Privacy

Effective October 16, 2026

Who we are

Four by Six (“we”, “us”) is operated by Crystal Bay Creative, LLC, 106 W 3rd Ave, Suite 101, Trappe, PA 19426, USA. We print photos and postcards and mail them. This policy covers our website at www.fourbysix.co, the shop at www.fourbysix.co/order/, the photo page at my.fourbysix.co, and the prints and postcards we make — whether you ordered from us directly or through another company’s app that sends its orders to us.

What we collect

Your photos

When you choose photos in the shop, the original files are uploaded exactly as they are on your phone or computer — we don’t shrink or re-save them, because the print is better for it. That means we also receive whatever is stored inside each file. On a phone photo that usually includes the date and time it was taken, the location where it was taken (GPS coordinates), and the camera or phone model. We also keep the file’s name, its size, how you framed it for the print, and how many copies you asked for.

From each photo we make an enhanced, cropped version for the front of the print, a small thumbnail of it for our own tools, and a designed back (see below). For a photo ordered from our shop we also make a resized copy, with the information inside the file stripped out, for the print’s photo page (see The QR code and the photo page).

Your order

At checkout, Stripe’s payment form collects your email address, your name and delivery address, and your payment details. Stripe passes us the email address, the name and address, and the result of the payment — not your card number. We keep those with the order, along with what you bought, what you paid, any tax charged, and the order’s progress through printing and the post.

Your account

You don’t need to sign up. The first time you open the shop, your browser is given a random code that keeps your basket together (see On your device). When you pay, we link the order to the email address you gave at checkout, so that your orders stay together if you come back. If you sign in, we email you a one-time link; we keep only a scrambled (hashed) copy of it, and it stops working after 15 minutes. There are no passwords.

We also note when a browser code was last used and when an email address was confirmed.

Technical information

Like any website, our servers and Cloudflare, which carries our traffic, see your IP address and basic details of each request (the page, the time, your browser’s user agent) and may record them in logs used to keep the service running and secure.

What we don’t collect

We don’t run analytics, advertising or social-media trackers on our site or shop, and our pages set no cookies of their own. The payment form is Stripe’s, and Stripe sets its own cookies and collects device information in it to process the payment and prevent fraud. That is covered by Stripe’s privacy policy.

What is printed on the back

This is the part most likely to surprise you, so it gets its own section.

The back of a photo print is designed from the information inside the photo file. Where the file contains it, the back shows:

• a map of the area around the spot where the photo was taken, with a marker on that spot;
• the name of the town or area;
• the date and time the photo was taken;
• the latitude and longitude, to four decimal places — accurate to roughly ten metres;
• on a print from our shop, a QR code that opens the photo online (see below); on a print ordered through another company’s app, that company’s own QR code, if it gave us one;
• our name, and the name of the app you ordered through, if any.

A photo print’s back does not show your name or address; those go only on the outside of the package.

Anyone who holds the print can read all of this. If you are giving a print away, or a photo was taken somewhere you’d rather not name — your home, a child’s school — remove its location before you upload it. On an iPhone, “Options” in the share sheet has a Location switch; most photo apps have an equivalent. A photo with no location gets no map: its back has a few ruled lines to write on instead.

The back of a postcard is printed exactly as the sender designed it in the app they used, including the message and the delivery address. We add nothing to it.

The QR code and the photo page

Each print you order from our shop carries a QR code linking to a page at my.fourbysix.co. The page shows that photo and lets the person looking at it download it. (Prints ordered through another company’s app may carry a QR code too, but it leads to that company’s page, which their privacy policy covers; see Orders from another app.)

• The link works for anyone who has it. There is no sign-in: the long random code in the address is the only thing that protects the photo. Anyone who scans the print, or is sent the link, can see and save the photo.
• The page shows that one photo and nothing else — not your name, your address, your order, or your other photos.
• The page shows a resized copy of the photo so it loads quickly, with the information inside the file stripped out. Its download button gives your original file, exactly as you uploaded it: full size, and with everything stored inside it, which on a phone photo includes the precise GPS location, the date and time, and the phone’s model. Anyone who scans the print can download it. If you are giving a print away and would rather the recipient didn’t have those details, remove the location from the photo before you upload it (see What is printed on the back).
• The page asks search engines not to index it, and the download link it hands out expires after an hour. The page address itself does not expire.
• If you want the page for a photo switched off, email us and we will delete the photo; the code will then say it was removed at its owner’s request.

