LithicScan Privacy Policy

LithicScan Privacy Policy | Beta privacy policy · v5.2 · 20 October 2026

Last updated: 20 October 2026


The essentials

• Your scan photos and facial landmark coordinates are processed on your phone. They are not sent to our servers. We do store the numerical measurements and results.

• We store the account information and questionnaire answers needed to provide the app, including health-related breathing information with the relevant consent. Promotional Neurolithic emails are optional.

• Your optional research participation and contribution to world figures are controlled separately. We do not sell your data or use it for third-party advertising.

• The main database is configured in the European Union, but some service providers and developer access operate from other countries.

• You can manage your data and consent choices in the app, request a copy, or delete your account.


1. Who we are and contact us
LithicScan is operated by Neurolithic Institute Ltd (Cyprus company registration number HE494385), Dimitri Charalambous 13, Office 4B, 3020 Limassol, Cyprus. Neurolithic Institute Ltd is the controller responsible for the personal information described in this policy.

General enquiries: info@neurolithicinstitute.com. Research enquiries: lee@neurolithic.co.

Privacy enquiries, requests concerning your personal information, and requests to exercise data protection rights: ukprivacy@neurolithicinstitute.com.

UK representative: Lee Glanville, 555/557 Cranbrook Road, Gants Hill, Essex, IG2 6HE, United Kingdom. UK residents and the Information Commissioner's Office may contact him about LithicScan's processing of personal information at ukprivacy@neurolithicinstitute.com. Neurolithic Institute Ltd remains the data controller.


2. What this policy covers
This policy covers the LithicScan app during its limited iPhone beta. It does not cover cookies on the separate Neurolithic website or future LithicGenes and LithicTrace services. We will provide additional information before new features begin collecting or using personal data in new ways. Some features in the app are previews using example information rather than real users’ results.


3. Information we collect
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Account and sign-in. Name where provided, email address, sex, date of birth, account ID. We email a one-time sign-in code rather than asking for an account password.

Measurements and scores. Numerical facial proportions, asymmetry measurements, other measurement components and scores, including Health Form and Airway Index. We also keep measurement and reference versions, to make results and comparisons consistent.

Scan quality and technical information. Phone and app version, capture quality, head position, lighting, numerical per-frame information and records of completed or abandoned scan attempts. These records help us diagnose problems and improve measurement reliability.

Questionnaire and check-ins. Current breathing answers and weekly breathing check-ins used for your Airway results; childhood breathing and diet answers collected for optional research if you opt in. Dental and surgical history questions are optional and shown only after the relevant additional permission. Consent records include the permission wording/version and when choices are given or withdrawn.

Optional choices. Your selected country and world-figures opt-in if enabled; optional research and ancestry permissions, and any ancestry answer supplied under those permissions; the separate permission to help set the face-length (TFI) reference group; and notification token and device details if you allow push notifications.

Service use and email preferences. Selected actions such as account creation, scans, check-ins and interest in upcoming features; limited logs and email-delivery information; and your optional marketing choice, including when and how it was recorded. Marketing preference can be changed or withdrawn without affecting essential account emails.

Research introductions. The optional “Make an introduction” form is available from Our Research, the People scanning today card and the Support our research sheet. It records the kind of contact you know (a researcher, a field organisation, someone in a community or another kind), their name or organisation, and a short note describing how you know them. Your account email is added when the submission is forwarded to Lee and is not stored with the submission itself. We do not ask you to give that person’s email address and will not contact them without first obtaining your go-ahead. Introduction submissions are kept separate from facial measurements and research datasets.


4. Facial images and location
During a scan, face photographs and the facial landmark points used to calculate measurements remain on your phone and are not uploaded to LithicScan. The scan photographs are discarded after processing. If you choose “Use my photo”, the selected photograph stays in the app on your phone, is excluded from iPhone and iCloud backups, and is cleared when you switch back to the illustration, sign out or delete your account.

LithicScan does not use facial recognition to identify you and does not require precise GPS location. A service delivering the face-analysis model to your phone may receive normal internet request information, such as your IP address.


5. Why we use information
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• To provide sign-in, scans, measurements, results, histories and breathing check-ins.

• To check measurement quality, maintain reference statistics, improve accuracy and investigate errors.

