1Byte Systems

1B Photos – Privacy policy

This policy covers 1B Photos for Android (com.onebytesystems.photos) and the 1B Photos desktop app for Windows and Linux, made by 1Byte Systems. Last updated: 20 October 2026.

Summary

1B Photos does everything on your own devices. We receive nothing from it: no photos, no data about your photos, no account and no analytics. The only connection the app makes is to your own computer on your local network, for the backup you set up, and it is end-to-end encrypted. The app and its AI models are downloaded by Google Play, under Google's own terms.

What stays on your phone

  • Your photos and videos are read from Android's media library, with the photos and videos permission, to show, search and organise them. 1B Photos never uploads them anywhere.
  • AI search and text in photos: the description of each photo used by the search (a list of numbers made by the AI model) and the text read in your photos are calculated on the phone and kept in the app's private storage. What you type in the search never leaves the phone.
  • Places: with your permission, the app reads the location saved in your photos (GPS metadata) to put them on a map and name the city. The map and the city names are inside the app; nothing is looked up online.
  • Albums, favourites, edits, hidden memories and settings are kept in the app's private storage and deleted when you uninstall the app.

People and faces (biometric data)

  • Off by default. It only works after you turn it on in Settings and accept the explanation shown there.
  • When it is on, the app finds the faces in your photos and makes a face print of each one (a list of numbers) to group photos of the same person. Face prints, groups and the names you give are made and kept only on this phone: they are never sent to us, never shared with other apps or devices and not included in the backup to your PC.
  • Turning it off deletes every face print, group and name at once. Uninstalling the app deletes them too.
  • This data is used only to group your photos, because you asked for it (your explicit consent), and you can withdraw that consent at any time by turning the feature off.

Private folder

Photos you move to the private folder are encrypted on the phone with a key protected by Android's secure hardware (Keystore) and opened with your fingerprint, face or PIN through Android's own prompt. 1B Photos never sees your fingerprint or your face: Android only tells the app whether you were recognised.

Backup to your PC

  • Optional. It only works after you pair the phone with the 1B Photos desktop app on your own computer, by scanning a QR code or typing a code.
  • Photos and videos go directly from the phone to your computer over your local network, end-to-end encrypted, and stay encrypted on the computer. The key is on your phone and in your 24-word recovery key; we never have it. Nothing passes through servers of ours or of anyone else.
  • To find your computer, the phone and the desktop app use mDNS on your local network: an announcement with the computer's name and public key that only devices on the same network can see. The app refuses to connect to any address outside your local network.
  • No-network mode, in Settings, turns off every connection, including the backup.
  • The desktop app keeps the backup and its settings in your user folder on the computer. It does not connect to the Internet and does not check for updates by itself.

Sharing, printing and changing details

  • Sharing uses Android's share menu: your photos and videos go only to the app you choose, which handles them under its own policy. If you ask to remove the location and details or to make photos smaller, the app makes temporary copies in its private storage for that share and deletes them afterwards.
  • Printing uses Android's print service and the printer you choose. Collages and PDFs are saved as new files on your phone.
  • Changing the date, the place or the orientation of a photo writes those details into your file, only after Android asks you for permission. Places are looked up in the list inside the app, with no connection.

Camera and notifications

  • Camera (optional): used only to read the QR code shown by the desktop app when you pair. Images are decoded on the phone and never recorded or saved.
  • Notifications (optional): only about your backup: the progress of a long backup and, at most once a day, a reminder when your photos have not been backed up for 3 days.

What we do not do

  • No ads, no analytics, no crash reporting services, no tracking and no third-party SDKs that use the network.
  • No account and no cookies. Nothing is sold or shared with anyone.
  • We do not run any server for 1B Photos, so we hold no data about you to keep, share or delete.

Permissions

  • Photos and videos (or only the photos you select): to show and organise your library.
  • Location in photos: to read the GPS saved in your photos for Places.
  • Biometrics: to open the private folder with Android's own prompt.
  • Camera – optional: only to scan the pairing QR code.
  • Notifications – optional: backup progress and reminders.
  • Network access (Internet and network state): only for the backup to your own PC on the local network.
  • Foreground service (data sync), run at startup and wake lock: so that a long backup and the indexing of your photos are not cut off by the system.

Your rights and contact

As we receive no personal data from 1B Photos, there is nothing for us to access, correct or delete: everything is on your devices, and you can delete it by uninstalling the app and removing the backup folder on your computer. For any question, write to 1bytesystems@gmail.com. The privacy policy of 1Byte Systems also applies.

Changes

If 1B Photos ever needs to handle data differently, we will update this page, and its date, before that version is published.