Terms of Service

Last updated: 27 August 2026

1. Provider and scope

These Terms govern use of the ShortlistBuddy photo-selection service provided by AJ GmbH, Danziger Str. 80, 65191 Wiesbaden, Germany (“AJ GmbH”, “we”).

ShortlistBuddy is intended exclusively for personal, private or family purposes. Professional, commercial or institutional use is not permitted.

Use requires a minimum age of 18. ShortlistBuddy is offered to adult users only. This applies to the free plan and to paid plans alike, and also where a legal guardian would consent: the terms of the AI provider we use prohibit applications directed at minors or likely to be used by them. You confirm your age yourself before the analysis; we collect no further data for this. Photos may depict minors where you are authorised to have them processed.

The service is under continuous development. Individual functions may be added, changed or removed; section 10 governs the limits of this.

Any terms of the user apply only if we expressly agree to them in text form.

2. Plans and scope of service

ShortlistBuddy is offered in a free plan and in paid plans. The photo limits and prices shown on the pricing page, as applicable at the time of your order, are decisive.

The free plan covers one analysis job with up to 250 photos, once per account.

A paid plan entitles you to one analysis job up to the photo limit stated for that plan. It is a one-off payment per job, not a subscription; there is no automatic renewal. Unused photo allowances expire when the job is completed and are not refunded.

All prices are final prices in euros and include statutory VAT. No further costs arise; you bear the cost of your own internet connection.

Which plans are currently bookable is shown on the pricing page. At present only the free plan is enabled.

3. Contract formation, payment and invoicing

You can access and save these Terms before every contract is formed.

In the free plan, a contract for the individual analysis job is formed when you accept these Terms and start the analysis. No account is required for this. To download your result as a ZIP file you do need an account with a confirmed email address.

In a paid plan, displaying the plans does not yet constitute a binding offer by us. You make a binding offer by pressing the button labelled “order with obligation to pay” in the order dialogue. Above that button we show you the selected plan, the included photo allowance and the total price. The contract is formed when we confirm it in text form or when the paid job is unlocked, whichever occurs first.

Payment is processed by Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. You enter your payment details directly with Stripe; complete card or account details do not reach us. The amount is due immediately upon formation of the contract.

We provide the confirmation of the contract in text form on a durable medium: we display it in the flow immediately upon formation of the contract and offer it there for saving. If an email address is held in your account, or you add one later, we send you the same text by email as well; in paid plans we also send the invoice.

4. Right of withdrawal for consumers

Consumers have the following statutory right of withdrawal. It applies to paid contracts and equally to the free plan: a contract without payment of money is also a consumer contract for digital products where you provide personal data in return (section 312(1a) of the German Civil Code). No fee is charged in the free plan, so a withdrawal there has no payment consequences and you owe no compensation for value either. Independently of withdrawal, you can stop using the service and delete your account at any time.

4.1 Withdrawal notice

The following reproduces the official model notice in Annex 1 to Article 246a § 1(2) sentence 2 of the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code (EGBGB). Only the German wording is legally operative.

4.2 Early expiry of the right of withdrawal

ShortlistBuddy is a digital service: you provide photos, and we process that data and deliver a proposed selection. For services, the right of withdrawal does not expire when performance begins, but only once we have fully performed the service, provided we began performance only after you expressly consented to us beginning before the withdrawal period expires and confirmed your knowledge that you lose your right of withdrawal upon full performance of the contract (section 356(5) of the German Civil Code). We additionally provide you with a confirmation of the contract in text form; in every plan it is sent under section 3 to the email address held in your account, before the analysis begins.

In practice: analysis is normally meant to start immediately, so we ask you for both of those declarations in the order dialogue. Your right of withdrawal then expires at the moment the commissioned analysis job has been carried out in full — not when we begin it.

If you withdraw while the analysis is still running, the withdrawal is effective. For the part of the service already performed when your withdrawal reaches us, you owe proportionate compensation for value (section 357a(2) of the German Civil Code); we refund the remainder. If you prefer to avoid that too, you can omit the declarations. We will then start the analysis only after the withdrawal period has expired.

No fee is charged in the free plan. A withdrawal there therefore leads neither to a refund nor to compensation for value, whenever it is declared.

4.3 Model withdrawal form

5. Service and AI notice

ShortlistBuddy assists you in creating a proposed selection from a set of private photos. The service uses artificial intelligence, currently including Google’s paid Gemini Developer API.

The AI output is an automated recommendation. It may be incorrect, incomplete, subjective or unsuitable for the intended purpose. ShortlistBuddy does not replace human review. You must check the proposed selection before using or sharing it or deleting any files.

Where your photos contain GPS data, the AI derives a place name from it so that you can sort your selection by place. The coordinates are rounded before transmission; details are in the Privacy Policy. Place names are an automated assignment and may be inaccurate.