• To produce combined reference or breathing figures as described by the relevant in-app consent choices, and to add your Health Form to country/world figures only if you opt in.

• To conduct optional research into breathing and facial development using measurements and questionnaire answers covered by your research permission, and any additional information covered by separate permissions.

• To administer introductions to potential research contacts submitted through “Make an introduction”, forward them to our research contact and reply to the person who submitted the form. We do not contact a named third party without the submitter’s go-ahead.

• To secure and maintain the app and send necessary account and service messages. If you separately opt in, we may also email you about Neurolithic discoveries, educational content, LithicScan features, courses, supplements and offers. You can unsubscribe from promotional emails at any time without losing your LithicScan account.

LithicScan provides educational measurements and comparisons, not a medical diagnosis. It does not make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on users.


6. Legal grounds and choices
​We use the information needed to provide your requested account and results on the basis of our contract with you. We may rely on legitimate interests for proportionate service security, technical diagnostics and measurement-quality improvements. For research introduction enquiries, we rely on our legitimate interests in responding to enquiries and exploring possible research collaborations, subject to an appropriate balancing assessment. Where we use health-related answers or ancestry information that is legally treated as special-category data, we rely on an appropriate Article 9 condition, normally explicit consent for the optional research uses described here.

We ask for consent separately where needed for using current breathing information in your results, optional research, ancestry research, the additional dental/surgical questions and the separate TFI reference-group selection. We also ask separately before including your Health Form in world figures. Optional research and ancestry are not conditions of using LithicScan. Promotional Neurolithic emails are a separate, optional choice at registration: the marketing switch starts off. We record permissions and share marketing status with Klaviyo. You can unsubscribe from promotional emails without losing essential account messages.

You may withdraw consent in the app or by contacting us. Withdrawal does not make earlier lawful processing unlawful. Some results may be unavailable when the information needed to produce them is withdrawn.


7. Optional research
If you choose to help Neurolithic research, we may use relevant facial measurements and the questionnaire answers you authorise, including current breathing answers, weekly breathing check-ins, and childhood breathing and diet answers, to investigate breathing, development and facial structure. Childhood answers are collected only when the optional research permission is active. They may also be used for the operational TFI subgroup only if the additional “Help set the face-length standard” permission is active. Research information is pseudonymised: your name and email are replaced by a research identifier, with the link to your account restricted. Pseudonymised data is still personal data where someone could be identified.

Dental and surgical-history answers require a further, separate opt-in for research use. If you stop allowing breathing answers to be used for your personal results, current breathing answers, check-ins and related scores are removed from active use, but childhood breathing and diet answers can remain for separately authorised research while your research permission is on. Withdrawing research permission deletes linkable childhood answers (B1–B4) and their linkable research copies whatever your breathing permission, and also ends research uses of other linkable answers covered by that permission, subject to applicable legal retention exceptions and backup expiry. We apply deletion and withdrawal rights to linkable research records; findings that have already been genuinely anonymised cannot be linked back to an individual for removal. Research results are intended to be published in combined form, not as individual records.

LithicScan uses qualifying facial measurements to build and check its operational reference standards independently of optional wider research. A separate, optional “Help set the face-length standard” permission allows authorised childhood breathing, dental and surgical-history answers to be used to select the subgroup behind the face-length (TFI) reference. The TFI permission starts off, requires the research and dental/surgical-history permissions to remain active, and can be withdrawn in Profile. If any required permission is withdrawn, TFI subgroup selection stops using the person’s answers and they are excluded from later subgroup calculations; previously approved combined reference versions are not automatically recalculated solely because of withdrawal. This separate use does not change the person’s individual results directly.


8. Ancestry and world figures
Ancestry is optional and can reveal ethnic background. It is not used to change your Health Form, Population Comparison or other individual result. If you choose to take part in research, a separate, off-by-default ancestry consent lets you provide self-reported ancestry alongside authorised facial measurements to study whether measurements perform consistently across population groups. Without that consent we do not collect an ancestry answer. Withdrawing ancestry consent deletes the answer and relevant linkable research copies; withdrawing the main research consent also turns off ancestry consent. We will tell you before any materially different use.

