Privacy policy

Last updated: August 30, 2026

1. Who are we?

Benchscape is a community mobile app that maps the most beautiful public benches: photos, ratings out of 10, reviews and check-ins. It is available on iOS and Android and is published by Clément Béghin, based in Lille (France), hereafter "Benchscape", "we".

For any question about this policy or your data: [email protected].

2. The essentials

No advertising, no ad profiling.
Your data is never sold or shared for commercial purposes.
Your location is only used in the foreground, never in the background.
The app can be browsed without an account: as long as you don't create one, we don't know who you are.
Servers and processors are located in the European Union, unless stated otherwise below.

3. Account data

An account is only required to contribute (publish a bench, a review, a check-in). Three sign-in methods are available:

Sign in with Apple;
Google Sign-In;
one-time code by email (the code email is delivered by our provider Brevo).

Data processed:

Username: public, shown on your contributions ("Discovered by…").
Email address: used for sign-in and account-related communications. Never shown publicly.
First and last name (if provided by Apple or Google): never shown publicly.
Avatar (optional): public.

4. Content you publish

The photos, ratings, reviews and bench names you publish are public by nature: that is the whole point of a community map. They are visible to all users of the app, including those without an account.

Photos are hosted on Cloudflare (R2 storage) and served through photos.benchscape.app.

5. Location

Your location is used to show benches around you and to verify your presence during a check-in or a bench wake-up.
It is only used in the foreground, never in the background.
It is never sold or shared.
Some positions sent to the server are snapped to a grid of about 2 km so that your exact position is never stored when it is not needed.
Location can be turned off at any time in your phone settings; the app remains usable without it.

6. Analytics and stability

Usage statistics: PostHog, hosted in the European Union. Anonymized usage events (screens viewed, key actions), device type and app version. No identity data and no precise GPS coordinates are transmitted.
Crash reports: Sentry, with data ingested in Germany. Technical crash trace, device model, OS and app version. Collection of personal information (including IP address) is disabled.

7. Hosting and processors

Processor	Role	Region
Server host (VPS)	API and database	European Union
Cloudflare R2	Photo and backup storage	European Union (jurisdiction: United States, standard contractual clauses)
Brevo	Sign-in email delivery	European Union
Apple / Google	Authentication (if you choose these methods)	As per their respective policies
PostHog	Usage statistics	European Union
Sentry	Crash reports	Ingestion in Germany

8. Retention periods

Account data: as long as your account exists.
Published content: as long as it is online (see section 10 for account deletion).
Backups: encrypted database backups are kept for about 30 days.
Sign-in code emails: codes expire within minutes and are not kept beyond that.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability over your data.

To exercise them: [email protected]. We reply within one month. You can also lodge a complaint with the French supervisory authority, the CNIL (cnil.fr).

10. Account deletion

You can delete your account directly in the app (Settings). Deletion is immediate and irreversible:

your account data (email, username, first name, last name, avatar) is deleted;
your check-ins are deleted;
your public contributions (photos, ratings, reviews) are kept but anonymized: they appear under "Deleted user" and your discoverer status is removed. If you also want them deleted, contact us before deleting your account.