Your collection is yours.

Patternarium is built around a clear principle: the patterns you catalog, the photographs you upload, and the notes you keep are yours. Your collection is private by default. We do not sell your personal information, and we aim to be straightforward about how the service actually works.

This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, which third parties help us run Patternarium, and the rights you have over your information. It applies to everyone who visits our website, signs up for an account, or otherwise interacts with the service. In this policy we refer to ourselves as “Patternarium” or “we,” and to you as “you.”

Contents

1. What we collect and why
2. When we access or disclose your information
3. Your rights with respect to your information
4. How we secure your data
5. What happens when you delete content
6. Data retention
7. Location of site and data
8. Children
9. Changes and contact

What we collect and why

Our principle is to collect only what we need to provide the service, support our users, and improve the product. In practice, that breaks down as follows.

Account identity

When you create a Patternarium account, we collect your email address, the name you choose to display, and a password. The password itself is hashed by our authentication provider and never visible to us. We use this information to identify your account, send you essential service messages, and keep your collection tied to you.

Your collection records

We store the patterns, copies, sizes, measurements, fabric preferences, notes, storage locations, and other details you enter into your collection. These records are private to your account by default. Other Patternarium users do not see them, and we do not publish them. If we add sharing or higher-tier features in the future, those features will be opt-in and described before you turn them on.

Uploaded pattern images

Photographs you upload — envelope fronts and backs, instruction sheets, pattern pieces — are kept in our managed storage and tied to your account. We use them to display your collection back to you and to power features such as cropping, reordering, and primary-photo selection. Pattern photographs are not publicly browsable, are not visible to other users, and are not licensed, sold, or used to train any machine learning model of our own.

Optional AI-assisted scanning

Patternarium offers an optional “Auto Scan” feature that uses Anthropic’s Claude API to extract pattern details from your photographs. When you choose to scan, the relevant photo and any related text you have entered may be sent to Anthropic so that Claude can suggest details such as the brand, pattern number, year or decade, garment type, listed sizes, body measurements, fabric suggestions, and notions.

AI suggestions are exactly that — suggestions. They may be incomplete, inaccurate, or wrong, and we recommend reviewing them before saving. You can ignore a suggestion, edit any field by hand, or use the “Add Pattern” flow without ever running a scan; manual entry is always supported. Data sent to Anthropic is handled according to their published API terms; if those terms matter to you, we recommend reading them directly.

Billing information

If you sign up for a paid Patternarium plan, your payment information is collected by Paddle, which serves as our Merchant of Record. Card numbers are submitted directly to Paddle and do not reach our servers. We retain a record of the subscription itself — which plan, when it started, when it renews, the last four digits of the card — for account history, invoicing, and billing support.

Product usage

We use PostHog to record how the application is used: which screens you open, which features you interact with, and where people get stuck. These events help us prioritize improvements and remove friction. They are used for product decisions, not for advertising profiles, and we do not run third-party ad trackers anywhere in the app.

Cookies

Patternarium uses cookies that are necessary for the service to work — chiefly to remember your authenticated session and your display preferences. Our hosting provider may also set cookies used for traffic routing, security, and abuse mitigation. We do not use advertising cookies. You can manage cookies through your browser, but the service may not function correctly with all cookies disabled.

Support correspondence

When you write to us through the support form or by email, including any screenshots you choose to attach, we keep the correspondence so we can respond and so we have context if you reach out again. Authorized members of the team may read it as part of investigating and resolving the issue.

Mobile app permissions

Patternarium offers an iOS app in addition to the web application. Because of how mobile platforms work, the app may ask your consent before accessing privacy-sensitive features such as the camera or your photo library. Consent is optional. The app functions without it, though features that depend on a given permission — for example, the in-app document scanner — will not be available until you grant access. We do not request access we do not need.

