A clear account of the information behind the experience.

Who we are

Picturing Places is an independent creative project that turns meaningful places into minimalist visual art. It is supported by Picturing Bits. In this policy, “Picturing Places”, “we”, and “us” refer to the Picturing Places website, map creator, and related services available through picturing-places.com and maps.picturing-places.com. Picturing Bits is responsible for the handling described in this policy.

Information we handle

Information you choose to provide

We may receive your email address when you request updates or a download link, and the information you include when you send feedback, request a place, or contact us. A wallpaper request may also include the city and style you selected. If you purchase a paid file, we receive order and fulfilment information from our payment provider. We do not receive or store your full payment card details.

Map designs and downloads

The creator processes the place, style, layout, labels, map position, and output options you select so it can preview and render your artwork. Some editor preferences and unfinished work may be stored in your browser. When a server-rendered file is requested, the design settings needed to produce and deliver that file are sent to our systems.

Place search

When you search for a place in the creator, we send the search text, selected country or language, and technical request information to Geoapify to return matching geographic places. This request is made by our server, so Geoapify receives our server request rather than your browser IP address. The selected place and its coordinates are then used to create your map artwork.

Technical and usage information

Our hosting and essential error-monitoring services may process limited technical information such as page views, browser and device characteristics, approximate location derived from an IP address, request timing, referring pages, and diagnostic information. We use this information to operate, secure, and improve the service.

Cookies and local storage

We use browser storage where it is needed to remember creator settings, resume a render or purchase flow, and maintain private administrative sessions. Product analytics are off by default and start only if you choose “Allow analytics” in the creator; that choice is remembered in your browser. Essential error-monitoring may use limited technical storage or identifiers to diagnose faults. You can limit or remove browser storage through your browser settings.

How we use information

We use information to:

• provide the creator, previews, renders, downloads, and paid fulfilment;
• remember your choices and restore work where appropriate;
• respond to feedback, support messages, and place requests;
• operate the private Pinterest publishing workflow described below;
• protect the service against misuse, fraud, and security incidents;
• understand reliability and improve the experience; and
• meet legal, accounting, and regulatory obligations.

Depending on the context and your location, we rely on your request or contract with us, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the service, consent where required, and compliance with legal obligations.

Connected service

Pinterest integration

Picturing Places includes a private publishing tool used by an authorized operator to schedule original Picturing Places artwork for Pinterest. Every Pin must be individually reviewed and approved before it can be published. This connection is not offered as a public account feature.

Pinterest is connected through its OAuth authorization process. We do not receive or store Pinterest passwords. To maintain the connection and perform approved actions, we store encrypted access and refresh tokens, the permissions granted, token expiry information, the selected board identifier, publishing schedules and attempts, and the resulting Pin identifier and status. Board information is requested from Pinterest when the private publishing area is used.

We use this information only to display available boards, publish specifically approved Pins, refresh the authorized connection, prevent duplicate publication, diagnose failures, and maintain an operational record. We do not sell Pinterest information, combine it with unrelated account data, or use it to profile people.

Pinterest processes information under its own Privacy Policy. The Pinterest account owner can revoke access through Pinterest and can also disconnect the integration from the Picturing Places private publishing area. Disconnecting removes the locally stored connection credentials. Certain non-sensitive publishing records may be retained for security, duplicate prevention, and audit purposes.

Service providers

We disclose information only where needed to operate the service, complete a requested transaction, meet legal obligations, or protect our rights. Providers may include:

• Cloudflare, for hosting, security, databases, queues, and private file storage;
• Lemon Squeezy, for checkout, payment processing, and purchase fulfilment;
• Geoapify, for place-search results;
• PostHog, for optional, consent-based product analytics;
• Sentry, for essential error monitoring and diagnostics; and
• Pinterest, when the authorized publishing integration is used.

These providers process information under their own terms and data-protection commitments. Information may be processed in countries outside your own. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for international transfers.

We do not sell personal information.

Retention and security

We retain information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including fulfilment, support, security, accounting, dispute resolution, and legal obligations. Retention periods vary by record type.

Creator preferences and your analytics choice remain in your browser until you clear browser storage. Search text is used to obtain the requested place result and is not kept by us as a separate customer profile. Provider-side retention is governed by the provider’s own terms and privacy policy.

Pinterest connection credentials are retained until the connection is revoked, disconnected, expires, or is replaced. Render and download records, purchase records, publishing attempts, and support correspondence may be kept longer where needed to fulfil requests, prevent duplicate actions, keep an audit trail, or meet legal requirements.

We use technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the information we handle. These include restricted administrative access, encrypted secrets, encrypted Pinterest credentials, private object storage, and controls around publishing actions. No method of storage or transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to the processing of your personal information, request portability, or withdraw consent. You may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

You can clear locally stored creator data and manage cookies or similar identifiers through your browser settings. You can review or change an analytics choice at any time through “Privacy choices” in the site footer, unsubscribe from optional messages using the method provided with the message, and revoke a connected Pinterest account through Pinterest.

Picturing Places is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes or legal requirements develop. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. Material changes will be presented through an appropriate notice.

Contact

Questions or privacy requests can be sent to info@picturing-bits.com. Please describe the request and the Picturing Places service it concerns so we can respond appropriately.