The Collecting Spirit of This Notice
Nexel is built around accidental curiosity: a pebble in a coat pocket, a shell from a walk, a stub saved for the memory attached to it. Privacy language for Nexel therefore follows the same path as the product itself: what you capture for your Field Guide, what you choose to air in Community, what you exchange in Messages, and what device permissions are needed only when a feature actually needs them.
We describe practices in careful, workable terms. Absolute guarantees such as perfect security or a promise that no incident can ever occur are not made here. Instead, this notice sets expectations you can verify against how Nexel behaves on your device.
Open Use Without a Mandatory Account
You may open Nexel and use its core Field Guide experience without being required to create a remote account gate. Collecting, organizing categories, writing stories, browsing community content, and adjusting appearance preferences are designed to work as on-device activity.
Specimen Records You Create
When you log a find, Nexel may store the materials you enter so the specimen card and Story Archive can reopen later. Depending on what you fill in, a record may include:
- Photographs you take or import for the find, including cover and additional images.
- Name, category, date found, tags for color, material, shape, or custom labels.
- Optional place name and map coordinates if you attach a location.
- Weather and mood values you select manually inside the form.
- Free-text story, the short “why I kept it” note, prized status, and whether the find is marked for community sharing.
- Category progress, custom categories, search filters, saved items, blocked-user lists, report reasons you submit, chat text and attached images, themed-event interest, and appearance settings.
Why these materials are processed
They exist so Nexel can rebuild your private Field Guide, show timelines and maps of tagged finds, power search and recall, surface community posts you publish or save, operate report and block controls, and remember preferences such as visual appearance. Processing is tied to features you use, not to unrelated profiling beyond what is described here.
Device Capabilities the Guide May Request
Nexel asks for system permission only when a related action needs it. Declining a permission typically disables or degrades that path while leaving other features available.
- Camera. Photograph a pocket find for a specimen card, capture or refresh a collector portrait where that flow is offered, and show a live preview during an in-app video call.
- Photo library. Import existing pictures into a find, attach images in conversation, or choose a portrait from photos you select. Write access is used only if you export an image back to Photos.
- Location while using the app. Optionally tag where a discovery happened, place it on your Field Guide map, and help surface nearby community context. Location tagging can be left blank.
- Microphone. Carry voice during an active video call with another collector. Microphone audio is not stored as part of a Field Guide specimen card.
- App Tracking Transparency. If you allow tracking, the advertising identifier may be used to understand engagement with Field Guide challenges, community posts, and discovery surfaces so recommendations and challenge measurement can improve over time. You may decline and continue using core collecting, browsing, and messaging features.
On-Device Vault and Relative Storage
Nexel’s primary persistence model keeps app state and specimen images in the app’s sandboxed storage on your device. Image files are referenced with relative names and rebuilt at runtime from the current documents location, rather than hard-coding absolute paths that break after reinstall or device changes.
Because the Field Guide lives mainly on the device, uninstalling the app, clearing app data, or losing the device without a backup you control may remove local records. You remain responsible for any device-level backups you enable through your operating system.
Community Airing and Conversational Features
Finds stay private in your Guide until you choose actions such as sharing to Community. Shared posts, comments, likes, follows, messages, and video-call sessions are part of social collecting. Content you publish or send may be visible to other participants according to the feature you used.
Report submissions and block lists exist so you can hide objectionable material and limit further interaction. Reports may include the target content reference, the reason you select, optional notes, and timing needed to review the concern.
If a feature requires network transmission to deliver community, messaging, or similar experiences, relevant content and technical metadata needed for that delivery may leave the device for that purpose. Nexel does not treat every private specimen as public by default.
Measurement Signals and System Frameworks
Beyond content you author, Nexel may process limited technical information generated by normal app operation, such as crash-related diagnostics exposed by the operating system, permission states, and preference flags stored locally (for example, whether an ATT prompt has already been presented).
Apple frameworks for photos, camera, location, maps presentation, and tracking authorization may handle data according to Apple’s own rules when you interact with those system surfaces. Nexel does not control those system privacy screens, but it does request access only for the purposes listed above.
We do not claim that data is never shared with any party in any circumstance. Where a third-party or platform service is necessary to run a feature you invoke, sharing is limited to what that feature reasonably requires, subject to applicable laws and relevant regulatory requirements.
Keeping, Revising, and Clearing Records
Specimen cards, categories, posts you create, conversations, and settings generally remain for as long as they are useful to the feature and remain stored on your device or in any service path that feature uses. You can edit or delete finds, remove shared posts where the product allows, clear conversations by ordinary use, unblock people, and adjust appearance or location-related choices.
If you want help understanding what remains on your device after ordinary deletion actions, write to halcyon.stub@nexelfield.app. Response timing depends on volume and the nature of the request.
Young Collectors
Nexel is intended for users who can understand and accept this notice under applicable laws. It is not directed at children who require parental consent under relevant regulatory requirements for online services. If you believe a child has provided personal information in a manner inconsistent with those requirements, contact halcyon.stub@nexelfield.app so appropriate steps can be considered.
Practical Care for Your Data
Reasonable technical and organizational measures are used to reduce unauthorized access to on-device materials, including reliance on the operating system sandbox, careful permission gating, and relative-path storage for media. No measure can eliminate every risk. Protect your device lock, keep the system updated, and think twice before sharing finds that reveal sensitive places or personal details.
Your choices include denying optional permissions, leaving location blank on a find, keeping specimens private, using report and block tools, and limiting what you type into stories or messages.
When This Notice Changes
As Nexel’s Field Guide features evolve, this notice may be updated so it stays aligned with actual processing. Continued use after an update means the revised notice applies to subsequent activity, except where applicable laws require a different approach.
Questions about pocket-find privacy, device permissions, or community sharing can be sent to halcyon.stub@nexelfield.app.