DocuVisa Privacy Policy
Last updated: 13 November 2026
Applies to: the DocuVisa mobile app for iOS and Android
Who we are: DocuVisa is run by Azmi Cirit, who decides how the information described here is used (the data controller). Use the contact form about anything in this policy.
The short version
DocuVisa scans and keeps your identity and travel documents on your phone. DocuVisa does not store your documents anywhere, and never receives them. They leave the phone only if you turn on cloud backup, which sends encrypted copies to your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive, or if you send one yourself.
On the free plan your documents are not encrypted. They are stored in the app's private storage on your phone, which other apps cannot open, but anyone who can reach the phone's files could read them. With DocuVisa Plus you can turn on encryption, and then they are encrypted with a key your phone holds. If you turn on cloud backup, the encrypted copies go to your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive. We do not store them, never receive them, and could not read them: they are encrypted with keys we do not have.
You can use the entire app without an account, without a network connection, and without telling us anything at all.
What we collect
If you never create an account
Nothing. No account, no identifier, no analytics, no crash telemetry, no network request. Your documents, the text extracted from them, your tags and your search history exist only on your phone.
This is not a setting you have to find. It is what the app does if you simply install it and use it. The one exception is an idea you choose to send us, below.
If you send us an idea
Settings › Share an idea sends us a suggestion for what DocuVisa should do next. We keep the words you wrote, the topic you picked, and the platform, app version and language the app was using. We keep nothing about who sent it: no account, no device and no address. Once a day we copy new ideas to a private spreadsheet that only we can open, to read and sort them. Please leave personal details out of what you write, since we would have no way to find them again to delete them.
If you write to us
The contact form on our website needs no app. It sends us what you need, such as deleting your account, the email address we should answer, and anything you write. Nothing else about you is kept with it. We keep your request in our database and copy it, once a day, to the same private spreadsheet as ideas, so we can answer it. We delete it, with the address, a year after it arrives.
Before we delete an account for a request, we write to the address it gave and wait for an answer from it, so nobody can delete an account that is not theirs.
The form checks that you are not a robot with Google reCAPTCHA. Opening the contact page loads it from Google, which receives your IP address and details of your browser and of how you use the page, and may set cookies, under Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We receive only Google's answer: whether the check passed. No other page of our site loads anything from Google.
If you create an account
An account exists for one purpose: to tie your devices and your subscription to a person, and to record where your backup lives so a second device can find it. We create one only when you choose a paid feature.
| What | Why | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Account identifier | To link your devices and your backup | Generated by us |
| Email address | Account recovery and service notices | Apple or Google, at your consent |
| Sign-in provider | So you can sign in again with the same one | Apple or Google |
| Device identifier, name | To show which devices are signed in and to revoke one | Generated by us; the name is the phone's model, such as "iPhone 17 Pro" |
| Subscription status | To know what you are entitled to | Apple or Google, via a receipt |
We do not ask for and do not receive your name unless your sign-in provider supplies it. There is no password, because there is no email-and-password sign-in to have one.
If you sign in with Google
Signing in with Google is one of the two ways to create an account. DocuVisa asks Google for the standard sign-in permissions only: to confirm who you are (openid), your email address (email) and your basic profile (profile). It asks for nothing else in your Google account.
From what Google returns, we keep:
- Your Google account identifier, the number Google gives your account, so that you return to the same DocuVisa account each time you sign in
- Your email address, and whether Google has verified it, to recover your account and to write to you about it
Google also sends your name and profile picture with these. DocuVisa does not keep either. We never receive your Google password, and DocuVisa has no access to your Gmail, contacts, calendar, photos or any other Google service. The one exception is Google Drive, and only if you turn on backup to it: see the next section.
We use this information only to sign you in, to link your devices and your backup to your account, and to write to you about your account. We do not use it for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not use it to develop or train AI models. Nobody else receives it: our hosting provider stores it for us and cannot use it for anything else. It is kept until you delete your account, which deletes it.
DocuVisa's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
If you sign in with Apple
We keep the identifier Apple gives your account and the email address Apple shares with us, which is a private relay address if you chose to hide yours. If Apple passes on your name the first time you sign in, it is stored with your account record and not used for anything else. All of it is used and deleted as described above for Google.
