Backspace — published by Sergiu Silosiev
Effective 16 October 2026
Backspace helps you clear space on your iPhone: it finds duplicates, near-identical shots and large videos, shrinks videos, and shows you photos taken on this day in earlier years so you can keep or remove them. To do that it has to look at your photo library — the most personal thing on the phone. This page says exactly what happens.
Short version: your photos and videos never leave your iPhone. Every scan, comparison and compression runs on the device. We have no server that receives them, no account, no analytics and no advertising. The only outside service the app talks to handles the subscription, and it never sees a single photo.
| What | Leaves your iPhone? |
|---|---|
| Photos, videos, thumbnails | No, never |
| What the scan found, what you kept or removed | No — kept on the device only |
| Your name, email, phone number, location, contacts | Not collected at all |
| Purchase receipt, a random installation ID, basic device details | Yes — to our subscription provider, Adapty, so a purchase works |
| Advertising identifier (IDFA), cross-app tracking | Not used, not collected |
Sergiu Silosiev is the publisher of Backspace and the data controller for the processing described here.
Questions, requests, complaints: sergiusil@proton.me.
Backspace has no sign-up and no login. We never ask for your name, email address, phone number or date of birth, and we have no way to link what the app does to who you are.
Why the app asks for access. Finding duplicates and large files means reading your library. When you grant access, iOS lets the app read your photos and videos and lets it delete or add items — but only with your confirmation each time.
What the app does with it, on the device:
What it does not do:
If your library is in iCloud Photos, iOS may download an original from Apple's iCloud when the app needs the full file (for example, to shrink a video). That download is between your iPhone and Apple, under Apple's privacy policy; it does not pass through us.
Limited access. If you give the app access to selected photos only, it works with that selection and nothing else. You can change this at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos → Backspace.
To suggest which shot in a series to keep, the app checks — on the device — whether a picture contains a face at all, because a shot with a face is usually the one people want. That check produces a yes or no and nothing more.
Backspace does not perform face recognition and does not collect biometric data. In particular:
We therefore do not collect "biometric identifiers" or "biometric information" as those terms are used in the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, or the Washington biometric privacy law, nor "sensitive personal information" of that kind under California law.
Deleting is always your decision: nothing is removed until you confirm it, and iOS asks you to confirm again in its own dialog.
On your device, in ordinary app settings: whether you finished onboarding, your protection settings, how much space the app has freed so far, which photos the daily pick has already shown you, today's "On this day" choices (they reset the next day), whether the reminder and paywall screens were shown, the random installation ID described below, and your subscription status. Photos are referred to only by the identifiers iOS gives them, and none of it leaves the device except as described under Subscriptions and payments.
If you allow notifications, they are scheduled on your iPhone itself. There is no push server, and no notification token leaves the device. You can turn them off in Settings → Notifications → Backspace.
Purchases are made through Apple. We never see your card number, and Apple does not give it to us.
Subscription status is managed for us by Adapty (https://adapty.io/privacy). So that a purchase is recognised after a reinstall or on another device, Adapty receives:
We have configured Adapty not to collect the advertising identifier (IDFA) and not to record your IP address in the subscription profile. Adapty receives no photos, no previews and nothing about the contents of your library.
Apple's own handling of your purchase is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
Backspace contains no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no attribution SDK and no crash-reporting SDK. We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites and we do not use the advertising identifier, so the app never shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt — there is nothing to ask permission for.
| What | Where | For how long |
|---|---|---|
| Photos and videos | your library, on your device | as long as you keep them; we never hold a copy |
| Previews and similarity data from a scan | the app's memory | until the app closes; never written to storage |
| Items you delete | Recently Deleted, in Photos | up to 30 days, then iOS removes them |
| "On this day" choices | your device | until the next day |
| App settings and counters | your device | until you remove the app |
| Purchase receipt, installation ID, device details | Adapty | while the subscription is managed, under Adapty's policy |
Because there is no account and no copy of your photos anywhere, there is nothing to request: removing the app erases everything it kept on the device.
If you want the purchase records held by our subscription provider removed, write to sergiusil@proton.me and say roughly when you bought; we will pass the request on. Apple's own records of your purchase are governed by Apple.
Backspace is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly process the personal data of a child. The app collects no personal data from anyone beyond what is described under Subscriptions and payments. If you believe a child's data has reached us, write to sergiusil@proton.me and we will act on it.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to object to or restrict its processing, to receive it in portable form, and to complain to your data protection authority. In California you additionally have the right to know, to delete, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — we do not sell or share personal information, and never have.
Write to sergiusil@proton.me. Without an account we usually hold nothing that identifies you, so the honest answer to "what do you have on me" is normally "nothing".
Your photo library is processed on your device to perform the service you asked for, at your instruction. Purchase data is processed to perform the subscription contract and to meet our legal obligations.
If this policy changes, the new version is published here with a new effective date. If a change ever means anything leaving your device that does not leave it today, the app will tell you before it happens.
Sergiu Silosiev