You can browse the map, walls and photos without signing in. To post or use the Watchlist, you need to sign in, and we then collect the following information.
| Account information | The identifier and email address provided by your sign-in provider (Apple or Google). If you choose Apple’s Hide My Email, this is a relay address issued by Apple. If the provider supplies your name or profile picture, it may be stored with your sign-in record |
| Nickname | A nickname in English letters that we assign automatically when your account is created (for example, RustyComet27) |
| Posts | Wall locations (latitude and longitude) and names, information about pieces (title, writer, when it was painted and so on), photos, and when photos were taken. See “4. Photos and Location” for details |
| Sightings | Whether a piece on a wall is “still there” or “gone,” and when you checked |
| Watchlist | Walls you save as places you want to visit |
| Survey responses | If you choose to answer the in-app survey, your score from 0 to 10, any comment you write, when you answered, and your App version and operating system. We also record when you dismiss it or choose “Later,” so that we do not ask again too soon. A comment is optional, and anything you write in it is stored, so please do not include personal information |
| Reports and blocks | What you reported, the reason and any details you added, and who you blocked |
| Writer claims | The social media account URL and any details you enter when claiming a writer page as your own |
| Notification information | For devices where you allow push notifications, the identifier used to deliver them (push token), the operating system and the app version. We also keep your notification history and notification settings |
| Access logs | Information recorded automatically while providing the service, such as IP addresses and timestamps |
| Usage data and crash reports (only if you allow it) | Which screens you open and which actions you take in the App (for example, posting a wall, saving a wall to your Watchlist, answering the survey, or opening a notification), along with the App version, operating system, device model, language and approximate region derived from your IP address. Google Analytics also creates a random identifier for the App installation. If the App crashes, Firebase Crashlytics receives a crash report: technical details of the crash (such as the stack trace and the state of the App at that moment), the device model, operating system version and App version, a random installation identifier, and the names of the screens and actions shortly before the crash. We do not link this data to your account, and we do not send Google your nickname, email address, posts, search terms or locations |
Access to device features. We ask to use your location only while you are using the App. We use it to set the location of a wall you post (when the photo has no location data) and to show where you are on the map. Your location for showing where you are on the map is not stored on our servers. We use the camera and photo library only to take or choose photos of walls. Photos sent to the App from the “Share” option in the Photos app or elsewhere are kept temporarily on your device while you prepare a post, and are deleted once processed. We do not access your contacts, calendar or similar data.
Usage analytics. The first time you open the App, we ask whether you allow anonymous usage analytics and crash reports. Nothing is sent to Google Analytics or Firebase Crashlytics unless you choose “Allow.” You can change your choice at any time with the “Usage analytics & crash reports” switch in the “You” tab, and the App works the same either way. We do not use your advertising ID, and the App does not ask to track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
Survey. After you post a wall, report a sighting or save a wall to your Watchlist, the App may occasionally ask how likely you are to recommend it. Answering is optional, and the App works the same whether or not you answer. We ask each person at most about once every 90 days. We store your answer with your account so that we can tell when to ask again and understand how the App is doing. We read responses in aggregate and individually, and do not use them for advertising. If you allow usage analytics, only your score and whether you wrote a comment (never the comment itself) are also sent to Google Analytics.
Push notifications. We ask for permission to send notifications only when you first save a wall to your Watchlist or turn on notifications in settings. Notifications are delivered through Apple’s APNs and Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging and tell you about activity such as changes to walls you saved or pieces you posted, and are never used for advertising. When you sign out, that device stops receiving notifications.
The App is an archive for sharing records of city walls. Anything you post can be seen by anyone, including people who are not signed in. Please keep this in mind before you post.
| Public | Wall locations (exact points, except where blurred as described below) and names, information about pieces, photos, when photos were taken, and the results and dates of sightings |
| Visible only to you | Your Watchlist, reports, blocks, notifications, notification settings and writer claims. Your email address is never shown to other users |
How posters are shown. The App does not show nicknames on posts. However, each post is linked internally to an account identifier, which also appears in the address where the photo is stored. Because nicknames are also public, it is technically possible to connect posts to nicknames.