If you turn on cloud backup
Your backup goes to your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive, in a folder named DocuVisa. DocuVisa does not store backups, and never receives one.
Everything in that folder is encrypted on your phone before it leaves, with keys that neither we nor Google nor Apple have. Google or Apple holds it under their own terms, in your own account and storage allowance. They cannot read it. Like any storage service, they can see how many files there are, how large they are and when they were written, and nothing about what they contain: the names of the files say nothing about your documents.
What DocuVisa keeps about your backup. Your account records which of the two services your backup uses, and whether an Android phone backs up to it, so that your other phones look in the right place. That is a setting, not your data.
Google Drive. If you choose Drive, DocuVisa asks Google for one extra permission, drive.file, when you turn backup on. It lets DocuVisa see only the files and folders DocuVisa itself creates, and nothing else in your Drive. The permission Google gives stays on your phone. DocuVisa never receives it, and never receives anything read from or written to your Drive. The app forgets it when you sign out.
iCloud Drive. If you choose iCloud, the app writes to its own iCloud folder on your iPhone and Apple uploads it. There is nothing to grant, and DocuVisa receives nothing.
We do not receive or store your documents, or their titles, types, tags, expiry dates, the text read from them, or pictures of them, in any form.
What we never collect
- Your documents, or anything in them, in any form
- Text extracted from your documents by scanning
- Your location
- Your contacts, photo library beyond what you explicitly pick, calendar or health data
- Advertising identifiers
- Behavioural analytics of any kind
The app ships with no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK and no advertising SDK. When the app crashes, your phone keeps a note of where in the app's code it happened: no documents, names, numbers or messages. It stays on your phone; you can share it from Settings if you choose to, and clear it there. We receive it only if you send it to us: by sharing the file, or with Send to DocuVisa on the same screen where the app offers it, which sends that note to our server with nothing about who you are. Crash notes you send are copied daily to the same private spreadsheet as ideas.
How your documents are protected
Free plan. Documents are stored as they are, in the app's private storage, with no encryption, no recovery phrase and no app lock. The camera's temporary copy of a scan is deleted as soon as the page is saved.
Free-plan documents are kept out of your phone's backups: excluded from iCloud Backup on iPhone, and Android backup is turned off for DocuVisa. That keeps unencrypted passports out of Apple's and Google's backup storage, and it means that if the phone is reset, lost or replaced, free-plan documents are gone. Turning on encryption and keeping an encrypted export is how to carry them to a new phone.
Encryption (DocuVisa Plus). When you turn it on, every document is moved into the encrypted vault described below, and the unencrypted copies are then deleted. Deleting a file on a phone's flash storage does not guarantee that its bytes are gone from the chip, so we do not call this a secure erase. An encrypted vault stays encrypted if your subscription ends.
Documents in an encrypted vault are encrypted on your phone with keys protected by its secure hardware. The keys are kept for that phone only, so they never enter a device backup. The only copy that can leave the phone is the optional recovery key described under "Your recovery phrase", which you turn on yourself.
A scan is encrypted as it is saved, and no readable copy of it is left behind.
Your recovery phrase
When you turn on encryption, DocuVisa gives you a 12-word recovery phrase. It decrypts your documents, or an encrypted export or backup of them, on a new device.
If you choose, from Settings, DocuVisa also keeps a recovery key in your iCloud Keychain or your Google account, so a new phone on that account can restore without the words. Apple or Google holds it, encrypted end to end; we never receive it. With it on, anyone who can sign in to that account and knows one of your device passcodes could restore your documents too. It is off until you turn it on.
You can save the 12 words to a file from the screen that shows them, to print or keep with your papers. That file is made on your phone and handed to you; we never receive or keep a copy, and the phone deletes its own copy as soon as you have saved or sent it. Anyone who has that file can open your documents, so keep it as you would the words themselves.
We do not have it and cannot recover it. Not by support request, not by court order, not by any means. If you lose it and lose your devices, your backup is permanently unreadable. This is the direct cost of us being unable to read your documents, and we would rather state it plainly than imply a safety net that does not exist.
