What Parsnip knows, and what it doesn't

At a glance

Overview

Parsnip is an app for iPhone and Android that helps you measure your child's foot using your phone's camera and AR sensors, and converts that measurement into a shoe size.

Most of what Parsnip does happens entirely on your device. The sections below cover the one part that doesn't: a small stream of measurement data, carrying no name, we use to make the app more accurate over time. Records we receive are deleted automatically after 90 days.

This policy covers data. The rules for using Parsnip itself — including that sizes are estimates — are in our Terms of Use.

Measurement data

Each time a measurement is completed with one of Parsnip's camera tools, Live Tap or Picture Tap, Parsnip sends a single record to our server containing:

• The measured length, in centimetres
• For the camera tools: the camera's tilt angle and height above the floor at capture
• Which tool produced it — one of the camera tools, or a length you typed in yourself
• The difference between the left and right foot, when both were measured — a large gap is usually a mis-tap rather than an unusual child
• Your device model and operating system version (for example, "iPhone 15 Pro · iOS 18.1" or "Pixel 8 · Android 15")
• The app version you're running
• How the AR session was tracking at the moment of capture, and whether this was a first attempt or a retry within that run of the app
• Your sign-in identifier, if you signed in. On iPhone and iPad this is the code Apple gives us in place of your Apple ID; on Android it is the identifier for your Google Account. Neither has a name attached. Signing in is optional; measurements from someone who chose “Maybe later” carry no sign-in identifier
• A random session code, made fresh each time the app is opened. It groups the readings from that one use of the app, so we can tell a first try from a retry. It isn't kept once it's sent, changes every time the app opens, and carries nothing about you

That identifier is the one piece worth explaining, and the two kinds are not the same. On Apple's side it is minted specifically for Parsnip: it is unique to you here and useless to anyone else. On Google's side it is your Google Account's own identifier — still not your name and not your email, but not an alias created just for us either; it is the same number Google uses for your account everywhere. Either way it carries no name and nothing read from your phone's hardware. It lets us tell one person's measurements apart from another's, which is the difference between seeing fifty readings and knowing whether that is fifty people or one person struggling fifty times. Without it we cannot tell a real problem from noise.

We use all of this to see how measurement accuracy holds up across different phones and to catch regressions between app versions. It carries no name and no email. If you signed in, it is tied to your sign-in identifier — that is what lets Delete account find and remove it — but nothing in it identifies your child.

Feedback and crash reports

Parsnip includes an optional feedback box. If you write and send a message, that text — along with your device model and operating system version, the app version, and the same sign-in identifier described above — is sent to our server so we can read it. That identifier is what lets us look at a report about a measurement next to the measurement itself. No feedback message is sent unless you type one and tap send.

Crash reports are the one thing Parsnip sends without asking. If the app hits an error and closes, it sends us a technical description of what went wrong — the error text and the internal list of which part of the app was running — along with your device model and operating system version, the app version and the same sign-in identifier. It contains no measurement, no camera image and nothing you typed. If the phone is offline it waits and sends on the next launch. We use it only to find and fix the crash.

Please don't include personal information (your name, email, etc.) in a feedback message unless you want us to have it — we can't reply to you directly, since Parsnip doesn't collect a way to contact you back. If you do include personal details and later want them removed, email support@parsnipusa.com and we'll delete the message.

What stays on your device

Saved measurement history lives only in the app's local storage on your phone. We never receive it. You can clear it at any time from within the app, and deleting the app removes it completely.

If you've added a profile to track your child's measurements, it stays on your device too. You label a profile however you like — Parsnip doesn't need a child's real name, and a nickname does the job — and whatever you type stays on that phone. It is not sent anywhere, including to us.

Signing in

Parsnip signs you in with Sign in with Apple on iPhone and iPad, and with Google Sign-In on Android — nothing else. There is no password to choose, no sign-up form, and no credential of ours to be lost or stolen: Apple or Google confirms who you are and hands us the identifier described in Measurement data.

On iPhone and iPad, we do not ask Apple for your name or your email address — the sign-in sheet never offers to share them, because the app never requests them. On Android, Google passes the name and email on your Google Account when you sign in; they are stored on your phone so the Account screen can show who is signed in, are never uploaded, and are not attached to any measurement record we receive.

Deleting your account from the Account screen removes your data from your phone, and on iPhone also disconnects Parsnip from your Apple ID when Apple confirms it — if that step can't finish, the app tells you how to do it yourself. You can also disconnect Parsnip from your account yourself:

• Apple: open the Settings app, tap your name, then Sign in with Apple, then Parsnip.
• Google: go to myaccount.google.com/connections (Security → Your connections to third-party apps and services) and remove Parsnip.

