Privacy Evaluation Criteria

Last updated: June 2026.

Privacy is one of the most important and least transparent parts of this category. Most tools say little about what happens to the images you upload. This page explains exactly what we check when we assess a tool’s privacy, and what each signal means for you.

The signals we check

Content retention

What happens to your uploads and results after processing. We look for whether content is deleted immediately, kept in your account until you remove it, or retained indefinitely. Shorter, clearly stated retention is better. A tool that auto-deletes within a set window scores higher than one that keeps your content with no stated limit.

Watermarking

Whether outputs carry a visible watermark. We record this as a factual feature, not a privacy flaw, so you know what to expect from the result.

Account requirement

Whether you must create an account, and what data that requires. Tools usable with minimal sign-up data expose less of you than those demanding full registration.

Public galleries

Whether a tool publishes user output to a public feed by default. A platform that makes your results public unless you opt out is a significant privacy concern, and we flag it.

Account and data deletion

Whether you can delete your account and associated data, and how. Self-service deletion is better than deletion only by support request.

The “Privacy verified” badge

When we have confirmed a tool’s privacy claims against its live policies, the listing can show a verified badge with the date we checked. The badge means we checked the stated terms on that date. It is not a guarantee of the provider’s internal practices, which we cannot audit.

What we cannot verify

We assess what a provider publishes and what its product visibly does. We cannot see server-side logs, internal data handling, or what a company does behind the scenes. Treat every tool in this category as if anything you upload could be retained, and never upload images of anyone without their consent.