Couples.do
Privacy Policy
Couples works on your phone. It looks at your photos on the device to find the ones of two people, recognise who is in them and make your movie. Your photos, and what Couples works out about the faces in them, are not sent to us or anyone else.
The short version
- Your photos stay on your phone. Couples finds photos of two people, tells the faces apart and lines them up on the device.
- Face recognition happens only on your iPhone. The numbers Couples uses to tell faces apart never leave it, and are deleted when you reset or delete the app.
- No account, no analytics, no ads, no tracking.
- Purchases go through Apple. We never see your payment details.
- You’re in control. You choose which photos Couples can see, and you can reset or delete everything at any time.
1. Your photos
Couples asks for access to your photo library so it can find photos of exactly two people and turn the photos of each couple into a movie. You decide how much it can see: your whole library or only photos you select (iOS calls this “Limited Access”), and you can change your mind at any time in Settings › Photos › Couples.
Couples only reads photos. The one thing it writes to your library is a movie, and only when you choose Save to Photos.
2. Face recognition
To group photos by couple, Couples uses Apple’s on-device image analysis to find faces and the position of the eyes, nose and mouth, and a face recognition model built into the app to calculate a short list of numbers for each face. Faces of the same person get similar numbers, which is how Couples knows that two photos show the same people and who should stand on which side of the movie. It also guesses which person is you, from who appears with the most different people, so it can label them “You”. You can correct that guess.
These numbers describe facial features, so in some places (for example under the EU and UK GDPR, or Illinois, Texas and Washington law in the US) they can count as biometric information. Couples handles them like this:
- They are calculated on your iPhone and stored only in the app’s private storage on your iPhone.
- They are never sent to us or to anyone else, never sold, and never used for anything except grouping your photos and lining up your movies in the app.
- They cannot be turned back into a photo.
- They are deleted when you choose Settings › Reset and rescan everything in the app, or delete the app. When a photo is deleted from your library, the numbers for it are removed at the next scan.
Couples does this only after you allow it to see your photos, which you can withdraw at any time.
3. What is stored on your device
To remember your couples between visits, Couples keeps the following in its private storage on your phone:
- The face numbers described above, where each face is in its photo, and which person each face belongs to.
- The names you give people, your couples, anniversaries you add, and your answers when Couples asks “Is this Sam?”.
- Your choices, such as who stands on the left, which photos you hid from a movie, music and appearance.
- Movies you make, until you save or share them. iOS clears temporary files automatically.
This data is protected by iOS data protection and is not shared with any other app.
4. What we collect
Nothing. Couples has no account or sign-in and does not send your data to servers run by us or anyone else. The app contains no analytics, advertising or tracking software. It does not track you across other companies’ apps or websites and does not use your advertising identifier. If you add an anniversary reminder, it is scheduled by iOS on your phone.
5. Sticker sets
Sticker sets are not available yet. If we offer them, drawing a sticker set will mean sending the photos it uses off your phone to be drawn. Before that happens we will update this policy, and the app will show you exactly which photos would be sent and ask you first. Nothing is sent unless you choose to buy a set.
6. Purchases
Couples is free to download, and you can find your couples and preview movies for free. Saving movies needs one one-time in-app purchase. Apple processes the payment under Apple’s privacy policy. We do not receive your name, email address or payment details. Couples checks on your device, using Apple’s StoreKit, whether you own the purchase.
7. Sharing your movies
A movie stays on your phone until you share it. When you tap Share, iOS passes the movie to the app or person you pick, and that app’s own privacy policy applies from there. Couples never shares a movie by itself.
8. Other people in your photos
Your photos include other people: your partner, family and friends. Couples analyses their faces on your phone in the same way as yours, and the same rules apply: nothing leaves your phone. Please only share movies of people who are happy for you to share them. You can hide any couple or person in the app, and their photos are then left out.
9. Children
Couples is not directed at children under 13. Because we collect no personal information from anyone, we do not knowingly collect it from children.
10. Your choices and rights
Because we do not collect or hold personal data about you, there is nothing for us to look up, correct, export or delete. You stay in control through:
- Photo access: Settings › Photos › Couples on your iPhone.
- Your data in the app: Settings › Reset and rescan everything, or delete the app to remove everything it stored, including the face numbers.
If you live somewhere with privacy rights (for example the EU, the UK or California) and want to exercise them or ask a question, contact us below.
11. Security
Couples keeps your information on your device and relies on iOS security features, including data protection for the files it stores.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change how Couples handles data, for example by offering sticker sets, we will update this page and its date, and tell you in the app before the change applies to you.
13. Contact
DoubleW
Email: matthew@doublew.ltd