Permissions Explained

When it's requested Only when you tap the Scan IRL button on the Scan tab. You get to take a fresh photo with your camera so Mirage can analyze it. Why we need it The Camera permission lets you point your phone at someone else's screen or a printed photo and capture an image to scan. Without it, you can only analyze photos already in your gallery. What we never do We never silently take photos, record video, or open the camera without your tap. Photos you capture stay on your device unless you hit Analyze, which sends a resized copy to our backend for the scan (then discards it immediately).

When it's requested The first time you tap Photo or Video on the Scan tab. Android shows the system photo picker; iOS asks for library access. Why we need it To analyze a photo or video, Mirage needs to read its bytes. The permission lets the system photo picker hand us the file you selected — we do not browse your gallery, list your photos, or read anything you did not pick. What we never do We never bulk-scan your library, upload anything you didn't tap Analyze on, or read EXIF/location from photos that aren't actively being analyzed. After a scan completes, only the verdict and a small thumbnail are kept locally in your scan history.

When it's requested Automatic — Android grants this at install time, iOS doesn't prompt for it. Mirage uses it when you tap Analyze. Why we need it The image you choose is sent over HTTPS to our backend at bytebacknj.com, which forwards it to the Hugging Face AI-detection models. Without internet access, the neural-network portion of the scan can't run — only the on-device forensic checks would work, and accuracy would drop sharply. What we never do We never connect to advertising networks, analytics services, or third parties beyond the ones listed in our Privacy Policy. We never upload anything from your phone that isn't part of an Analyze request you initiated.