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Privacy and security

A short overview of how Bladwijzer handles your data, only uses Google Analytics with your consent and secures your account. The full text is in the privacy statement.

#Your data

• No ads, no tracking cookies, no selling of data. Just one essential cookie to keep you logged in, and the Google Analytics cookies if you allow them (see cookies).

• If visitor statistics with Umami or Plausible are switched on, they work without cookies and without storing IP addresses: they only record which pages are viewed.

• If you reach Bladwijzer through an AI assistant (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot or Gemini), it only counts towards a daily total per assistant: no IP address, no cookie, nothing about who you are or which pages you view.

• Your guide is private. If you share it, it’s never shared with your exact GPS location.

• Every photo identification is kept as a scan, so the administrator can see how well the identification works. After 24 hours, only a small photo remains of a scan you didn’t save.

• For your gardens, the administrator sees the location, the outline, the type and how many plants, beds and members they hold, to manage the site. They do not see the plants themselves, your notes or your log.

• You can export everything and delete your account under Account.

• You only get the newsletter and the “Garden jobs this month” email if you sign up for them; you can unsubscribe with one click at the bottom of every email.

• You only get the weekly neighbourhood email if you turn it on yourself. We store the place you choose rounded to about a kilometre; others never see your location or your email address.

• If you report fireblight (a notifiable plant disease), the Bladwijzer administrator sees that report: the garden, the plant, the location, your description and photos, and the name and email address of the person who reported it and of the owner. The email to the FASFC is sent from your own email program: Bladwijzer itself sends nothing to the FASFC.

• For the annual Bladwijzer Garden Report, your garden data only counts if you switch it on yourself, and only in totals.

• For Popular near you, the plants in your garden count anonymously for others in your area: only species that at least three people have, never who or where.

• If you turn on push notifications, we keep, per device, the address your browser gives for them (at Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft) and which notifications you want. The content is encrypted; if you turn them off or log out, we delete that address.

• Bladwijzer does not pass your observations on to waarnemingen.be. With Report on waarnemingen.be you open their form yourself and report there, with your own account.

• On the noticeboard others only see the town and the distance, rounded to about a kilometre. A message there is only for you and the other person: the administrator doesn’t read it either.

• For an open garden others (even without an account) see the approximate location you enter yourself and a position on the map rounded to about a kilometre, never the centre of your garden automatically. Only people who signed up for a day get the address or meeting point and the exact position; only you see who is coming.

• For equipment to hire others only see the place and the distance, rounded to about a kilometre. You agree your address with whoever hires it.

• For questions to the neighbours, logged-in users see your question, your name and your photos, with only the town and the distance, rounded to about a kilometre. A resolved question also appears on the species profile, for logged-in users. An administrator can hide or delete a question.

• If you share a recipe with everyone, everyone (even without an account) sees the recipe, your name and the photos you added, and it appears on a page with all your shared recipes (that page isn’t shown in search engines). As long as you don’t share it, or if the administrator hides it, only you can see the photos. Comments and photos from people who made it too are, like the recipe, visible to everyone with the name of whoever wrote them. Your stars count towards the average, but nobody can see who gave which stars.

• If you work in a professional’s team, the professional sees your name, your email address, your role and the hours you record. You only see the jobs assigned to you (a planner sees all of the team’s jobs): the client, the garden and where it is, the plants, the attachments and the messages, never prices, quotes or invoices. The client sees your first name and the initial of your surname. If you leave the team, you see nothing more; your hours stay with the jobs.

• In a group, the other members see your name, your role and how long you’ve been a member, and read what you write on the noticeboard and in the conversation. The group’s admins also see your request (with your note) and the email addresses of the people they invited. Of a public group, everyone sees the name, description, photo, town (rounded to about a kilometre), number of members, the admins’ names and the calendar; of a private group, non-members see nothing. The Bladwijzer administrator only looks in when something is reported. If you leave the group, what you wrote stays (delete it first if you want to); if you delete your account, it goes too.

All the details, including retention periods and your rights, are in the privacy statement.

#Blocking, suspensions and new accounts

• Blocking someone: choose Block on a listing, a question or answer, a shared recipe or a comment on it, equipment, a booking, an activity or a message in a group. You then no longer see each other’s content in the Nearby section (noticeboard, questions and answers, shared recipes and their comments, equipment and activities, messages in a group, nor in the neighbourhood email), and that person can no longer send you messages, respond to your listings or questions, or book from you. A booking that is already under way stays, but messages about it are no longer possible.
• Blocking is silent: the other person isn’t notified. You’ll find who you blocked under Account › Nearby, where you can also unblock them. The administrator sees how often someone was blocked, not by whom.
• Is it spam, a scam or something inappropriate? Then report it as well, so the administrator can look into it.
• A suspension: in case of abuse, the administrator can suspend an account temporarily or indefinitely. You get a notification and an email with the reason and the end date, which are also shown under Account › Nearby. While the suspension lasts, you can’t post anything or send messages in the Nearby section, and others can’t see what you posted. You can still log in, use your gardens and your guide, and export your data. Think it’s a mistake? Contact us.
• New accounts: against spam, a new account can post less in the Nearby section for the first few days (three by default): per day two listings, two questions, five answers, five comments on a recipe, ten messages, one activity, one new group and ten messages in groups, and two pieces of equipment in total. Links (a web address or a domain name such as example.be) aren’t possible yet; an email address is fine. Confirm your email address and this usually ends straight away. While it lasts, you’ll see until when at the top of the Nearby section.

