Terms and Privacy

Last updated: 1 September 2026

Two parts: the agreement between you and AvoidXray, and what we do with your data. Written to be read. If anything is unclear, ask at a@zigao.wang.

What we expect from people posting here is in the guidelines, which are worth reading first — they're shorter and more use to you than this.

AvoidXray ("the Service", "we", "us") is run by Zigao Wang, reachable at a@zigao.wang.

• Part One: Terms of Service
• Part Two: Privacy Policy

Part One: Terms of Service

Using AvoidXray means you accept these terms.

1. Who can use it

You need to be at least 14. If you're under 18, you need a parent or guardian's permission. You are responsible for what happens under your account, so keep your password to yourself and tell us at a@zigao.wang if you think someone else has it.

One account per person. Don't create accounts to get around a block or a ban.

2. Your photos stay yours

You own your photographs. Nothing here transfers copyright to us. We don't claim ownership, and we won't sell your work or license it to anyone else.

To run the site we need permission to show and process what you upload. By uploading, you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to:

1. Store and display your photos on AvoidXray — your profile, albums, film stock and camera pages, search, and feeds.
2. Resize, compress, and re-encode them so they load on different devices.
3. Make derived images: thumbnails, watermarked downloads, and the preview cards used when a page is shared. When someone shares a link, the other platform fetches and caches that preview, and we don't control what it does with it afterwards.
4. Show them in material promoting AvoidXray, credited to your username.

That licence exists so the site can work. It ends when you delete the photo, except that copies already downloaded or cached elsewhere can't be recalled.

Only upload photographs you took, or have the right to post.

Community Notes

Notes are a shared reference about film stocks and cameras. When you write one, you allow others to read and quote it as part of that reference, and allow us to edit it for clarity or remove it. Deleting your account deletes your Notes along with it.

3. What you may not do

What you may post is covered by the guidelines, which form part of these terms. Beyond those, don't:

• Break, probe, or overload the site, or try to reach data that isn't yours
• Scrape at scale, or automate accounts, likes, follows, or comments
• Evade blocks or bans
• Repackage the AvoidXray database as your own product

4. Moderation and copyright

We may remove content or suspend accounts that break these terms or the guidelines. Where it's practical we'll say why. Where something is illegal or dangerous we may act immediately. How that works in practice is set out in the guidelines.

If you think something here infringes your copyright, email a@zigao.wang with the URL, a description of your work, your contact details, and confirmation that you're the rights holder or acting for them. We remove content that's clearly infringing. If yours was removed and you think that was wrong, reply and say so.

5. The service itself

AvoidXray is provided as it is. We don't promise it will be uninterrupted, bug-free, or permanent. Keep your own copies of your scans. This is a place to show your photographs, not a backup service.

We may change or remove features. If we shut the site down we'll give at least 30 days' notice.

The site is free.

6. Ending things

To delete your account, email a@zigao.wang from the address on the account and we'll remove it. That deletes your profile, your photos, your comments, and your Notes.

We can suspend or terminate an account that breaks these terms, or where keeping it would put people at risk.

Section 2's licence, and sections 7 and 8, survive termination.

7. Liability

To the extent the law allows, we're not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost data, or lost profit arising from your use of the site, and our total liability for any claim is limited to 100 USD.

Nothing here limits liability that can't be limited by law, including for death, personal injury, or fraud.

8. Odds and ends

Governing law. The laws of the People's Republic of China, with disputes going to the courts of Shanghai — without affecting any right you have to bring a claim where you live.

Changes. We'll post material changes and update the date above before they take effect. Continuing to use the site means you accept the new version.

If part of this is unenforceable, the rest still applies.

Part Two: Privacy Policy

1. Where your photographs live

• The site and its database run on a server in Los Angeles, United States.
• Your image files are stored on Aliyun OSS in Hong Kong.
• AvoidXray is run by one person, Zigao Wang, based in Shanghai.

If you are in mainland China, your information leaves it as soon as you use the site. Ticking the box at sign-up is your consent to that.

2. What we don't do

• We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it for anyone else's marketing.
• No advertising, so nothing here is built to profile you for advertisers.
• No third-party analytics. No tracking pixels, no ad cookies. The only cookies we set keep you signed in and stop abuse.
• We don't claim your work. You keep copyright in your photographs — see Part One.
• We strip GPS coordinates out of image files before storing them, so publishing a frame doesn't publish where you stood.

3. What we collect

Account. Email address, username, display name, password. Passwords are stored as salted hashes and we can't read them.

Profile, if you add it. Bio, avatar, website and social links. All optional and public.

Photos and what you tag them with. The image files, plus camera, film stock, caption, and date taken.

What you write. Comments, Community Notes, album descriptions, and anything sent through the feedback or report forms.

Technical. IP address, browser and device type, and the pages you visit — used to run the site, diagnose faults, and rate-limit abuse.

Cookies. Only what's needed to keep you signed in and to protect against abuse.

Photo metadata

Image files often carry EXIF metadata: camera or scanner model, exposure settings, timestamps, and sometimes GPS coordinates recording where the frame was taken. Lab scans usually carry the scanner's details and no location. Photographs taken on a phone very often carry GPS.

We remove GPS coordinates before storing an image. A file carrying them is re-encoded, which removes its other metadata too. A file without them — which is nearly every lab scan — is stored exactly as you uploaded it, scanner details and all. Anyone can download that file from the photo page. We don't display any of it.

If you'd rather we held none of it, strip metadata before uploading.

4. Why, and on what basis

5. What's public

Public to anyone, signed in or not: your username, display name, avatar, bio and links; photos you've published with the camera and film stock you tagged; your comments and Notes; your follower and following counts.

Never public: your email address, your password, photos you've marked private, who you've blocked, and reports you've filed.

Search engines index public pages. Shared links produce a preview image on the other platform, which caches it beyond our control.

6. Who else handles it

• Aliyun OSS (Hong Kong) — stores image files
• BandwagonHost (Los Angeles, United States) — runs the site and the database
• Mailtrap — sends service email

Each processes data for us and not for their own purposes. Otherwise we disclose personal information only where legally required, or where it's needed to protect someone's safety or investigate abuse of the site.

If AvoidXray ever changes hands we'll tell you before your information moves.

7. How long we keep it

• Account, photos, and posts: until you delete them, or ask us to delete your account.
• Deleted content: removed from the site immediately. Copies others have already downloaded or that other platforms have cached can't be recalled.
• Reports and moderation records: kept after the content is gone, so repeat problems can be recognised.

8. Your rights

You can ask us to show you what we hold, correct it, delete it, or send you a copy; object to or restrict processing; withdraw consent; and complain to your local data protection authority.

Email a@zigao.wang and we'll respond within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm you control the account first, because we can't let someone else delete your photographs.

9. Security

Hashed passwords, HTTPS, and access controls limiting who can reach the production database. No service is perfectly secure. If we discover a breach affecting your personal information we'll notify you and the relevant authorities as required.

10. Children

You must be at least 14 to create an account, and under 18s need a parent or guardian's permission.

We're based in Shanghai, so China's Personal Information Protection Law applies. It treats the personal information of children under 14 as sensitive and requires a guardian's consent, which we aren't set up to collect — so 14 is a real limit rather than a formality. Sign-up asks you to confirm you meet it; we have no way to verify it beyond that. If you believe a younger child has an account, contact a@zigao.wang and we'll remove it.

11. Changes

Material changes get a notice on the site and a new date above before they take effect. Where a change needs your consent, we'll ask rather than assume.