This policy describes how Vaela collects, uses, stores, and deletes information when you use our color and style guidance product. Vaela is operated by Vaela Technologies Inc., a Florida corporation.
What the current App Store version collects: an anonymous profile identifier we create for you, your selfie for color analysis (uploaded to our servers for processing and deleted immediately after analysis, with only derived color values saved), your saved color profile, style recommendations, and optional AI explanations. Photos of your wardrobe garments are sometimes sent to Anthropic to review an outfit, as described under AI review of your outfits below. If you choose to sign in, we also store the email address your sign-in provider gives us. The closet feature, when you choose to use it, also stores the clothing photos you upload, as described under Image retention below. The Market tab shows real products with affiliate links, as described under Affiliate links below. If you allow it, we use an approximate location to add local weather to today's guidance, as described under Location below. The inspiration image feature described below is not active in the current build. It applies only if and when it is enabled in a future version of the app.
Information we collect
- Profile and session data: the first time you open Vaela we create a random profile identifier for you and a session token. The identifier is not built from your name, your email address, or anything about your device, and we do not use it outside Vaela. Everything you save is stored against it. If you choose to sign in with Apple or Google, we also store the account identifier and the email address that provider sends us, so we can reconnect you to the same profile later.
- Selfie and color analysis data: images you upload for undertone and palette analysis, plus derived color profile values such as undertone, season, and LAB color measurements.
- Quiz preferences: style, fit, color, occasion, and related preference answers you choose to save.
- Closet items: when you use the closet feature, the clothing photos you choose to upload are stored durably on Vaela's cloud storage so that your wardrobe is available to you across sessions and devices. Before a photo is stored, we decode and re-encode it, which removes embedded metadata such as EXIF and GPS location. We also derive metadata such as category, slot, and color values for wardrobe matching. Your photos are stored under storage keys scoped to your profile, are not shared with other users, and remain until you delete the item or your account.
- Approximate location, only if you allow it: when you use the weather part of today's guidance we ask your device where you are. Your device rounds it to about a kilometre before it is sent, and we do not store it. See Location below.
- Inspiration images (future feature): when copy-the-look is enabled, reference photos are processed for color and style direction and only derived style metadata is sent to Vaela. We do not identify people, brands, or specific products.
- Usage analytics: product events such as feature usage, errors, and performance metrics tied to your profile where needed for product improvement.
- Affiliate interaction data: when an affiliate link is shown or tapped in the Market tab, we log that it happened along with disclosure metadata. That record is stored without your profile identifier.
How we use information
We use your information to generate color and style guidance, personalize recommendations, improve product quality, prevent abuse, and operate optional features such as saved profiles, closet matching, and affiliate category links.
Vaela does not use your selfie to identify you as a person, perform facial recognition for identity matching, or sell face scans.
Face data and selfies
Before you upload a selfie, Vaela shows consent copy explaining that your photo is used for color analysis only. We process lighting and skin-tone color values to build your color profile. We do not store your raw selfie file after analysis completes. We may store derived color profile data (such as undertone, season, and LAB measurements) until you delete your profile or account.
Location
Today's outfit guidance can include local weather. To get it, Vaela asks your device where you are the first time you use that part of the app. Your phone shows you the standard permission prompt and you can say no.
If you allow it, your device rounds the coordinates to two decimal places, which is roughly a kilometre, before anything leaves your phone. We never receive your exact position. We send those rounded coordinates to Open-Meteo, a weather service, to look up current conditions. We do not send your profile identifier, your email address, or anything else about you with that lookup.
We do not store your location. There is no location field in our database and we keep no location history. The rounded coordinates do appear in our server request logs next to your profile identifier, the same way the rest of a request does. Your own device remembers the last rounded coordinates so it does not have to ask again.
If you decline, everything else keeps working and you simply see guidance without weather. Vaela will not ask you again on that device.
Image retention
- Selfie uploads: uploaded to our server for color analysis and deleted immediately after analysis completes. Only derived color values are saved, never the image itself.
- Color profile: stored until you delete your profile or account.
- Closet items: clothing photos you upload are stored durably by Vaela on cloud storage, with EXIF and location metadata removed, until you delete the item or your account. Deleting a closet item deletes its photo. Deleting your account deletes every closet photo you have uploaded, and that purge runs whether or not you ask for images to be removed separately.
- Inspiration images: when enabled, processed for derived style metadata. Original photos are not retained on our servers.
- Share cards: generated on your device when possible and not stored on our servers unless a future feature explicitly says otherwise.
- One-off photos for instant checks: some features take a picture and answer straight away. Scanning an item in a shop works this way in the current app, and previewing a makeup shade works this way in our older web app. The picture is measured for colour in memory and then dropped. It is never saved to your wardrobe, never written to our storage, and nothing taken from it is sent anywhere outside Vaela.