Service providers
A few service providers help us run DocuVisa, such as hosting and network security, and Apple and Google take and confirm payments. They act only on our instructions, and none of them receives your documents, because we do not have them. Account records are kept in the United Kingdom. If you back up to Google Drive or iCloud Drive, Google or Apple holds that backup for you, under your agreement with them and in the region your account uses, not ours. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising or cross-context behavioural advertising.
Why we are allowed to use it
Data protection law in the UK and the EU asks us to say why we may use each kind of information:
| What | Why we may use it |
|---|---|
| Account, sign-in and device details, backup destination | To provide the account and the backup you asked for (performing our contract) |
| Subscription status and purchase records | To give you what you paid for (performing our contract) |
| Ideas you send | To decide what to build next, which is our legitimate interest |
| Crash notes you send | To find and fix what crashed, which is our legitimate interest |
| Requests you send through the contact form | To answer them: one about your data because the law requires it, any other as our legitimate interest |
| Google's robot check on the contact form | To keep scripts from filling the form in, which is our legitimate interest |
| Server logs | To keep the service secure and working, which is our legitimate interest |
| Email to you about your account | To provide the service, and only about your account: we send no marketing email |
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Documents on your phone | Until you delete them or uninstall the app |
| Encrypted backups | In your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive, so for as long as you leave them there. DocuVisa keeps none |
| Backup destination | Until you delete your account |
| Account record | Until you delete your account |
| Purchase records | Until you delete your account. Apple or Google, who take the payment, keep their own |
| Ideas you send | As long as they help us plan the app. They hold nothing that identifies you |
| Crash notes you send | As long as they help us fix the app. They hold nothing that identifies you |
| Requests you send | A year after they arrive, so we can show what we were asked and that we answered |
| Record of account actions | Kept after you delete your account, with nothing left that points to you, so we can show the deletion happened |
| Server logs | 30 days. They contain identifiers, never content |
Deleting your account deletes your account record, including where your backup is. It does not delete the backup, which is in your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive and is yours: the app offers to erase it first. You can also erase the backup alone, from Settings, and keep the account; the app asks you to sign in again first, then removes the DocuVisa folder from your Drive or iCloud. Neither touches the documents on your phone: they are yours, and they stay.
Your rights
You can, at any time and without asking us:
- Access everything by opening the app; it is all on your device
- Export every document, on any plan, as PDFs, pictures or a spreadsheet; with DocuVisa Plus, also as an encrypted archive
- Share one document as a PDF with someone who needs it, such as a visa agent. That PDF is not encrypted, the app says so before making it, and it goes only where you send it through your phone's share sheet. We never see it, and the copy the app made is deleted as soon as the share sheet closes
- Delete any document, your backup, or your entire account, from within the app, or ask us to delete the account without the app: docuvisa.azmicirit.com/delete-account
- Use the app with no account at all, which is the default
Depending on where you live you may also have statutory rights to portability, rectification, restriction and objection, and the right to complain to a data protection authority: the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK, or the authority where you live. To exercise one, use the contact form.
We will answer within 30 days. For most requests the honest answer is that we do not hold what you are asking about, and we will say so specifically rather than generically.
Children
DocuVisa is not directed at children under 13, or under 16 in EU countries that set that age. We do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us through the contact form and we will delete it.
Security incidents
If an encrypted backup in your Google or Apple storage were ever accessed without authorisation, the files would remain unreadable without the keys, which we do not hold. We would still notify affected users and the relevant authority within the time the law requires (72 hours under UK GDPR), because "the data was encrypted" is a mitigation, not a reason for silence.
Changes
We will post changes here and update the date above. A change that materially reduces your privacy will be notified in the app before it takes effect, not after.
13 November 2026 (DocuVisa 1.0.1): DocuVisa no longer stores backups. Cloud backup now goes to your own Google Drive or iCloud Drive, and DocuVisa keeps only which of the two your backup uses. No backups were held by DocuVisa when this changed, and that storage has been closed.
Contact
DocuVisa is run by Azmi Cirit. Write to us through the contact form, which needs no app.