because we keep only general, de-identified object knowledge and no personal data, the impact on you is minimal. Would you like your contributions withdrawn? Email support@12collect.com and we will remove the link to your contributions. The general object knowledge itself remains: it contains no personal data and is then no longer connected to you in any way. If you delete your account, this happens automatically.

Where your photos and files are stored

Photos and files are stored with our storage provider Tigris, in a data centre in Amsterdam (EU). Tigris's backups also stay within the EU. Photos are downscaled for display. With Plus or Pro we also keep the original photo, unchanged as it came from your device. We do not show that original in the app; it is included in your ZIP export. We extract the text from a file so you can read it in the app without downloading the file; that text is kept in our database, also in Amsterdam. You can delete a photo, a file or an entire item at any time; if you delete your account, we also erase your photos and files from storage.

Files

Your files are for you alone. Other users can never see them, and they never become part of the shared knowledge base: not the file itself, not the text from it and not the file name.

A file (PDF, Word, Excel or email) is also never sent to our AI processor. If you copy text from a document into an item's description, that item no longer contributes to the shared knowledge base. If you then ask for an AI suggestion yourself, at most the first 2,000 characters of that description are sent.

If you keep an email as a file, it also contains other people's data, such as the sender and the recipients. We show that email only to you, and never load images from outside the email, so the sender cannot see that you opened it.

Offline mode

With Plus or Pro you can make collections available offline, so you can view them without internet. On a device where you choose to, the app then stores a copy of those collections: the details of your items, including find locations, and a small version of your photos. Original photos and files are not included. The copy stays on that device only, encrypted, and opens only with Face ID or Touch ID or with your offline PIN.

Your offline PIN never leaves your device. We only store a check value that reveals nothing without a secret on our server; it lets a new device verify that you entered the right PIN. Which collections are available offline is stored with your account. No new processor is involved and no extra data leaves the EU.

The copy disappears from a device when you sign out there, when your session there is ended from another device (for example with sign out everywhere), when someone else signs in on that device, when you go back to Free, when you stop making a collection available offline, and when you erase the copy in Offline settings. If you delete your account, we also delete your offline PIN, and the copy disappears from each device as soon as it opens the app online again. We cannot reach a device that never comes online again: the copy stays there, encrypted, until you clear the website or app data on that device.

Who we share data with

We never sell your data. To run the service we use a number of carefully chosen processors, who process your data only on our behalf and according to our instructions:

• Fly.io, hosting of the application and database (Amsterdam region, EU);
• Tigris, storage of your photos and files (in Amsterdam, EU);
• Resend, sending emails, such as confirmation and recovery emails (EU);
• Anthropic, the AI suggestions, only when you request them (United States);
• Stadia Maps, the map tiles when you use the map view (processed on EU servers in Frankfurt and Paris);
• Google, only if you choose to log in with your Google account (United States).

Transfers outside the EU

Our application, database, email, storage of photos and files, and map tiles run within the EU. Some of our processors are based in the United States; insofar as they process data outside the EEA, this is covered by the EU standard contractual clauses and a data processing agreement. Only the AI feature actually processes data in the United States (at Anthropic): when you use that feature yourself, and when the title and description of a confirmed item are rewritten into general object knowledge.

Anthropic processes the transferred data solely to produce your AI suggestion and never uses it to train its own AI models.

How long we keep it

• Account data and your collection: as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, we erase your data, photos and files.
• What you throw away (items, collections and files) is kept in the trash for 30 days, so you can restore it. After that we delete it permanently.
• A file you upload but never link to anything is deleted after 48 hours.
• Export files you have created are deleted after 7 days.
• Your offline PIN (only the check value): as long as you have Plus or Pro. If you go back to Free or delete your account, we delete it.
• Our storage provider keeps a deleted file for another 14 days, solely so we can recover it after an outage or error. After that it is gone for good.
• Waiting-list sign-up: until shortly after launch or until you unsubscribe, whichever comes first.
• Security and error logs: limited, and only for as long as needed for the security and operation of the service.

How we protect your data

Connections are encrypted (https), we store your password only in hashed form, and access to the systems is restricted. The application and database run within the EU.

Your rights

You have the right to access, rectification and erasure of your data, to restriction of and objection to the processing, to portability of your data, and you can withdraw consent you have given at any time. Two of these you can do yourself directly in the app:

• Export: from your account you can download your collection (including as JSON, CSV and ZIP, optionally with your files); this covers your right to access and portability. Anything in the trash is not included in an export. Restore it first, or email us if you also want to see that.
• Deletion: from your account settings you can permanently delete your account and all associated data.

If you would prefer us to arrange something for you, email support@12collect.com. If you disagree with something, you can lodge a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

Cookies

12Collect uses only strictly necessary, functional cookies (for security, your login session and your preferences). Read more in our cookie policy.

If you turn on offline mode, the app also stores the encrypted copy in your browser's storage on that device, plus a small program (a service worker) that opens the offline view when there is no connection. This only happens on a device where you choose it.

Changes to this statement

We may update this privacy statement from time to time, for example when the service changes. The date at the top shows when we last did so. We will let you know of any important changes.