Optionally, you may find persons known to you in your selected private photos using a reference photo. The person search runs entirely on your device; the reference photo, facial features derived from it and the result are never transmitted to us. The feature is intended exclusively for personal or family purposes. You must be authorised to use each reference photo and confirm this before use.

The Persons feature is part of the paid plans. We may offer it temporarily — for example during the trial phase — or permanently in the free plan as well. This does not create any entitlement to free provision in future.

6. Technical requirements and backups

You are responsible for a compatible device, an up-to-date browser, a sufficiently stable internet connection and safe storage of your original files.

ShortlistBuddy is not a backup or archiving service. Before analysis and before deleting any file, you must retain an independent backup of all originals. A proposed selection must never be treated as an automatic deletion approval.

While a job is running — from upload through analysis to downloading the selection — the selected original files must remain available and unchanged in their location. If they are moved, renamed, deleted or edited in the meantime, the browser can no longer read them when the ZIP archive is built. The affected photos are then included only as reduced previews, or not at all; ShortlistBuddy points this out in the results.

Under the described architecture, high-resolution originals remain on the device. If a future feature changes this, the transfer will be clearly disclosed in advance and the Privacy Policy will be updated.

7. Rights in photos and required authority

You retain all rights in the photos. AJ GmbH does not acquire ownership.

For the duration and purpose of the relevant analysis job, you grant AJ GmbH a simple, non-exclusive, non-transferable right, geographically limited to the technically required processing, to reproduce and technically process previews and metadata and transmit them to commissioned service providers where necessary to provide the service. The licence ends when processing and technically required short-term retention have ended.

You represent that the photos are selected and transmitted solely for personal or family purposes and that use does not infringe copyright, personality or other third-party rights. Where a reference photo shows another person, you must be authorised to use that photo in a private, personal or family context; details on the purely local processing of the person search are in section 9.1a.

One unticked confirmation in the reference-photo upload field is sufficient for all reference photos in an analysis job. You are not required to tick a separate box for each person or obtain or upload written evidence. This confirmation is a contractual representation; it is not transmitted to or stored by us. ShortlistBuddy may rely on its accuracy unless there are specific indications of misuse or lack of authority.

The person search must not be used where you know or should know that the person objects or that you are not authorised to use the photo. A stated refusal must be respected in future analysis jobs.

8. Prohibited use

Prohibited uses include illegal content; malware; automated mass requests; circumvention of technical safeguards; attacks on the service; professional, commercial or institutional use of the person search — for example towards employers, employees, customers or event attendees; biometric matching without the required authority; identification of unknown individuals; searching public or third-party image collections; surveillance, tracking, law-enforcement or security purposes; creation of face or person databases; commercial person profiles; biometric categorisation or emotion recognition; and any use that infringes third-party rights or the terms of our technical providers.

It is also prohibited to use the free plan repeatedly by creating additional accounts.

Do not upload identity documents, medical images, intimate content or other highly sensitive images.

We may stop a job, block a transfer or restrict access where there are concrete indications of misuse, security risks or legal violations. Where possible, we will take your interests into account and explain the reason. If we stop a job you have already paid for without a reason attributable to you, we will refund the amount paid.

9. Data protection

The Privacy Policy explains processing of personal data and possible Google retention for up to 55 days for the general photo analysis. AJ GmbH processes selected photo content solely on your instructions; AJ GmbH is the controller for its own website, security, support and contractual data. AJ GmbH never receives reference photos or the facial features derived from them for the person search — see section 9.1a and the Privacy Policy.

The following data-processing terms apply to the extent that AJ GmbH processes photo content on your behalf.

Deriving a place name from GPS data is part of the analysis job you commission and does not rest on separate consent. If you do not want it, remove the GPS data from your photos before uploading or switch off location recording in your camera app; details are in section 6 of the Privacy Policy. Where we do ask you for genuine consent — for product update emails, for example — you may refuse it and withdraw it at any time with future effect.

9.1 Supplementary terms for processing photo content

Subject matter and duration: The selected previews, required metadata and analysis results are processed for a specific job. Processing begins when the job starts and ends after analysis and technically unavoidable short-term retention; any different Google retention is described in the Privacy Policy.

Nature and purpose: Reduction, transmission and automated quality and subject analysis.

Data and data subjects: Image content, capture metadata and technical job data relating to users and to family members, friends and other persons shown in the selected private photos.

Instructions and user obligations: You give documented instructions by selecting the photos, setting criteria and starting the analysis. You must not give unlawful instructions.

AJ GmbH obligations: We process content only on documented instructions, bind authorised personnel to confidentiality, implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures, provide technically possible assistance with privacy requests and incidents, and delete content in accordance with these terms and the Privacy Policy.

Subprocessors: You grant general authorisation for the providers named in the Privacy Policy and a permanently available subprocessor list, in particular Google for AI analysis and Vercel for hosting and security functions. Material changes will be published for future jobs. A user who objects must not start new analysis jobs after the change.