Location blurring. Users whose writer claim has been approved can choose to show the walls with their pieces as an “area” of about 500 meters square instead of an exact point. This cannot prevent a location from being inferred from where it was shown before the setting was turned on, from the scenery in photos, from the wall’s name and so on.
When you choose a photo, the App reads the location (GPS) and date and time the photo was taken on your device. If the photo has a location, we use it as the wall’s location. If not, we use your device’s current location. The date and time taken is stored and published with the post, as evidence that the piece existed at that time.
Before uploading, photos are resized on your device to no more than 2048 pixels on the long side and converted to JPEG.
Photos are public. Please make sure that faces, license plates, nameplates or anything else that could identify a person are not visible. If someone who appears in a photo asks us to remove it, we may hide or remove the photo at our discretion.
When you choose a photo to post, a copy resized to 768 pixels on the long side is sent to an external AI service (Google’s Gemini API) to check whether it shows graffiti or street art and whether it contains inappropriate content. Depending on the result, we may not accept the post.
We do not store the result in our database. Images sent are processed under Google’s terms. AI checks are not perfect, and a photo that cannot be checked will not be blocked from posting. We review inappropriate posts when they are reported.
We do not share your personal information with third parties except:
The information listed in “3. Public Information” is, by the nature of the App, published for anyone to see. We never share information with third parties for advertising.
The App uses the following external services, and the information we collect is processed and stored on their servers, which may be located outside your country. Please also review each service’s privacy policy.
| Supabase | Database, authentication, photo storage and server processing (Supabase, Inc.) supabase.com/privacy |
| Photo checks (Gemini API), sign-in with Google, and push notification delivery through Firebase Cloud Messaging (we send the push token and the notification’s title and text) (Google LLC) policies.google.com/privacy · firebase.google.com/support/privacy | |
| Google Analytics for Firebase | Measuring how the App is used, only if you allow it (screens viewed and actions taken, as described in “1. Information We Collect”). The data is also stored in Google BigQuery in Tokyo, Japan. We do not use your advertising ID, we have turned off advertising features, Google signals and Google’s use of the data for its own products, and we do not send Google your account identifier (Google LLC) policies.google.com/privacy |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Receiving crash reports so we can find and fix crashes, only if you allow it (technical crash details, device and operating system information, and recent screens and actions, as described in “1. Information We Collect”). The data is also stored in Google BigQuery in Tokyo, Japan. We do not send Google your account identifier (Google LLC) firebase.google.com/support/privacy |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, push notification delivery to iOS devices (Apple Push Notification service), displaying maps (Apple Maps), searching places (we send your search terms to Apple’s geocoding service) and showing wall addresses (we send the coordinates where the wall is shown) apple.com/legal/privacy |
The App uses Google Analytics for Firebase for usage analytics and Firebase Crashlytics for crash reports, only if you allow it. It does not include advertising tools. Our website (including this page) uses Google Analytics to understand traffic. Google Analytics uses cookies and similar technologies to collect anonymous traffic data. For details, see Google’s Privacy & Terms.
Usage data in Google Analytics is kept for 14 months, and crash reports in Firebase Crashlytics for 90 days, after which they are deleted automatically. The copies in BigQuery may be deleted sooner. Aggregated reports that do not identify you may be kept longer.
User data is stored on Supabase’s cloud servers. We take appropriate security measures to protect it, but we cannot guarantee that data sent over the internet is completely secure.
We keep account information, your nickname, Watchlist, survey responses, notifications and notification settings until you delete your account. Because the App is an archive, we continue to keep posts, photos and sightings as anonymous records after you delete your account (see the next section). We keep reports as records of how they were handled.
You can delete your account at any time from the bottom of the “You” tab in the App. When you do, your data is handled as follows. Deletion cannot be undone.
| Erased | Account information (email address and sign-in identifier), nickname, Watchlist, survey responses, notifications, notification settings and push tokens, blocks, and writer claims |
| Kept | Walls, pieces, photos and sightings you posted, and reports you sent. All of these are unlinked from your account and remain as anonymous records. However, the address where each photo is stored still contains your former account identifier. Any location blurring you set as a writer also remains in place |
If you want specific posts or photos removed without deleting your account, or want your posts removed after deleting your account, please contact us as described in “15. Contact.” We will review your request and respond.
