Privacy policy

Who we are

Magpie is made by Weftworks Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, number 17439248. Weftworks Limited is the controller of your personal data under UK data protection law, registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration ZC241086. You can reach us at privacy@magpie.today.

We have no data protection officer, because the law does not require one for a business of our size and kind. The director is responsible for this policy.

What we collect and why

Your account

You sign in with Apple or Google. Apple gives us an identifier for your account and an email address. If you chose to hide your email, the address is a private relay address that Apple forwards to you. Google gives us an identifier and your Google email address. We do not ask Apple or Google for your name. There is no password.

We use these to identify your account and keep your credits and appraisals yours. For an Apple sign-in we also keep a token from Apple, used only to end Magpie’s use of your Apple ID when you delete your account.

An Apple sign-in and a Google sign-in are separate Magpie accounts, each with its own credits.

When an account is created we also note the country the sign-up came from, as our hosting provider reports it for that connection: a two-letter code such as GB, never your IP address or anything finer. We use it to count where people sign up, and it goes when the account is deleted.

Your photographs

When you tap Appraise, the photographs you took are sent to our server and passed to the AI service that identifies the object. They are used for that appraisal and are not stored on our servers. They are not used to train any model.

Text in the photographs, such as a maker’s mark, a hallmark or a book’s ISBN, is read on your phone first and sent with them. On Android that reading is done by Google’s ML Kit, which sends Google technical information about the phone and the app, an identifier for the installation, and performance and error reports, whatever you choose about usage counts; Google provides no way to switch that off. It never sends the photographs.

If you type a note with an appraisal, or share a listing from another app, the note and the listing’s words are sent with the photographs. The note is kept with the appraisal; the listing’s words are not stored.

If you draft an advert for something you bought, the photographs you choose for it, up to three, are sent to the same AI service to write the advert and are not stored on our servers. If you list it on eBay, the photographs you chose are uploaded to eBay as part of your listing (see Selling on eBay below).

The photographs stay on your phone, with the appraisal, until you delete the appraisal or your account.

Your appraisals

For each appraisal we keep what came back: what the object was identified as, the searches made and the prices found, the range and verdict, the text read from the photographs, a note you typed, the ticket price if you typed one, whether the photographs came from your camera, your photo library or a share, your market and language, how long it took and what it cost us, and whether you said it was right. It is tied to your account.

We use it to show you the answer, to work out whether Magpie is right often enough, and to improve it.

Credits and purchases

We keep your credit balance and a record of each change to it: the free credits at sign-up, each appraisal, each purchase and any refund.

Apple handles payment on iPhone and Google on Android. We receive a signed record of the purchase: which bundle, when, and a transaction identifier. We never see your card details.

My finds

If you tap I bought it, we keep a record of the item: what you paid, whether it is held, listed, sold, kept or binned, the listing price, where it is listed and the listing’s identifier, what it sold for, the fees and postage you entered, and the latest advert drafted for it. It is tied to your account. We use it to show you My finds and your profit, and to learn whether Magpie’s estimates were right: what things really sold for is the best evidence we have of that.

Selling on eBay

Listing on eBay is optional. If you connect an eBay account, you sign in on eBay’s own page and allow Magpie to list items, read your selling settings, read your orders and know who you are. eBay then gives us your eBay username, eBay’s identifier for you, and a token that lets Magpie act on your eBay account. We store the token encrypted. We never see your eBay password.

When you list an item, the advert (title, description, item specifics, condition, price, postage and returns), your postcode or location and the photographs you chose are sent to eBay in your name and become a public listing under eBay’s own terms and privacy notice. We keep the listing’s identifier and price with the item in My finds.

After that, once a day and when you open My finds, we read your recent eBay orders to see whether an item listed through Magpie has sold, and record the sale price and eBay’s fees against it. We do not record anything about the buyer, and we ignore orders for anything you listed outside Magpie.

You can disconnect eBay in Settings under Selling, which removes the token from our servers; deleting your Magpie account removes it too. You can also remove Magpie’s access from your eBay account settings: eBay then tells us, and we remove the token and the listing identifiers it held, while the sales already recorded stay with your finds.

How you use the app

The app sends us counts of what is used: that someone signed up and how, that an appraisal was started and finished, in which market, whether sold prices were found and what the verdict was, that an answer was rated, that credits ran low, that a bundle was bought (with Apple’s or Google’s transaction identifier), and that an account was deleted. Each count carries a random identifier for the app installation, the app version and your device type. It does not carry your photographs, what they showed, your email address or your account identifier.

We use it to see which parts of the app matter and where it is failing people. It is processed for us by Google (Firebase Analytics) under our instructions.

In the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway the app asks you first, and sends nothing of the kind until you say yes. Everywhere else it is on unless you turn it off. Either way the switch is in Settings under Usage data, and with it off the app sends nothing of the kind.

On iPhone, Apple lets advertising networks learn, without identifying you, that an advert led to an install and roughly what happened next. Magpie reports a few steps to Apple for this: that the app was installed, that you signed up, your first few appraisals, and credit bundles bought; never who you are and nothing about the objects. It is off whenever usage counts are off. On Android, Google Play tells the app which advert or link led to the install, and it is recorded with the usage counts.

