Privacy Policy

At a glance

• Only upload photos you have the right to contribute.
• Smaller copies of your photos are uploaded; the originals on your device remain unchanged.
• We retain photo copies and your curation choices long-term to train and evaluate our photo-curation AI for Gallery Maker. Related research supports this same purpose.
• Authorized people may review contributions. AI providers may process them for our purposes; we do not authorize providers to train their own models on them.
• Your gallery is available for 10 days. Copies retained for AI training and evaluation remain longer, while necessary for that purpose, and retention is reviewed at least annually.
• Questions or requests: privacy@qualiasphere.com.

1. Scope and responsibility

This policy covers the Gallery Making Guided Curation Tool at guide.gallerymakerapp.com, including supplied-photo activities and the upload-your-own-photos research route. It does not replace the separate Gallery Maker iPhone app policy.

The operator is QualiaSphere Inc., a Canadian corporation doing business in Québec as Technologies QualiaSphère Inc. Our Privacy Officer is the President. Contact: privacy@qualiasphere.com, Québec, Canada.

2. Information and purposes

We process uploaded, reduced-size photo copies; your groupings, category assignments, selections and revisions; and associated session identifiers, activity timestamps and consent records. We also process information you choose to send when contacting us. Servers may record technical information such as IP addresses, request times, browser details and errors to operate and secure the service.

We use information needed to provide the guided workflow, save progress, produce galleries, and operate and secure the tool. We retain photo copies and your curation choices to train and evaluate our photo-curation AI for Gallery Maker and related QualiaSphere photo-curation tools. This includes studying how people group and select photos, preparing training examples, comparing human and AI selections, and testing model performance. These research and technical activities support that same photo-curation AI purpose; they do not authorize unrelated research or other uses. These products may be commercial, and the models may be proprietary or open-weight. This does not authorize public release of your photos or trained weights containing personal information.

Reduced size does not make a photo anonymous. Faces, surroundings, visible text and other image content can reveal personal or sensitive information.

3. Participation and permission

Before an upload, we present the relevant purposes and request express permission. The upload route invites contributions for training and evaluating our photo-curation AI, including the related activities explained in Section 2. If you do not agree to this use, do not upload. Declining does not authorize us to collect photos. Posting this policy is not itself consent, and it does not remove rights provided by law. Distinct purposes require appropriately specific choices; we do not treat acceptance as permission for unrelated future uses.

Only upload photos you have the right to contribute. Do not upload intimate images, identification documents or other highly sensitive content. For identifiable people, ensure you have the authority or permission needed for these photo-curation AI uses; owning the photograph alone does not resolve their privacy rights. Contact us before contributing photos involving children or if you are unsure.

4. Human review and service providers

Authorized QualiaSphere personnel and research collaborators may inspect photos and choices for the training and evaluation activities described in Section 2, including related photo-selection research and quality checks. Access must be limited to the agreed purpose and protected by confidentiality and appropriate safeguards.

We use hosting, storage, computing and AI-processing service providers to operate the tool and carry out the purposes described above. Providers receive only information needed for their role and must be subject to appropriate confidentiality, security and use restrictions. We do not authorize them to use contributions to train their own models independently. Their operational, security and legally required retention may differ from ours.

Using an external processing service is different from permitting it to train its own models. Other providers require assessment, suitable contractual restrictions and updated disclosures before use; fresh consent is obtained when required. We do not authorize providers’ independent training on contributions.

5. Storage, disclosure and sharing

Your information may be stored or processed in Québec, elsewhere in Canada, or other countries, including the United States. Different privacy laws and lawful government-access powers may apply. Before changing processing arrangements, we carry out the assessments and implement the safeguards required by applicable law. Current arrangements are described above; material changes are disclosed and additional consent is obtained when required.

We use contributions for the purposes above, not for advertising or sale as a photo dataset. We do not publish contributed photos or make them available to other participants without additional permission. If you choose a sharing feature, recipients may be able to view, copy or forward the gallery; do not share a link with anyone you do not intend to receive it. Required disclosures to authorities may occur where legally permitted or required.

If QualiaSphere or the relevant business or assets are acquired, merged, reorganized or transferred, information may be disclosed or transferred as legally permitted, with required safeguards and notices. A successor remains subject to applicable law and the purposes and permissions governing the information; a transaction does not itself authorize unrelated uses. New consent is obtained where required.

6. Retention

Gallery access expires 10 days after creation; this is not the deletion date for contributions retained to train and evaluate our photo-curation AI. We retain photo copies and curation records for an ongoing period, without a fixed deletion date, only while necessary for that defined purpose and its related activities described in Section 2. We review that necessity at least annually and delete or lawfully anonymize information when no longer needed, subject to applicable legal requirements and rights requests.

Consent records, security logs and backups have separate retention needs. Information retained solely for legal or security reasons is restricted to those purposes. Backup copies are removed through the applicable backup lifecycle and should not be returned to active training, evaluation or related research after deletion. Removing names, metadata or account links alone does not necessarily anonymize photos.

7. Withdrawal, requests and model training

You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting privacy@qualiasphere.com, subject to applicable legal or contractual restrictions. Use the same address to exercise privacy rights available under applicable law, including access, correction, deletion or portability where required. We handle requests within the scope, time limits and exceptions provided by law. Include your session or gallery reference if available; do not send a password or private access token by email. We may request proportionate verification. An account-free session may make locating a contribution difficult, so keep your reference.

After a valid withdrawal, we stop future consent-based use of identifiable contributions for photo-curation AI training, evaluation and the related activities described in Section 2 and handle deletion and provider requests as required by law. We cannot undo earlier lawful processing or retrieve copies independently downloaded by recipients. Removing a training example does not automatically remove its influence from a trained model; this is not a blanket exemption from applicable rights. We assess what further action is required, including where a model retains personal information. Genuinely anonymized results may no longer be attributable to you.

You may complain to our Privacy Officer or the competent privacy authority, including Québec’s Commission d’accès à l’information.

8. Security and changes

We apply safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information, including encrypted connections, access controls and limits on authorized use. No system is risk-free. Operational session storage is used to support progress and access; any additional tracking or analytics must be disclosed and, where required, enabled only with consent.

We update this policy when practices change and request renewed permission when required for material new purposes or disclosures. See our privacy governance information. Privacy contact: privacy@qualiasphere.com.