Camera

Parsnip asks for camera access to power its AR measurement tools. That access is used entirely on your device — your phone's own AR and vision software — ARKit and Vision on Apple devices, ARCore and ML Kit on Android — locates the floor and the foot in real time. Parsnip never takes a photo. Picture Tap freezes a single camera frame and holds it in memory only while you place the pins, then discards it when you finish, retake or close. Live Tap freezes nothing; it measures on the live camera view. No frame is ever saved to your phone or photo library, uploaded, stored on a server, or seen by anyone but you.

Our infrastructure

The measurement, feedback and crash records described above are stored using Supabase, a database provider we use to run our backend. The content described in Content we load is served from Supabase too. Supabase's own infrastructure may log standard technical information as part of handling any web request — for example, an IP address — independent of the data described here. That logging is governed by Supabase's privacy policy.

How we protect data

The strongest protection is collecting little in the first place. Names, email addresses, profiles and measurement history never leave your phone, and the camera frame is discarded as soon as you finish measuring, so there is nothing of that kind on our side to leak.

For the records we do receive:

• Encrypted in transit. Everything the app sends to our server, and everything this website loads, travels over HTTPS.
• Write-only from the app. The database rules let the app add a record and nothing more. It cannot read, change or delete any record, including other people's, so the key built into the app cannot be used to pull data out.
• Encrypted at rest. Records are stored with Supabase, which encrypts its databases at rest.
• Limited access. Reading the records requires access to our Supabase account, which is limited to the people who run Parsnip, and we use it only for the purposes described on this page.
• Deleted on request. Delete account removes every measurement and feedback record tied to your sign-in identifier, as described in Your choices.

On your phone, Parsnip keeps its data in the app's own private storage, which other apps cannot read, and which is protected by your phone's passcode and security settings.

No system is perfectly secure, and we can't promise that nothing will ever go wrong. If we learn of a breach affecting information we hold, we will act to contain it and notify affected users where the law requires.

How long we keep it

• On your phone: measurement history, profiles and, on Android, the name and email from Google stay until you delete them in the app, delete your account, or delete the app.
• Measurement and feedback records, including crash reports: deleted automatically 90 days after we receive them. Until then we use them to check and improve measurement accuracy across phones and app versions. If you signed in, Delete account removes every one of them tied to your identifier straight away, without waiting for the 90 days. Records sent without signing in carry no sign-in identifier — only the session code described in Measurement data, which changes every time the app opens — so there is no way to pick yours out of the rest; they have no name, email or other detail that could point to you.
• Waitlist email address: kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove it.
• Technical logs at our hosting providers, such as IP addresses, are kept for the period Supabase and Vercel set, under their own policies.

Content we load

Some of what Parsnip shows is downloaded from our server rather than built into the app, so we can correct or improve it without asking you to install an update. Today that is:

• The list of brands and how each one's kids sizes run
• The brand and retailer links on the Brands and Stores pages
• The fit tips on the Home screen

When Parsnip fetches this content, the request carries nothing about you: no sign-in identifier, no measurement, no profile, and no name. Every copy of the app asks for the same content in the same way. The only information that reaches our server is the standard technical information any internet request reveals, such as an IP address, as described in Our infrastructure.

Parsnip uses your phone's region setting to show local stores and sizes. The setting never leaves your phone: the app downloads every country's links and picks yours on the device.

The app keeps a copy of the last content it received, and ships with a built-in version, so it keeps working offline and never depends on reaching our server.

Brand & store links

Parsnip generates a size ladder across multiple brands and retailers, and each row links out to that brand or retailer's own kids-shoes page. Clicking a link opens that brand's or retailer's own app or website. From that point on, its own privacy policy and tracking apply; our Terms of Use cover the rest of what that means. Parsnip passes nothing about you or your measurement in those links: every one is a fixed address that is the same for everybody.

This website

parsnipusa.com sets no tracking cookies. There is no advertising pixel, no analytics script, and no third party watching you read this page.

That last part takes a bit of work, so it is worth saying how. Most sites pull their fonts from Google and their icons from a public CDN, which hands those companies your IP address every time a page loads, before you have clicked anything. We host ours ourselves. Every font, icon, image and script on this site is served from parsnipusa.com, so loading a page here talks to us and to nobody else. You can check that in your browser's network tab.

parsnipusa.com is hosted on Vercel. Like any web host, Vercel records standard technical information, such as your IP address, when it serves a page. That logging is governed by Vercel's privacy policy.

The only thing we keep in your browser is your light or dark theme choice, stored locally so the site remembers it next time. That never leaves your device and is not tied to you.