When we access or disclose your information

To provide the service

We rely on a small set of third-party providers — our subprocessors — to actually run Patternarium. Each provider only receives the data it needs for its part of the service. The current list is:

• Vercel — website and application hosting
• Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage for your account and collection
• Anthropic (Claude API) — AI-assisted pattern scanning, only when you initiate a scan
• Paddle — payment processing and Merchant of Record for paid plans
• Resend — outbound transactional email
• ImprovMX — forwards mail sent to Patternarium addresses on to the team
• PostHog — product analytics

This list may change as Patternarium grows. When it does, we will update this page.

To help you with support or fix a bug

If diagnosing a problem requires looking at the specific records on your account, we will do so only to the extent needed to resolve the issue. We do not browse user collections for any other reason. Where reasonable, we will ask for your consent first.

To investigate or prevent abuse

We may access account data as a last resort if we have credible reason to believe the service is being used to harm other users or violate our terms. We try to balance investigating a report with respecting the privacy of the reported account, and we take only the action necessary.

Aggregated and de-identified data

We may aggregate or de-identify information collected through the service. De-identified or aggregated data — counts, trends, usage patterns that cannot be tied back to a person — may be used for any purpose, including analytics, planning, and marketing.

When required by law

If we are presented with a valid warrant, subpoena, or court order, we will comply with the legal process. Our policy is to notify the affected user before we disclose information, except where we are legally prohibited from doing so or in genuine emergencies. We do not voluntarily share user data with law enforcement.

If we are audited by a tax authority, we may be required to disclose billing-related information. If that happens, we will disclose only what is required.

Acquisition or merger

We do not plan to sell or merge Patternarium. If that ever changes, we will notify you well before any of your personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy, and you will have an opportunity to delete your account first.

Your rights with respect to your information

We try to apply the same data rights to all users regardless of location. Depending on where you live, those rights may include:

• Right to know — what personal information we collect, use, and share. This policy is the disclosure.
• Right of access — to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to correction — to request that inaccurate personal information be corrected. Most fields can be edited directly inside your account.
• Right to erasure — to request that your personal information be deleted. In some cases, deletion will require closing your account because the service can no longer function without that data.
• Right to portability — to receive an export of your collection. We provide an export tool inside your account.
• Right to restrict processing — including opting out of any sale of your personal information. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, but the right is yours.
• Right to object — to how or why your personal information is processed in certain situations.
• Right against automated decisions — to object to decisions made solely by automated processes that have a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Patternarium does not make such decisions.
• Right to non-discrimination — exercising your privacy rights will not change what you pay, the features you receive, or the level of support we provide.
• Right to complain — to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your jurisdiction.

To exercise any of these rights, sign in and update your account where possible, or contact us and we will assist. We may need to verify your identity before acting on certain requests.

How we secure your data

We use modern, mainstream security practices: TLS encryption for everything in transit, password hashing handled by our authentication provider, row-level access rules that gate every record to its owner, isolated environment secrets, and regular updates to our dependencies. Data at rest in our database is not individually encrypted because the database has to serve it back to you on request. No system is perfectly secure, but we treat your collection like our own.

What happens when you delete content

When you delete a pattern, copy, photograph, or other record from your collection, it is removed from the active service immediately. Copies of that data may remain in routine backups for up to thirty days before they age out.

If you close your Patternarium account, your collection becomes inaccessible immediately and is purged from our active systems and backups within thirty days, except where we are legally required to retain specific records.

Data retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active and for the period needed to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our terms. Where this policy specifies a retention period, that period applies. Information that has been aggregated or de-identified is not subject to these limits.

Location of site and data

Patternarium is operated from the United States by Plague Inc, doing business as Patternarium. Our subprocessors may store or process data in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other regions. If you are located outside the United States, your information may be transferred to and stored in the United States or other jurisdictions. By using Patternarium, you understand and consent to that transfer.

Children

Patternarium is not directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, please contact us and we will remove it.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy as the service evolves or as the law requires. When we make a material change, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, for significant changes, notify you by email or inside the app before the change takes effect.

For questions about this policy, your data, or your rights, please get in touch.