Notifications

The app makes a notification on your phone when an appraisal that waited for a signal has its answer, or when something shared to Magpie is ready. Nothing is sent to our servers to do this, and Magpie only sends notifications about your own appraisals. Allow or stop them in Settings.

Emails we send you

We email the address your Apple or Google sign-in gave us, in the language the app is set to:

• About your account and money, whatever you choose: when a purchase adds credits, when a refund takes them back, and when your account is deleted.
• A welcome when you join, and now and then a reminder: when you have used your last credit, when your free appraisals are still unused a few days after joining, and when you have credits left but have not used Magpie for two months. Never more than one reminder in three days.
• News about Magpie, a few times a year at most: what a new version does, and changes to prices or terms. These go to every account that has not pressed Stop.

Every email except those about your account and money has a Stop these emails link, and one click stops the welcome, the reminders and the news together. Our emails show the Magpie logo from this website. We do not record whether you open them or what you click, and their links go straight to where they say. We keep a record of which emails we sent you, so that none is sent twice, and we stop emailing an address that bounces or reports our email as spam.

Support email

If you write to us, we keep your message and our replies so we can help you. The app adds its version, your phone model and its system version to the foot of a support email. It does not add your account identifier.

What we do not do

• We do not show adverts in the app.
• We do not sell your data.
• We do not use your photographs for anything but the appraisal you asked for.
• We do not ask for your location, your contacts or your name.

Why we are allowed to use it

• Performing our contract with you: your account, your appraisals, My finds, listing on eBay and reading back the sale when you ask us to, your credits and purchases, and answering your support email.
• Our legitimate interests: usage counts from the app outside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the welcome, reminder and news emails, keeping the service secure and preventing abuse, and the daily limit that protects it. We have weighed these against your privacy and limited them to what is listed above. You can object at any time, turn usage counts off in Settings, and stop the emails from any of them.
• Your consent: usage counts from the app in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, which you can withdraw in Settings; and analytics and advertising cookies on this website, which you can withdraw at any time from the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page.
• A legal obligation: keeping the payment and tax records that Apple, Google and HMRC require.

Who handles your data

We use these processors:

• Cloudflare, which runs our servers and our database.
• Anthropic, whose AI models identify the object from your photographs and read the sold listings. Under its terms for business customers it does not train its models on what we send.
• Sold-price data providers, which look up sold listings. They receive the search words only, such as a maker and a type of object. They never receive your photographs or anything about you.
• Apple, for Sign in with Apple on any device and for purchases on iPhone.
• Google, for Sign in with Google; on Android for purchases through Google Play and for reading text in photographs through ML Kit; in the app for usage counts through Firebase Analytics; and on this website, only with your consent, for Google Analytics and Google Ads. Google Ireland Limited is the company we contract with.
• Maileroo, which delivers our email, and the help desk we use to answer it.

eBay is not our processor. If you connect it, eBay receives your listings from us and tells us when they sell, and handles what you do there under its own privacy notice.

Currency conversion uses published exchange rates. The service that supplies them receives no personal data.

Transfers outside the UK

Cloudflare, Anthropic, Apple and Google may process data in the United States and other countries. Those transfers rely on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the company is certified under it, and otherwise on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

How long we keep it

• Photographs: not stored on our servers.
• Appraisal records: 24 months, or until you delete your account if that is sooner.
• Your account, credits and purchase records: until you delete your account.
• My finds: while your account exists.
• Your eBay connection: until you disconnect it, remove Magpie’s access at eBay, or delete your account.
• Usage counts from the app, held by Google Analytics for us: 14 months.
• Website analytics, held by Google for us: 14 months. The cookies themselves are listed in the cookie policy.
• The record of which emails we sent you: 24 months, or until you delete your account if that is sooner.
• Support email: 24 months after the conversation ends.

Deleting your account

In the app, open Settings and tap Delete account and all appraisals. This removes your account, your appraisals, your finds, your eBay connection, your credits and your purchase records from our servers straight away, and the appraisals and photographs stored on that phone. It cannot be undone. You can also email privacy@magpie.today and we will delete it for you.

If you signed in with Apple, deleting also ends Magpie’s use of your Apple ID. You can check in iPhone Settings: tap your name, then Sign-In & Security, then Sign in with Apple. If you signed in with Google, you can remove Magpie at myaccount.google.com, under Security.

One thing remains after deletion: a one-way fingerprint of the sign-in identifier, which cannot be turned back into it. We keep it only so that deleting an account and signing up again does not give the free credits a second time.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• see the personal data we hold about you
• have it corrected
• have it deleted
• have its use restricted
• receive it in a portable form
• object to how we use it
• withdraw consent where we rely on it, without affecting what was done before

To use any of these rights, email privacy@magpie.today. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. If you live in the European Union, you can also complain to the data protection authority where you live.

Children

Magpie is not directed at children under 13.

This website

When you first visit, the site stores nothing on your device. If you accept Analytics on the cookie banner, we use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read and where visitors came from. If you accept Advertising, Google Ads can tell us whether an advert led to a visit or a download. If you say no, nothing is stored and the site works exactly the same. The cookie policy lists every cookie.

Fonts are served from this site.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Weftworks Limited, privacy@magpie.today.

Registered in England and Wales, company number 17439248. Registered office: 2 Ravenscroft Gardens, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 7JU. ICO registration ZC241086.