Privacy Policy
Last updated: 27 September 2026
Scattered is a place to remember people you've lost. We know that what you share here is personal, and we've built the app to collect as little as possible and to keep what you share among the people you choose. This policy explains what we collect, why, who can see it, and your rights.
1. Who we are
Scattered is provided by Elements4 Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 09790962), registered office Barn 2b Dunston Business Village, South Courtyard, Dunston, Stafford, ST18 9AB, United Kingdom. We are the "controller" of your personal information under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).
Questions or requests: support@elements4.io.
2. What we collect
Your account
- Email address, and a password if you sign up with email. Passwords are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form — we can never see them.
- If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your email address (Apple lets you hide it behind a relay address) and, if you allow it, your name. We don't receive your Google or Apple password.
What you add to a pin
- The location you choose for the pin.
- Details about the person you're remembering: name, dates of birth and passing, your relationship to them, a tribute, a poem, favourite things, and photos.
Information about people who have died isn't "personal data" under UK law, but we treat it with the same care. Please don't include private details about living people that they wouldn't want shared.
Memories left by others
Anyone with access to a pin can leave a memory — you don't need an account for this. A memory contains the name the person gives, their message, an optional photo, and an optional email address (used only to tell them when the memory is approved).
Access requests
If you ask to see someone's pin, we record your request and your email address so the pin's owner can decide.
Purchases
Placing a pin is paid for through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google handle the payment — we never see your card or bank details. We receive a transaction reference (through our payment partner RevenueCat) so we can add the pin to your account, and we keep a record of pins you've paid for or been given free.
Your device
- Location — only if you allow it. It's used on your phone to centre the map near you and, when you tap "Drop pin here", to place a pin where you're standing. We don't track or store your location; the only location we keep is the pin position you choose to save.
- Language and region settings — used on your phone to start the map in roughly the right country. This isn't sent to us.
- Notification token — if you allow notifications, a token that lets us send them to your phone (for example, when someone leaves a memory or asks to see your pin).
- Network (IP) address — our servers see it, as every website and app does. We store only a one-way scrambled version of it, and only for two purposes: limiting how often the free-pin offer can be claimed from one network, and limiting how many memories can be left without an account from one network in an hour (to stop spam).
- Share-link information — when someone opens a Scattered share link, our link partner AppsFlyer processes basic device and network information so that, after installing the app, it can open straight to the right pin. We don't use it for advertising.
The app also keeps a few things on your phone only: your sign-in session (in your phone's secure keychain), a copy of the map pins you last viewed so the map opens quickly, and whether you've seen the introduction slides.
Like any online service, our providers' servers keep short-lived technical logs (such as the time of a request and the network address it came from) to keep the service running and secure. These are deleted automatically after a short period.
We don't use advertising, sell your data, build profiles about you, or use AI to analyse your photos or words. This website doesn't use cookies or tracking.
3. Who can see what
| Information | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| Pin location, the person's first name and surname, date of passing, and a small thumbnail photo | Anyone using the app — this is what appears on the public map |
| Everything else on the pin (full photos, tribute, poem, favourites, dates, approved memories) | You, people you've shared the link with, and people whose access request you've approved |
| Memories waiting for approval, and the email addresses of people who left memories | Only the pin's owner |
| Your email address and account details | Only you (and us, to run the service). Other users never see who owns a pin. |
A share link is a key. Anyone who has it can see the whole pin and leave memories, so only send it to people you trust. Photos are stored at private, unguessable web addresses; anyone given one of those addresses could view that photo.
4. Why we use it (our legal basis)
- To provide the app you've asked for (performance of a contract): your account, your pins, sharing, memories, access requests and purchases.
- Our legitimate interests: keeping the service secure, preventing spam and abuse of the free offer, making share links work, and fixing problems. We've balanced these against your privacy and keep the data involved to a minimum.
- Your consent: location and notifications, which you control through your phone's settings and can turn off at any time.
- Legal obligations: keeping records we're required to keep by law.
5. Who we share it with
We use trusted service providers to run Scattered. They may only use your information to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and photo storage | Ireland (EU) |
| Apple and Google | App distribution, payments, sign-in (if you choose it) and delivering notifications | Worldwide, including the USA |
| RevenueCat | Confirming purchases | USA |
| Expo | Delivering notifications to your phone | USA |
| AppsFlyer | Share links that open the right pin after installing | USA / Israel |
| Resend | Sending sign-up and password-reset emails | USA |
| Google Maps (Android) / Apple Maps (iPhone) | Displaying the map | Worldwide |
| Cloudflare | Hosting this website | Worldwide |
Where information goes outside the UK, it's protected by UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US Data Bridge) or the UK's approved contract terms. We'll also share information if the law requires us to, or to protect people's safety.
6. How long we keep it
- Your account and pins are kept until you delete them.
- Deleting a pin deletes it, its photos, and the memories and access requests on it.
- Deleting your account (account menu → Delete my account) permanently deletes your account, all your pins and their photos, your access requests, notification token and any unused pins you've paid for. Memories you left on other people's pins stay there for their family, but your email address is removed from them.
- To keep the free-pin offer fair, we keep a record that a free pin was claimed (with the scrambled network address) even after an account is deleted, but it's no longer linked to you.
- Scrambled network addresses used for spam limits are kept only briefly and then deleted.
- Deleted information may remain in secure backups for a short period (up to 30 days) before it's overwritten.
7. Your rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of your information, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive it in a portable format. You can delete your account and pins yourself at any time in the app. For anything else, email support@elements4.io — we'll respond within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). We'd appreciate the chance to put things right first.
8. Keeping it safe
All information is encrypted in transit. Your sign-in is stored in your phone's secure keychain. Access to pins is enforced by our servers, not just the app, and we regularly test those protections. No system can be made completely secure, but if something ever went wrong that put your information at risk, we'd tell you and the regulator as the law requires.
9. Children
Scattered isn't intended for children. You must be 16 or over to create an account.
10. Changes to this policy
If we make important changes, we'll let you know — by email or in the app — before they take effect. The date at the top shows when this policy was last updated.