For Lumen, the photo culling app for iPhone and iPad.
Lumen has no servers. Your photographs, your ratings and your exports never leave your device.
That is not a policy choice that could quietly change — it is how the app is built. Lumen has no backend, no account system and no analytics. There is nowhere for your data to go, which is why the sections below are shorter than you may be used to.
Last updated 30 July 2026. Applies to Lumen for iOS and iPadOS, version 1.0 and later.
Nothing. Lumen collects no personal data, no usage data and no diagnostics. We operate no servers that could receive them. Our App Store privacy label states “Data Not Collected”, and that is accurate.
To do its job, Lumen reads your photo library and stores its own decisions locally:
All of the above stays on the device. It is included in your encrypted iPhone or iPad backup if you make one, because it lives in the app container. Deleting Lumen deletes all of it.
Lumen uses Apple’s on-device Vision framework to detect faces and estimate whether eyes are open, purely to help suggest which frame in a group of near-identical shots to keep. No face data is transmitted anywhere, no identities are recognised, and no biometric template is created or stored. Only a yes/no “closed eyes” flag and a face count are cached.
| Permission | Why | If you decline |
|---|---|---|
| Photo library (read & write) | To group your photos into shoots and let you rate, compare and cull them. Write access is used only to create an album when you ask Lumen to. | Lumen cannot show your shoots. You can grant access to selected photos only, and Lumen works fully over that selection. |
Lumen does not request location, contacts, camera, microphone, notifications or tracking permission, and shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt — there is nothing to track.
Lumen makes exactly one kind of network connection: to Apple’s App Store, through Apple’s StoreKit framework, to check whether you have a Lumen Pro subscription and to process purchases. Lumen never sees your payment details; Apple handles the transaction. There is no receipt-validation server, because purchases are verified cryptographically on your device.
Everything else in Lumen works in airplane mode.
Lumen Pro is sold as a monthly subscription, an annual subscription, or a one-off lifetime purchase. Purchases are made through your Apple Account and are subject to Apple’s terms. We receive anonymised sales and payout reports from Apple in App Store Connect; these do not identify you.
Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. You can manage or cancel them in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions on your device. Family Sharing is enabled.
If you export XMP sidecars, JPEGs, a zip archive or a contact sheet, Lumen writes those files and hands them to iOS’s share sheet. What happens next is up to you and the destination you choose — if you send them to a cloud drive or an email, that service’s privacy policy applies, not ours. Lumen has no involvement in it and no knowledge of it.
Lumen contains no third-party SDKs, no advertising, no attribution frameworks and no crash reporting service. The only external party involved in the app is Apple, as the App Store operator and payment processor.
Lumen is a professional tool and is not directed at children. It collects no data from anyone, of any age.
Because we do not collect or process personal data, there is no data of yours for us to give you access to, correct, export or erase — and no processing that could be restricted or objected to. Should you believe we hold data about you, write to hello@hbj-solutions.com and we will respond within 30 days. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority; ours is the Landesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit Rheinland-Pfalz.
Since no personal data is transferred to us, no data processing agreement (Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag) is required for photographers using Lumen on client work, and there is no sub-processor for you to name.
If Lumen ever changes in a way that affects this policy, we will update this page and the date above, and note it in the app’s release notes. A change that introduced data collection would also change the App Store privacy label, which Apple displays before you download or update.
Information according to § 5 TMG
Email: hello@hbj-solutions.com
VAT identification number in accordance with § 27 a of the German Value Added Tax Act:
USt-IdNr. DE462565189
Ben Grégory Seiler, Julius Maximilian Spindler
Haardter Str. 13, 67433 Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Germany
Lumen is licensed, not sold. Use of the app is governed by Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement, which applies to all apps distributed through the App Store unless a custom agreement is provided. We do not provide one.
Lumen is a tool for making decisions about your own photographs. You remain responsible for your images, your backups and your client obligations. Because Lumen never copies your originals unless you export them, the app does not alter or delete your photographs — but no software is free of defects, and you should keep backups of any work you care about.
As a service provider we are responsible for our own content on these pages under general law. This page contains links to external websites over whose content we have no control; responsibility for that content lies with its respective operators. At the time of linking, no unlawful content was apparent. Ongoing monitoring of linked pages is not reasonable without concrete indication of an infringement; should we become aware of one, we will remove the link promptly.
The content and design of this page, and the Lumen name, wordmark and icon, are the property of HBJ-Solutions GbR. Reproduction beyond what copyright law permits requires our written consent.
Questions, bug reports and feature requests: hello@hbj-solutions.com. We reply within 24 hours on weekdays.
Because Lumen keeps everything on your device, we cannot see your library and cannot recover your ratings if you delete the app. If something looks wrong, please write to us before reinstalling.