- The mirror outfit check works differently and you should know how. The photo itself never leaves our servers: it is measured and dropped like the ones above. But the result of that measurement does leave. We send the colours we measured (a hex value and a colour family for each garment we found, plus any accent colour), the occasion you picked, and the harmony scores we calculated to Anthropic, so it can write the styling tip you see. No picture, no identifier, and nothing else about you goes with it. This feature has no screen in the current app; the route exists and is switched on, so we describe it here rather than wait.
Analytics and cookies
We collect product analytics to understand feature usage and reliability. Analytics are used for aggregate and product improvement purposes. We do not use analytics to make automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects.
In the iOS app, analytics events go only to Vaela's own servers. The app does not load any third-party analytics script. On the vaela.ai website we also send the same events to Plausible, a third-party analytics service. Vaela does not use an advertising identifier, does not share your data with data brokers, and does not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
Affiliate links
Vaela's Market tab shows real products from affiliate partners, with a visible disclosure on the surface. When you tap through to a merchant, that merchant and the affiliate network receive the standard referral information any web link carries. We do not add a Vaela identifier to the outbound link, and the click we record on our own side is stored without your profile identifier. Commerce does not change deterministic style ranking.
How we share information
We use service providers to run Vaela: Fly.io for hosting, Cloudflare R2 for storing your wardrobe photos, Anthropic for the AI features described below, Open-Meteo for weather lookups, and Plausible for website analytics. We do not sell personal information. We may disclose information if required by law or to protect users and the service.
AI review of your outfits, and what leaves Vaela. This feature is switched on today. When Vaela puts together an outfit from your wardrobe, it sometimes sends photos of those garments to Anthropic, the company behind Claude, which checks whether the pieces actually work together. A photo you took can therefore leave Vaela's servers. Here is exactly what that involves.
- Only wardrobe garment photos are sent. Your selfie is never sent to Anthropic or to any other AI company.
- The photo is shrunk first. Each garment picture is reduced to at most 512 pixels on its longest side and re-saved as a JPEG before it is sent. That re-save also drops any remaining EXIF or location metadata.
- What travels with the photos. For each garment: an internal item id, the label you typed for it, and the details we hold about that piece (subtype, colour family and hex value, formality score, pattern, season tags, and any notes). About you: your gender presentation, your colour season, and your undertone. Plus the occasion you picked. Each picture is also captioned with its slot, its item id, and the label you typed. If you type personal information into a garment label, that text is part of what we send, so it is worth keeping labels about the clothes.
- What we never send. Your email address, your profile identifier, your session token, your location, or your selfie. The item id is the filename of a single photo inside your private folder, but the folder name, which is the part tied to you, is never sent. Nothing we add to the request identifies you.
- It does not happen every time. It runs at most three times a day per person, in the background after you already have your result, and only for outfits built from two or more real wardrobe items.
- We keep the outcome, not the conversation. What we store is which items the review suggested and a quality score, tied to your profile. Deleting your account deletes those records.
Vaela also uses Anthropic to write the optional text explanations of your recommendations. Those are text only and carry no photo.
Account and data deletion
You can delete your Vaela profile and associated data at any time.
Option 1: In the Vaela app
- Open Vaela and sign in to your anonymous session.
- Go to account or settings and choose delete account.
- Confirm deletion when prompted.
- We revoke your session, clear saved color profile data, and anonymize profile-linked analytics.
Option 2: Email request
Email privacy@vaela.ai from the address you used with Vaela (if any). Include the word "delete" and we will delete or anonymize your profile-linked data within a reasonable time.
What deletion removes
- Active sessions and saved color profile data linked to your profile.
- Profile-linked analytics where applicable.
- Closet or inspiration images if those features are enabled in your version.
What deletion does not require
Raw selfie files are not stored after analysis, so there is no separate selfie file to delete from our servers.
Export your data
You can request a copy of the data Vaela holds about your profile at any time.
- By email: email privacy@vaela.ai with the word "export" and we will provide your data within a reasonable time.
The export covers the same records that account deletion removes, so what you can take with you always matches what we hold. Security credentials such as session token hashes are excluded; they protect your account and have no reuse value to you.
Your choices
You can stop uploading images at any time. Some guidance features require the uploads needed to provide that feature.
Children
Vaela is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Security
We use technical and organizational measures appropriate to the data we process, including transport encryption, access controls, upload validation, and deletion workflows. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure.
International users
If you use Vaela outside the United States, your information may be processed in the United States or other countries where our providers operate.
Changes
We may update this policy as features evolve. Material changes will be posted here with an updated effective date.
Contact
Privacy questions: privacy@vaela.ai.