Evidence and review: AJ GmbH will provide legally required information about safeguards and subprocessors. Individual on-site audits are permitted only where legally required and not reasonably replaceable by suitable certificates, audit reports or documentation.

9.1a Person search — purely local processing, no data-processing arrangement

The supplementary terms above do not apply to the optional person search: AJ GmbH processes no photo or biometric content in this context, because the reference photo, the facial features derived from it, the photos being searched and the result never leave your device. We only provide the technical software (the recognition and matching model); you alone carry out the actual processing on your own device.

Where you use the person search in the course of personal or household activities, that is regularly your own processing alone and falls within the household exemption in Article 2(2)(c) GDPR (details in section 4.3 of the Privacy Policy). You are therefore responsible for being authorised to use each reference photo and for using the person search only in a private, personal or family context — the expressly prohibited uses are listed in section 8.

10. Availability, changes and discontinuation

We do not promise a specific availability level for the general reachability of the website or the ability to start a new analysis job. Maintenance, security measures, failures of internet, hosting or AI services, and force majeure may cause interruptions.

Once an analysis job — free or paid — has come into being, we owe performance of precisely that job in accordance with these terms and the applicable statutory provisions. If we cannot perform a paid job, or cannot perform it fully, for reasons attributable to us, the payment claim lapses and we refund any amount already paid. Where performance is only partial, we refund the portion not performed. Further statutory rights remain unaffected.

We may modify functions for an objective reason, including security, legal changes, technical development, provider changes or prevention of misuse. Changes must not unreasonably disadvantage you and do not affect jobs already paid for but not yet performed.

We may discontinue the service or individual plans at any time for the future. In that case we refund jobs already paid for but not yet performed. Completed local downloads remain unaffected. As no permanent photo archive is owed, there is no right to data migration.

11. Conformity and remedies for defects

The statutory provisions on consumer contracts for digital products (sections 327 et seq. of the German Civil Code) apply to contracts for ShortlistBuddy. We apply them to paid contracts and to the free plan alike. Whether they apply to the free plan by operation of law depends on how the personal data you provide is used; that distinction therefore does not matter here. In the free plan your rights are naturally directed at re-running the job rather than at a refund.

What we owe is the technically correct performance of the commissioned analysis job up to the photo limit stated for the plan, and provision of the result for download. A particular selection result, a particular hit rate, or agreement of the proposal with your personal taste is inherently not owed and does not constitute an agreement on quality; section 5 points this out.

If the service is defective, you may demand subsequent performance. This will normally consist of us running the analysis job again at no additional cost. If subsequent performance fails, is impossible or is refused by us, you have the statutory rights to a price reduction or to terminate the contract.

As the service consists of a one-off job and is not supplied on a continuous basis, there is no obligation to provide ongoing updates. Conformity at the time of supply is decisive. Statutory limitation periods remain unaffected.

12. Liability

We have unlimited liability for intent and gross negligence, culpable injury to life, body or health, liability under the German Product Liability Act, fraudulent concealment, expressly assumed guarantees and all other cases of mandatory statutory liability.

For a slightly negligent breach of an essential contractual duty, liability is limited to the foreseeable loss typical for the contract at the time it was concluded. Essential duties are those whose performance is necessary for proper performance of the contract and on whose fulfilment you may regularly rely.

Liability for a slightly negligent breach of non-essential duties is excluded.

To the extent permitted by law and subject to the paragraphs above, we are not liable for loss caused by your failure to retain a reasonable backup, unreviewed reliance on an AI proposal or deletion of files outside ShortlistBuddy. This does not apply where the missing backup did not cause the loss or a backup was unreasonable.

The limitations also apply for the benefit of our legal representatives, employees and agents.

13. Indemnity for unlawful user content

If you culpably infringe third-party rights or applicable law and a third party asserts a claim against us, you will indemnify us against justified claims and necessary reasonable defence costs. This does not apply where you are not responsible for the breach. We will promptly inform you and, where legally and practically possible, allow you to participate in the defence.

14. Governing law and jurisdiction

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer habitually resident in another country, mandatory consumer-protection rules of that country remain unaffected.

Statutory places of jurisdiction apply to consumers. For merchants, legal entities under public law and special funds under public law, Wiesbaden is the exclusive place of jurisdiction to the extent permitted by law.

15. Consumer dispute resolution

We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

16. Contract language and English translation

The contract language is German. The English version is provided for information. In the event of inconsistency, the German version prevails to the extent legally permissible in relation to the relevant user and subject to mandatory consumer-protection law.

17. Final provisions

If any provision is wholly or partly invalid, the remaining provisions remain effective. Statutory law applies in place of the invalid provision.

The current version is available on the website. Amendments apply only to future analysis jobs unless mandatory law requires otherwise.