You can ask us to disclose, correct, stop using or delete the personal information we hold about you, as provided by law. To do so, please contact us as described in “15. Contact.” We will verify your identity and respond within a reasonable time.
We also accept requests to remove photos or information from people who do not use the App (such as people who appear in photos, owners or managers of walls or buildings, and writers of works) through the same contact.
This section applies if you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, and supplements the rest of this Policy as required by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK GDPR.
Controller. The controller of your personal data is Esquisse Works, a sole proprietorship based in Japan. You can contact us at [email protected].
Legal bases. We process your personal data on the following legal bases:
| Performance of a contract | Providing the App under our Terms of Service: your account and sign-in, storing and publishing your posts and sightings, your Watchlist, in-app notifications, and handling account deletion |
| Legitimate interests | Checking photos with AI and handling reports to keep the archive free of inappropriate content, verifying writer claims, keeping the service secure and preventing misuse, collecting and analyzing the optional in-app survey to understand and improve the App, investigating problems and improving the App, and keeping posts as anonymous records after an account is deleted so the archive stays intact. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests (see below) |
| Consent | Push notifications, and access to your location, camera and photo library, which the App only uses after you allow it in your device’s settings; and usage analytics and crash reports (Google Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics), which the App only sends after you allow them when first asked or in the “You” tab. You can withdraw consent at any time in those settings or in the “You” tab, without affecting processing that took place before |
| Legal obligation | Responding to lawful requests from authorities and keeping records the law requires |
International transfers. Our database and photo storage are hosted in Japan, which the European Commission and the UK have recognized as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data. Some of the service providers listed in “7. Service Providers” (Google and Apple) process data in the United States or other countries. For those transfers, we rely on the safeguards the providers offer, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum) or certification under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
Your rights. In addition to the rights in “10. Your Rights,” you have the right to access your personal data, have it corrected, have it erased, restrict its processing, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and receive the data you provided to us in a structured, machine-readable format (data portability). Please note that posts you published remain in the archive as anonymous records after you delete your account; if you want them removed as well, contact us and we will review your request. We will respond within one month of receiving your request.
Complaints. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in the country where you live or work, or where you believe an infringement took place. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We would appreciate the chance to address your concerns first, so please feel free to contact us.
Automated checks. The AI photo check described in “5. AI Photo Checks” may stop a photo from being posted. It does not make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. If you think a photo was wrongly rejected, please contact us.
Age. In some EEA countries, the age at which you can consent to online services yourself is higher than 13 (up to 16). If you are under that age in your country, you need permission from a parent or guardian to use the App.
This section applies if you are a California resident, and describes our practices in the terms used by the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA).
Categories we collect. In the past 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information, from you, from your device and from your sign-in provider, for the purposes described in “2. How We Use Information”:
| Identifiers | Email address, sign-in identifier, account identifier, nickname, push token and IP address |
| Geolocation data | Locations of walls you post, including locations read from your photos. Your current location for showing where you are on the map is not stored. If you allow usage analytics, Google Analytics also derives an approximate region (such as country or city) from your IP address |
| Audio, electronic and visual information | Photos you post |
| Internet or other electronic network activity | Access logs, usage data and crash reports collected by Google Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics if you allow it (screens viewed, actions taken, crash details and a random installation identifier), and your activity in the App such as posts, sightings, Watchlist, survey responses, reports and blocks |
We keep each category for the periods described in “8. Storage and Retention.” We use location information only to provide the App, and do not use it to infer anything about you.
No sale or sharing. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We have not done so in the past 12 months, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16. We disclose personal information only to the service providers listed in “7. Service Providers,” for the business purposes described there.
Your rights. You have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose, to have it deleted, and to have inaccurate information corrected. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights. To make a request, contact us at [email protected]. We will verify your request by confirming that it comes from the email address linked to your account, and respond within 45 days. You can use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, in which case we may ask for proof that the agent is authorized.
The App is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a minor, please get permission from a parent or guardian before using the App.
We may update this Policy as needed. If we make an important change to how we handle information, such as adding a new place we send it, we will let you know in the App or on this website.
For questions about this Policy, how your data is handled, or requests to remove posts or photos, please contact: