Last updated 17 August 2026
The app has no accounts and no analytics. Your screenshots and any file you import are read on your phone and are never uploaded. The one thing it keeps is a random identifier for your device, and only if you were given a complimentary code and choose to enter it — which is also the only reason it contacts a server of its own.
This website is a separate matter: it uses Google Analytics, and only if you accept the notice on your first visit. Declining sets no cookies.
Wren is made by Spencer Fields, a sole trader established in the United Kingdom, at Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Lytchett Matravers, Poole, BH16 6FA. For anything in this policy, write to Apps [at] spencerfields [dot] com.
In the app there is no account to create, no sign-in, no profile, and no analytics or crash-reporting service. Almost everything Wren remembers lives on your device and goes away when you delete the app. (The website is different, and is covered further down.)
The single exception is a random identifier for your device, and it applies only if you enter a complimentary code. It is described in full below. Wren's App Store privacy label declares exactly this — a device identifier, used for app functionality, not linked to your identity and never used for tracking — and this page and that label are meant to say the same thing.
Some people are given a code that unlocks the paid feature without paying — reviewers at Apple, and friends of the developer. This is the only part of Wren that contacts a server run by Wren, and it happens only if you have been given a code and choose to enter it. If you have not, Wren never contacts that server at all.
When a code is entered, two things are sent: the code itself, and a random identifier for your device. The identifier is generated by Wren, is not derived from your hardware, and identifies nothing beyond this installation. Nothing else goes with it — no name, no email address, no location, no screenshot.
The pair is stored so that a code can be used once and not again, which is the whole reason a server is involved: a phone has no way of knowing that a code has already been used on a different phone. The reply is checked and kept on your device, and for almost everyone that is the end of it — the check does not happen again. The exception is the few codes that also grant administrative access to the developer's own console: those are re-confirmed about once a day, sending the same two things and nothing else, so that such a code can be withdrawn.
The server is a Cloudflare Worker in the developer's own account, and Cloudflare acts as a data processor for it. If a code is rejected, the originating IP address is recorded on its own for up to an hour, so that the endpoint cannot be hammered with guesses. It is not stored alongside the code or your device identifier, it is not stored at all when a code succeeds, and it is deleted automatically.
You choose which images Wren may read, through Apple's own photo picker. Wren has no standing access to your photo library — only to the images you hand it.
Text recognition runs entirely on your device, using Apple's Vision framework. The images themselves are never uploaded, transmitted or stored by Wren. The same is true of a file you import — a spreadsheet or map export is opened through Apple's document picker, read on the device, and never sent anywhere. Once a name has been read from an image, Wren has no further use for it and does not keep a copy.
Only text and identifiers — never an image, and never a file. Everything below goes to Apple, apart from the last row, which happens only if you enter a complimentary code.
| What | Goes to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The name of a place, and the city you confirmed | Apple Maps | To find the place. This is Apple's ordinary Maps search, made from your device in the same way the Maps app makes it. |
| The city or region you confirm | Apple Maps | To turn a name like "London" into a location, so the search looks in the right place. |
| The places you choose to publish | Apple Maps | Wren opens a link that creates the guide. The places travel inside that link. |
| A shared guide link you paste in | Apple Maps | Only if you paste one. Apple's share sheet produces a short link that carries nothing readable, so Wren asks Apple where it points in order to read the places in it. The link is sent and the answer read; nothing else is sent with it, and Wren keeps no record of it. |
| The identifier of a place already in that guide | Apple Maps | Only if you paste a guide link. Apple's link carries identifiers and no names, so Wren asks Apple for each place's name and address in order to show you a list rather than a row of blanks. |
| Purchase requests | Apple | Handled entirely by the App Store. Wren never sees your payment details, name or address. |
| A complimentary code, and a random device identifier | Wren's code server | Only if you were given a code and enter it — and, for a code that also grants administrative access, about once a day thereafter. See above. If you never enter one, this never happens. |
Apple's handling of everything above except the last row is governed by Apple's privacy policy, not this one. The app sends nothing to anybody else — no third-party service, no advertiser, no analytics provider. (This website does use Google Analytics, with your consent; see below.)
Wren does not connect to Instagram, TikTok or any other service. It has no access to your accounts on them and does not read, scrape or download anything from them. It only reads screenshots you have taken and chosen to share with it.
These are ordinary app storage on your phone, covered by your device's own encryption. Deleting Wren deletes them.
Wren is not directed at children and collects no personal data from anyone, of any age.
Under the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR you have rights of access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection and portability over personal data held about you.
If you have never entered a complimentary code, Wren holds nothing at all about you, so in practice there is nothing to access, correct or erase. If you have, the one record is the code you used and the random device identifier that came with it, kept so the code cannot be used again. Write to the address above and it will be deleted, or sent to you, within one month. Deleting it releases the code for someone else.
If you are in the United Kingdom, you may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
This site uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people read, and Microsoft Clarity to see which parts of a page are read and where people get stuck. They are the only third parties on the site, there is no advertising, and nothing here is used to build a profile of you or to follow you elsewhere.
Nothing loads until you agree. Analytics cookies are not strictly necessary, so under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations they need your consent first. A notice appears on your first visit with Accept and Decline. Until you choose, Google Consent Mode holds every storage type at "denied" and neither the Google nor the Microsoft script is loaded at all — so declining sets no cookies and sends both of them nothing. Your choice is kept in your browser's local storage so the notice appears once.
To change your mind, clear this site's data in your browser and the notice will appear again.
If you accept, Google receives the ordinary analytics signals — the pages you view, roughly where you are, and what sort of device and browser you use — and sets cookies to tell one visit from the next. Google acts as a data processor for that, and its handling is governed by Google's privacy policy. Advertising and personalisation signals stay denied whatever you choose.
Microsoft Clarity goes further than counting. If you accept, it records how a page is scrolled and clicked during your visit and replays those interactions, and it sets its own cookies to tell one visit from the next. Anything typed into a form field or chosen from a drop-down is masked before it leaves your browser: Clarity masks these in every mode it offers and provides no way to switch that off. On the setting in use here, numbers and email addresses appearing anywhere on the page are masked as well. Microsoft acts as a data processor for this, and its handling is governed by the Microsoft privacy statement. Because a recording of a visit is not aggregate information, it is not something that may be run without asking, which is why the choice is offered rather than assumed.
Separately, the hosting provider keeps ordinary server access logs, which is normal for any website and is not something Wren reads or uses.
None of this applies to the app. Wren the iOS app contains no analytics of any kind and never has. This section is about this website only.
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be noted on this page rather than made quietly.