#Seed swapping and organisations

• Your seeds and your wish list are private. Only if you choose Show my seed stock or Show my wish list yourself (under Swap settings, off by default) does someone nearby see what matches what they’re looking for or have: the name, variety and year of a seed, or the fact that you’re looking for a plant. Never your whole list, how much you have, your notes or the name of your garden.
• Others see your name, the town you enter and the distance in whole kilometres. We store the place itself rounded to about a kilometre, and it’s never shown.
• People you blocked, people who blocked you and suspended accounts see nothing of your stock or wish list and get no notification about your listings.
• An organisation (a food bank, community restaurant…) requests the label itself; only the administrator sees what it writes about itself. Harvest you set aside for organisations is visible to all gardeners on the noticeboard, but only a confirmed organisation can reply.

#The Bladwijzer Garden Report

The annual Bladwijzer Garden Report only counts your garden data if you switch it on yourself under Account › Privacy (off by default, separate from the newsletter). The species and form of your plants, your vegetables, your rain barrel and compost bin, the nature score, what you identified, your challenges, open garden days and work days then count towards totals by region (Flanders, Brussels, Wallonia or the Netherlands). Never your name, email address, address, where your garden is, photos or notes, and a figure is only shown from 10 gardens from 10 different gardeners. We store when you gave or withdrew consent. You can withdraw at any time; a report that has already been published contains only totals and stays online.

#Suggestions to share

After a new species, a milestone or a badge, Bladwijzer now and then suggests that you share it. To choose better when that makes sense, we record for each suggestion what you did (shared, later or nothing), along with the time of day, weekday or weekend, phone or computer, app or browser, and whether push notifications are allowed. Never where you are or who you share with: your phone’s share menu doesn’t tell Bladwijzer that. We delete it after 13 months. You can turn the suggestions off under Account › Privacy.

#Google Analytics

Bladwijzer uses Google Analytics to see which pages are visited, but only if you allow it.

• On your first visit, a bar appears at the bottom: May we use Google Analytics? … Google sets cookies to do this. Choose Yes, that’s fine or No, thanks.
• Without your consent nothing is sent to Google: Google’s script doesn’t load and no Google cookies are set on your device.
• With your consent, Google sets the _ga and _ga_… cookies and sees which pages you visit, for how long, your type of device and browser, and roughly where you are (country, region). Bladwijzer doesn’t pass on secret codes in an address (an invitation, a login link, a link for a new password). Google (Google Ireland Limited) may also process data in the United States, with the safeguards of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
• Your browser stores your choice (bw-cookies-analytics), so on another device or in another browser we ask again. On the Cookies page you can see what you chose, and choose Allow, Decline or Withdraw consent. If you withdraw your consent, the Google cookies are removed.
• Declining or withdrawing makes no difference to what you can do on Bladwijzer.

#Your account

• We only store passwords as a hash (scrypt), never in readable form.
• Two-step verification with an authenticator app and recovery codes.
• After ten failed login attempts on an account you have to wait 15 minutes (you can still log in with a link by email or a passkey); links for a new password work for one hour, and only once.
• After setting a new password or turning on two-step verification, you’re logged out on your other devices and you get an email.
• Changing your email address requires your password, and your old address gets a message.
• Every garden, observation, photo and job is only visible to people who have access to it; every time the code changes, an automated test tries to get in using other accounts.

#The server

• All connections are encrypted (HTTPS).
• Passwords and keys for integrations (Microsoft 365, GitHub, Teams) and the two-step verification keys are stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM) in the database.
• Error reports are stripped of email addresses, tokens and IP addresses before they are stored or passed on.

#Eating, picking and advice: at your own risk

• What Bladwijzer says about edible and useful plants, recipes and dealing with problems in your garden is general information, not medical or dietary advice.
• You always eat, drink, pick and use plants at your own risk. Identify a plant with certainty and ask an expert if in doubt. For a product against pests or diseases, always follow the label and the rules that apply in Belgium.
• We don’t check recipes you write yourself or import from a website, nor what others write in a shared garden.

See article 6 of the terms of use.

Updated on 2026-10-15