Privacy at Grain

When you scan a QR code and join an event, Grain creates an anonymous session for your browser. We do not ask for your email, phone number, or real name. The display name you pick is shown to other guests in that event, and it can be changed by the host on request.

When you upload a photo, Grain removes the embedded location data (GPS coordinates in the EXIF block) before the file is saved. In Grain Mode the original is downscaled in your browser and the full-resolution file is discarded before upload.

If you choose to add your email when joining, we use it for one purpose only: to send you a single notification when the photos for that event are revealed. Email is optional, never required to participate, and every notification includes a one-click unsubscribe link. Your email is deleted when the event is purged, or sooner if you erase your guest data.

Some venues ask guests for permission to use their photos. When a venue does, the join screen offers a checkbox that is checked by default. You can uncheck it before joining if you do not want to give permission. It covers only the photos and clips you take yourself, and only for that venue's social media, website and marketing. Your permission is not clearance from other people in your photos. You keep ownership of your content. The venue receives permission to use it, not ownership. Where this rule applies, guest-approved photos become available to the venue only after it confirms that the couple or host has agreed. Removing that confirmation hides the photos again. Events a venue creates for its own use are exempt, and events created before October 20, 2026 are unchanged.

If you allow it, your photos may stay in the venue's private library in Grain after the event gallery closes, for up to 3 years from the event date. The library is kept while the venue's plan is paused and for 90 days after it ends, then deleted. Videos, voice notes and guestbook entries are not kept in the library.

You can withdraw anytime from Your data on the camera screen, the reminder sheet, or your private permission link, which keeps working after the gallery closes. Withdrawing removes your photos from the venue's library and stops new downloads right away. It does not delete them from the event gallery. Use Delete my photos for that. Grain cannot recall copies the venue already downloaded or published, and the venue is asked to remove them.

Venue news is a separate choice, asked only when you leave your email for the gallery. If you agree, the venue may download your email address to send you news and offers. You can stop this anytime. A later no always wins over an earlier yes. To keep honouring a no, Grain keeps a minimal coded record of it, without your plain email address.

Lost your permission link? Contact us through the contact page. We review the request by hand, using your signed-in guest session or an email address we already verified with you, and never based on an event name or display name alone.

Grain does not run facial recognition, biometric matching, or any form of automated face clustering. Photos are not used to train any model. We do not sell data, and we do not share it with advertising networks.

In Grain Mode, photos stay private until the host-set reveal time. Until then, only you can see the photos you took, and the server refuses to hand out anyone else's files. Hiding is enforced on the server, not just in the interface.

Each event has a retention window chosen by the host, 30 days by default. When the window closes, every photo and every guest record for that event is permanently deleted from storage and from the database. The only exceptions are photos you allowed a venue to keep, and venue news permissions, as described above. You can also erase your own photos and your guest record at any time from the event page.

Grain runs on infrastructure hosted in the European Union (Ireland). We do not transfer event data outside the EU.

For privacy questions, contact the host of the event you joined. They are the data controller for that event. Grain operates as the processor.