Terms and Privacy

Last updated: October 18, 2026

AvoidXray is run by one person, Zigao Wang. Questions about anything on this page go to a@zigao.wang.

This page has two parts: the terms you agree to by using the site, and what happens to your data. What you can post is covered separately in the guidelines, which are shorter and worth reading first.

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

Part One: Terms of Service

Using AvoidXray means you accept these terms. "We" and "us" mean AvoidXray and the person running it.

1. Who can use it

You must be at least 14. If you are under 18, you need a parent or guardian's permission.

One account per person. You are responsible for what happens under your account, so keep your password private, and email us if you think someone else has it. Don't create accounts to get around a block or a ban.

2. Your photos stay yours

You own your photographs. Uploading them does not transfer copyright to us. We don't sell your work or license it to anyone.

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

1. Store and display your photos on your profile, in albums, on film stock and camera pages, in search and in feeds.
2. Resize and re-encode them so they load quickly on different screens.
3. Make derived images: thumbnails, export downloads and the preview cards shown when a page is shared. Once another platform fetches a preview card, it caches it, and we can't control what it does with that copy.
4. Use them to promote AvoidXray, credited to your username.

The license ends when you delete the photo. Copies that other people have already downloaded, or that other platforms have cached, 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. By writing one, you let others read and quote it as part of that reference, and let us edit it for clarity or remove it. Deleting your account deletes your notes.

3. What you may not do

The guidelines are part of these terms. Beyond them, 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
• Get around blocks or bans
• Repackage the AvoidXray catalog or photos as your own product

4. Moderation and copyright

We may remove content or suspend accounts that break these terms or the guidelines. Where practical, we'll tell you why. Where something is illegal or dangerous, we may act first. Uploads are checked for nudity automatically. A photo the check flags is not posted; you can ask us to review it, and it stays hidden until we do.

If you think something on the site infringes your copyright, email a@zigao.wang with its URL, a description of your work, your contact details, and confirmation that you hold the rights or act for the person who does. We remove content that clearly infringes. If something of yours was removed and you think that was wrong, reply to that email.

5. The service

The site is free and provided as it is. We don't promise it will always be available, free of bugs, or around forever. Keep your own copies of your scans. This is a place to show your work, not a backup.

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

6. Ending things

To delete your account, email a@zigao.wang from the address on the account. Deleting it removes your profile, photos, comments, notes and albums.

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

The license in section 2 and sections 7 and 8 continue after an account is closed.

7. Liability

As far as the law allows, we're not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost data or lost profit from using the site, and our total liability for any claim is limited to 100 USD.

Nothing here limits liability that the law does not allow us to limit, including for death, personal injury or fraud.

8. Other terms

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the People's Republic of China, and disputes go to the courts of Shanghai. This doesn't remove any right you have to bring a claim where you live.

Changes. We post material changes on the site and update the date above before they take effect. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the new version. Your account records which version you agreed to when you signed up.

If part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.

Part Two: Privacy Policy

1. Where your data is

• The site, its database and its analytics run on one server in Los Angeles, United States.
• Image files and database backups are stored on Aliyun OSS in Hong Kong.
• The site is run by Zigao Wang, 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 information or share it for anyone's marketing.
• We don't run ads, so nothing here builds a profile of you for advertisers.
• We don't use third-party trackers. No ad cookies, no tracking pixels, no analytics company.
• We don't claim your work. See Part One.
• We remove GPS coordinates and other personal metadata from image files before storing them, so posting a frame doesn't post where you stood or who you are.

3. What we collect

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

Your profile, if you fill it in. Bio, avatar, website and social handles. All optional, all public.

Your photos. The image files, plus the camera, film stock, caption and date you tag them with.

What your photos show. Software on our own server looks at each photo you upload. It records a description of the image as numbers, used so search can find photos by what is in them and to suggest similar photos, and a score for whether it contains nudity. These stay on our server and are deleted with the photo. No photo is sent to an outside service for this.

What you write. Comments, community notes, album names and descriptions, and anything you send through the feedback or report forms. If you send feedback while signed out, we also keep the email address you give so we can reply.

What you do on the site. Follows, likes, blocks, and the notifications those create.

Usage. We run our own copy of Umami, an open source analytics tool, on our own server. It records which pages are viewed, the referring site, browser, operating system, device type and country. It sets no cookies and doesn't follow you to other sites. Admin pages are never recorded.

Technical. Your IP address, used to run the site, find faults and limit abuse.

Cookies and browser storage

We set two cookies: one that keeps you signed in, and one that remembers you dismissed the getting-started prompt on your profile. Your browser also keeps some things in its own storage, like where you were in a photo grid, so going back returns you to the same place. None of it is used to track you.

Photo metadata

Image files often carry EXIF metadata: camera or scanner model, exposure settings, timestamps, and sometimes GPS coordinates. Lab scans usually carry the scanner's details and no location. Phone photos often carry GPS.

We remove personal metadata before storing an image: GPS coordinates, camera and lens serial numbers, owner, artist and copyright names, the computer name, the embedded preview, and editing history (XMP and IPTC). The camera or scanner model, exposure settings and timestamps stay, and the image itself is not re-encoded. Anyone who can see the photo can download that file. We don't display the metadata.

If you'd rather we kept none of it, remove the metadata before uploading.

4. Why we use it, and on what basis

5. What's public

Public to anyone, signed in or not: your username, display name, avatar, bio and links; the photos you publish, with their camera and film stock; your albums that are set to public; your comments and notes; and how many followers you have and how many people you follow.

Never public: your email address, your password, photos and albums you've set to private, who you've blocked, and reports you've filed. Private photos can be opened by you and by the site's administrator, who may need to for moderation.

The nudity check. Each upload is checked before it is stored. A photo the check flags is not stored at all, unless you ask for a review; it is then stored, and only you and the administrator can see it until the administrator decides. If the check cannot run, the photo is stored and checked shortly after, and stays hidden from others until then.

Search engines index public pages. When someone shares a link, the other platform shows and caches a preview image.

6. Who else handles it

• Aliyun OSS (Hong Kong) stores image files and database backups
• BandwagonHost (Los Angeles, United States) hosts the server
• Mailtrap sends service email

Each handles data on our behalf, not for its own purposes. Apart from them, we share personal information only when the law requires it, or when 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

• Your account, photos and posts: until you delete them or ask us to delete your account.
• Uploads you never published: deleted automatically after an hour.
• Deleted content: removed from the site straight away. Database backups are kept for up to 30 days, so deleted data can stay in a backup for that long before it's gone for good. Copies others have downloaded, or that other platforms have cached, can't be recalled.
• Reports and moderation records: kept after the content is gone, so repeated problems can be recognized.

8. Your rights

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

Email a@zigao.wang and we'll answer within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm the account is yours first, so nobody else can delete your photographs.

9. Security

Passwords are hashed, the site is served over HTTPS, and access to the production database is restricted. Changing your password signs out your other devices. No service is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information, we'll tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

10. Children

You must be at least 14 to create an account, and anyone under 18 needs 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 firm minimum. Sign-up asks you to confirm you meet it, and we have no way to check beyond that. If you believe a younger child has an account, email a@zigao.wang and we'll remove it.

11. Changes

Material changes get a notice on the site and a new date at the top of this page before they take effect. Where a change needs your consent, we'll ask for it.