Last updated: 27 July 2026
Privacy Policy
This is a plain-language policy, written for transparency rather than for lawyers. It describes what the app actually does. If anything here is unclear, or you want to know something it does not cover, write to info@thecigarguys.com and we will answer.
Who we are
The Cigar Scanner is built and operated by The Cigar Guys. It is a free tool that identifies a cigar from a photograph of its band and keeps a personal record of what you have scanned. We do not sell tobacco, we do not advertise it, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by any cigar manufacturer, brand or retailer. This policy covers both the app and this website.
What we collect
- Band photos. The picture you take or choose when you scan.
- Scan records. The identification that comes back — brand, line, size, wrapper, estimated flavor profile — plus when it was saved and whether you added it to your humidor.
- Account basics. An account identifier and, if you sign up, your email address or the Google account you sign in with. Profile fields are optional: username, first and last name, avatar.
- Approximate location. Only when you open the Lounges screen. See below.
- Corrections you submit. When you tell us an identification was wrong and what the cigar actually was.
- Usage and performance data. Which screens are opened, whether a scan succeeded, how long requests took.
What we do not collect: payment details (nothing in the app is for sale), your contacts, your photo library beyond the single image you pick, background or continuous location, or any health information. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
Accounts, including anonymous ones
You can scan without signing up. The first time you save a scan, the app quietly creates an anonymous account so the scan has somewhere to live — it has no email address and no name attached to it. If you later sign up with email or with Google, that same account is upgraded in place and keeps the same identifier, so your existing history carries over instead of being stranded or duplicated.
How your photos are used
When you scan, the photo is sent to our server, which does two things with it. It has the band read and the cigar identified, and it computes a numeric “fingerprint” of the picture so that a near-identical photo of a band we have seen before resolves instantly rather than being worked out from scratch.
The photo itself is stored in cloud storage in a folder keyed to your account, and the resulting scan record in our database under your account. Both are protected by server-side security rules that allow access only to the signed-in owner: no other user can read your photos or your history, and neither is publicly listed or browsable.
Two things persist on our side that are not attached to your account: a results cache keyed by a SHA-256 hash of the image, which stores the identification rather than the picture, and the image fingerprint together with the cigar it resolved to. These make repeat scans fast and let the tool improve over time. They carry no name, email or account identifier, and deleting your history does not remove them, because there is nothing in them that points back at you.
Corrections are not private
When you correct an identification, the corrected cigar name and any notes you write are saved to a shared community catalog and used to improve identification for everyone. That is the point of the feature, but it does mean those words are not private to you. Please do not type anything personal into a correction.
Who helps run the service
Plainly: we do not sell your data, we do not share it with advertisers, and we do not use it to build a profile of you. Like any app, The Cigar Scanner runs on infrastructure we do not own, so a small number of trusted providers handle specific jobs on our behalf. Each is bound by contract to use the data only to perform that job.
- Cloud hosting and storage
- Your account, your saved scans, and your photos live with an established cloud provider. This is where your data rests, and it is protected so that only your account can reach it.
- Image identification
- When you scan, the photo is sent to specialist image-processing providers that work out which cigar it is and return the answer. They process the image to perform that task and do not use your photos for their own purposes.
- Maps and nearby places
- The Lounges screen uses mapping and public place-listing services. They receive an approximate location — never your name or your account — in order to draw the map and return nearby cigar shops and lounges.
- Analytics
- Aggregate usage measurement, so we know which screens people use and where the app is slow. It tells us about behaviour in the app, not about you as a person.
If you would like the specific providers we use for a particular purpose, ask us at info@thecigarguys.com and we will tell you.
Location
Location is used for one feature only: finding cigar lounges near you. There are three ways it can be established. Device geolocation asks your permission first, and you may decline. An IP-based lookup needs no permission and is accurate only to roughly a city. Or you can type a US ZIP code and skip location entirely. We do not build a location history — the coordinate runs the search and is not stored against your account.
Analytics
We measure which screens are used, whether scans succeed or fail, and how quickly the app loads. This is aggregate: it tells us the scanner is failing on a particular platform, not what any one person is doing. It is not used for advertising.
Retention and deletion
Scans are kept until you remove them. In the app you can delete a single scan — which removes both the record and its photo — or wipe your entire scan history at once.
Anonymous accounts that are never upgraded are deleted automatically after thirty days, and a scheduled weekly job then sweeps away the scan records and photos those accounts left behind. If you have a signed-up account and want it gone altogether, email us and we will delete the account along with its photos and history.
Children
The Cigar Scanner is not directed at children, we do not knowingly collect personal information from them, and if we learn that we have, we will delete it. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.
Your rights
Most of what you might ask for is already in your hands: your scans, your humidor and your palate wheel are visible in the app, editable there, and deletable there. Beyond that, you may ask us for a copy of the data held against your account, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete the account outright.
If you are covered by the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA or a similar law, those rights — access, correction, deletion, portability, and objecting to certain processing — apply to you, and the way to exercise any of them is to email info@thecigarguys.com from the address on your account. There is no separate “do not sell my personal information” process, because we do not sell it.
Changes to this policy
When the app changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top is updated. If a change materially affects how your data is handled, we will say so in the app rather than relying on you to re-read this page.
Contact
The Cigar Guys — info@thecigarguys.com. See also our Terms of Service.