The “Include me in the world figures” setting is off unless you activate it. Where real figures are available, your average Health Form can contribute to the combined figures for your chosen country and worldwide. We do not publish an individual’s name, photograph or score in those figures. Country results appear only when the stated minimum number of participants is reached. You can withdraw from these figures using the same setting; updates are normally applied within a week.


9. Who receives information
​The following providers may receive information when providing their services:

• Cloudflare hosts LithicScan’s backend and database, and produces operational logs.

• Klaviyo, which processes information in the United States, sends sign-in and service emails and, if you opt in, promotional Neurolithic emails. It receives contact information, basic account and activity details and marketing preferences needed for those purposes, plus device notification tokens where enabled. We do not send facial measurements, scan scores, questionnaire answers or ancestry to Klaviyo for these purposes.

• CODERSY DOO LAZAREVAC, our Serbia-based developer, has controlled technical access for development and troubleshooting.

• Expo supports app updates; Apple provides TestFlight and iOS services; Google Cloud Storage and jsDelivr deliver the public face-analysis model and runtime to the phone. These providers can receive technical request or device information such as an IP address.

We may disclose data where law requires. You choose if and where to share any results card using your phone’s share function. LithicScan does not publish a share card to a public results page.


10. Where information is processed
Our main Cloudflare D1 production database is configured in the European Union. Nightly database backups are held in EU-restricted Cloudflare R2 storage. We also plan to hold independent encrypted copies with Hetzner in Germany; this additional backup service is not yet operating. Other providers, technical logs and authorised support access may involve countries outside the EU, including Serbia and the United States. Where required, international transfers are subject to applicable legal arrangements; you can request information about them from ukprivacy@neurolithicinstitute.com.


11. How long we keep information

• Account, measurements and answers: generally while you keep your account, unless you delete them or a lawful reason requires retention.

• Account and scan deletion: deleting an account removes its records from the active database and initiates a request to delete the corresponding Klaviyo profile. Deleting an individual scan removes it from the active database; it does not separately delete a historical scan-completion event from Klaviyo, which is associated with the account profile. Limited data can remain in recovery copies and backups as described below.

• Recovery and backup copies: Cloudflare database recovery history may retain deleted information for up to 30 days, and separately stored backup copies for up to 90 days. Backups are used only to restore the service, not for ordinary account access. If a backup is restored, accounts deleted after it was created are deleted again before the service returns to use; backup copies expire automatically.

• Cloudflare Workers Logs: generally seven days. Providers may retain limited delivery, technical or legally required records under their terms.

• Optional world figures: contributions are removed at the next scheduled update, normally within seven days.

• Research: linkable records are retained only as long as justified by their research purpose and applicable law; genuinely anonymous results may be kept.

• Research introductions: the server copy of a “Make an introduction” submission is deleted 30 days after it is forwarded to Lee, or sooner if you delete your account. Introductions are excluded from nightly backups; database recovery history may retain a deleted submission for up to 30 days. A forwarded copy may remain as correspondence only while needed to respond to or manage the enquiry.


12. Your rights and how to manage your information
Depending on applicable law and the circumstances, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability or object to particular processing. You may withdraw consent at any time. We generally respond to GDPR rights requests within one month.

In the app you can delete scans from Scan History; manage breathing, research, dental-history, ancestry, TFI reference and world-figures choices under Profile → Your data; and delete your account under Profile → Delete account. You can also contact ukprivacy@neurolithicinstitute.com about your privacy rights. For research or introduction enquiries, contact lee@neurolithic.co.

You may complain to the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection in Cyprus (dataprotection.gov.cy) or another competent authority. UK users can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).


13. Security
​We use access restrictions, encrypted connections and other technical and organisational protections appropriate to the information handled. Limiting server storage to measurements rather than face photographs reduces the amount of image data held centrally. No system can eliminate all security risks.


14. Age
LithicScan is for people aged 18 or older. Our sign-up process is designed to prevent registration by anyone under 18. Contact us if you believe information belonging to a child has been submitted.


15. Medical disclaimer
LithicScan is for educational and research-related purposes. It does not diagnose, treat or monitor medical conditions and is not a replacement for professional healthcare advice.


16. Updates
​We will update this policy when relevant practices change. If new processing requires notice or consent, we will provide it before that processing begins. The publication date at the top identifies the current policy.

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