This site no longer collects email addresses. It used to have a waitlist; if you joined it, we keep the email address you gave us. We use it for one thing: to tell you when Parsnip is available, including if the launch timing changes. It is stored with Supabase, the database provider described in Our infrastructure, and passed to Resend, the service that sends our emails, which uses it only to send them for us. We don't sell it, rent it, or share it with anyone else, and we don't send anything else. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe, and you can ask us to delete your address at any time at support@parsnipusa.com.

What we don't collect

• No password of ours to choose or store — signing in goes through Apple or Google. On iPhone no name or email is requested at all; on Android, Google's stay on your phone
• No location data — Parsnip doesn't request location access
• No advertising identifiers and no ad network integrations
• No third-party analytics SDKs — there is no analytics or advertising code embedded in Parsnip
• No access to your photo library or contacts

Previous sections describe in detail the information we collect or share: measurement, feedback and crash records, and standard technical information. Downloading brand sizes, store links and fit tips sends nothing about you, and tapping a brand or store link sends nothing about you or your measurement.

Children

Parsnip is made for parents and guardians. It is intended for use by adults, it is not directed to children, and children are not its intended users. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Parsnip is used to measure a child's foot, so here is exactly what happens to that information.

• Profiles stay on your device. Parsnip doesn't need a child's real name: you label a profile however you like — a first name, a nickname, anything. Whatever you type is stored only on your phone. Profiles are not transmitted to us, and we never see them.
• Measurement history stays on your device. It is stored locally and is not uploaded.
• What we do receive is not connected to a child. As described in Measurement data, a record of each camera measurement is sent to us: the measured length, the capture angle and height, your device model, your operating system version, the app version, and the sign-in identifier for the signed-in parent (from Apple or Google, as described there). That identifier groups measurements so it can connect one measurement to another — but it carries no name, and nothing in the record identifies the child the measurement was taken of.
• Standard technical information reaches our hosting provider. As described in Our infrastructure, our hosting provider records ordinary technical information including IP address, as nearly all internet services do. We do not use that information to identify a child or to build a profile of any user.

An account in Parsnip belongs to a parent, is created through Sign in with Apple or Google Sign-In, and holds nothing about a child. Because we do not knowingly collect personal information from children, there is normally nothing about your child held on our systems for a parent to review or delete. Your child's profile and measurement history live on your phone: deleting the profile in the app, or deleting the app, removes them.

If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, or if you have any question about how Parsnip handles information relating to children, contact us at support@parsnipusa.com. We will respond promptly and delete any such information we find.

Your choices

You can clear saved measurement history and profile information from within the app at any time. Uninstalling Parsnip removes everything stored on your device.

Measurement records we receive carry no name and no email, so there is no profile of you on our side in the ordinary sense. They are grouped by the sign-in identifier described above. Choosing Delete account on the Account screen sends us a deletion request carrying that identifier. Our server acts on it automatically the moment it arrives: every measurement and feedback record carrying that identifier is deleted, and the identifier is removed from the request itself. If your phone is offline, the request waits on your phone and is carried out as soon as it gets through. You do not need to quote a code or contact us to make it work.

Delete account removes the feedback messages you sent while signed in, too. A feedback message contains whatever you chose to type, which may include personal details if you included them. If you'd like a single message removed without deleting your account, email support@parsnipusa.com with roughly when you sent it and what it said, and we'll find it and delete it.

If you joined the waitlist and want your email address removed, you can unsubscribe from any email we send, or write to support@parsnipusa.com.

Deleting your data

You don't need the app installed to have your data deleted. Here is what happens, from the least effort to the most.

• Uninstall Parsnip. That deletes everything stored on your phone: measurement history, profiles and anything else the app kept.
• Do nothing else. Every measurement, feedback and crash record we receive is deleted automatically 90 days after it arrives. After that, nothing about you is held on our systems.
• To delete it sooner, sign in on Parsnip with the same Apple or Google account and choose Delete account on the Account screen. Every record tied to your sign-in is removed the moment the request arrives.
• Or email support@parsnipusa.com and ask. We'll reply to confirm. Because we never store your name or email address, we can't find your records from an email address alone, so they'll be removed by the automatic 90-day deletion rather than straight away. If you sent us a feedback message, tell us roughly when and what it said and we'll delete that one immediately.
• Waitlist email: use the unsubscribe link in any email we send, or ask at the same address, and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If what Parsnip collects changes, this page will change with it. We'll update the effective date above whenever that happens.

Contact

Parsnip is operated by Parsnip, LLC.

Questions about this policy or how Parsnip handles data: support@parsnipusa.com