Is PhotoCircle safe to use?

PhotoCircle integrates 14 third-party SDKs spanning advertising, analytics, and infrastructure. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Identifiers and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Contact Info, User Content, and Diagnostics. It includes 9 advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does PhotoCircle need?

PhotoCircle requests 4 iOS permissions: App Tracking Transparency, Camera, Microphone, and Photo Library.

What data does PhotoCircle collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, PhotoCircle declares cross-app tracking via Identifiers and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Contact Info, User Content, and Diagnostics. It collects Identifiers and Usage Data not linked to your identity.

How many SDKs does PhotoCircle have?

PhotoCircle integrates 14 third-party SDKs. 9 for advertising, 2 for analytics, and 2 for infrastructure.

Does PhotoCircle use Google SDKs?

Yes. PhotoCircle includes 3 Google or Firebase SDKs: Google Ads Conversion, Firebase Analytics, and Google App Measurement. These are used for ads, analytics, and cloud services.

Does PhotoCircle use App Tracking Transparency?

Yes. PhotoCircle requests the App Tracking Transparency permission, which means it asks for your consent to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites.

Does PhotoCircle access your camera or microphone?

PhotoCircle requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "(localized)". Microphone access is for "(localized)". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does PhotoCircle run in the background?

Yes. PhotoCircle registers 2 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to PhotoCircle?

Other photo & video apps include ARTA , AI Catch , Airbrush , Body Tune Editor , OldRoll , and Edits . Each app takes a different approach to photo & video and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Photo & Video · Privacy report

PhotoCircle

Free · ★4.9 · PhotoCircle, Inc.

Is PhotoCircle safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. PhotoCircle is built with more third-party tracking code than 88% of the photo & video we have scanned.

Privacy footprint · vs 102 photo & videoHeavy

Trackers from other companies11 · a lot

typical photo & video: 4

Data the app links to you3 types · some

typical photo & video: 2 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

PhotoCircle links 3 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data PhotoCircle ties to your identity, and it also declares it shares data to track you across other apps.

Contact InfoUser ContentDiagnostics

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 3 companies.

Third-party SDKs found in the app, matched to the company that publishes each. Present in the code; we do not observe what they transmit.

🏢Other third partiesadvertising

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸AppLovinAdvertising

A mobile advertising and monetization network.

SDK

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

Firebase, AdMob and Google analytics SDKs, built to record how you use the app and serve ads.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among photo & video.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one photo & video app. PhotoCircle sits to the right, carrying more third-party tracking than most.

Other signals

One more flag.

Each is a fact read straight from the app. The same checks run on every app we scan. Only the ones that apply here are shown.

It declares cross-app tracking

Its own App Store label says it tracks you across other companies apps and websites using your advertising identifier.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 14 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 11 are third-party trackers.

9advertising

2analytics

3standard libraries

11 of the 14 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

Other third partiesadvertising

Google Ads Conversion · Nimbus Ads Core · Nimbus Ads · Nimbus Ads Render · Nimbus Ads Render Static · Nimbus Ads Render Video · Nimbus Ads Request · Open Measurement SDK (Nimbus) · Google App Measurement

AppLovinAdvertising · USA

AppLovin

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Firebase Analytics

Standard libraries3 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v2026.0305.02, 2026-04-03.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 102 photo & video in our corpus. Trackers: median 4. Data linked to you: median 2.