Photographs of postcards

Before a postcard goes in the post we photograph both sides of the finished card — the picture side and the written side, which carries the message and the delivery address — as a record of what was sent. We keep these photographs for 30 days after the postcard is posted, and if the postcard was ordered through another company’s app and that company has asked for them, we send them to it. The links we send expire after 24 hours. We do not do this for photo prints.

How we use it

• To make your order: enhance and crop the photos, design the backs, print, pack and post them.
• To take payment, calculate tax where it applies, and issue refunds.
• To run the photo page behind each QR code.
• To let you sign in and see your orders, and to answer you when you write to us.
• To keep the service working and secure, and to meet legal, tax and accounting obligations.

We don’t use your photos or details for advertising, we don’t sell them, and we don’t share them with anyone for their own marketing. We don’t use your photos to train AI models. Most photos are enhanced on our own equipment; some may be enhanced by an outside service instead (see Who else sees it).

Who else sees it

The servers and database that hold order records are our own. Beyond those, we use a small number of other companies, and they handle your information on our behalf:

• Stripe — the payment form, payments, refunds and, where it applies, sales tax. Stripe receives your payment details, email, address and order total, and keeps a customer record against your email address.
• Cloudflare — stores the photo files, the prints we make from them, the resized copies shown on photo pages and the postcard photographs, and carries all traffic to and from our sites.
• A photo-enhancement service — may enhance the photo for the front of a print. We send it the picture and nothing else: the location, date, time and camera details are removed from the file before it leaves us, and it never receives your name, address, email or order. It uses the photo only to enhance it for us, does not use it to train AI, and deletes its copy within seven days. Its servers are in the United States.
• OpenStreetMap services — to name the place and draw the map on the back of a print, we send the photo’s coordinates (and only the coordinates — not the photo, your name or anything else) to OpenStreetMap’s Nominatim service and to a public Overpass map-data server. Their operators may log those requests.
• Postmark, our email provider, to deliver sign-in links.
• The United States Postal Service, which sees the name and address on the package.

Beyond that, we share information only: with the company whose app you ordered through (below); with the people you give prints to, through what is printed on them; when the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety or our rights; or with a buyer if Four by Six is sold or merged, who would remain bound by this policy.

Orders from another app

Some apps send their customers’ orders to us to print. If that is how you ordered, the app decides what it sends us — usually the photos, how they are to be printed, and where to post them — and its own privacy policy covers what it collects from you. We use what it sends only to make and post the order, and the app can see the order’s progress and, for postcards, the photographs described above. The back of a photo print is designed the same way, but we host no page for it: if there is a QR code, it leads to the app’s own page. We delete everything 30 days after we post the order (see How long we keep it). You are welcome to write to us directly before then, and we will also pass a request through to the app if it holds the data.

On your device

The shop keeps a few things in your own browser, and nothing there is a cookie:

• the random code that identifies your basket, in local storage;
• a copy of each photo you chose and a small thumbnail, so you can re-crop a photo or see your basket without choosing it again. These stay on your device.

Clearing your browser’s data for this site removes them. If you do, the shop will start a fresh basket; your past orders are still with us.

How long we keep it

Photos in your basket. Photos you remove from your basket before ordering are deleted from storage after about a week. A basket you haven’t added to for 90 days is emptied, and its photos are deleted a week after that. Adding a photo resets the 90 days for the whole basket, so a basket you are still filling stays as long as you keep coming back.

Orders from our shop. The working files we print from (a copy of each original and the prints made from it) are deleted 30 days after we post your order; the 30 days let us reprint a package lost in the post. We keep the photos you uploaded, exactly as you uploaded them, and a resized copy of each for the photo page to show, so that the QR code keeps working. We keep those until you ask us to delete them: email [email protected] from the address you ordered with and tell us which photos, which orders, or simply “everything”. Their QR codes will then say the photo was removed at its owner’s request. Prints already in someone’s hands can’t be recalled.

Orders from another app. We keep the photos only to print and post them, and delete every one of them, with the prints and any postcard photographs, 30 days after we post the order. Anything the app keeps is covered by the app’s privacy policy, not this one.

Order records (what was bought, what was paid, and where it went) we keep for as long as tax and accounting law requires, even after the photos are deleted.

Your choices

• Leave the location out. Remove it from a photo before uploading and the back will have no map, place or coordinates.
• See, correct or delete your information. Email [email protected] from the address you ordered with. Deleting your photos also switches off their QR pages; prints already in someone’s hands can’t be recalled.
• Switch off a photo page. Email us with the link.

Depending on where you live, you may have further rights, such as to receive a copy of your information or to object to how it is used. We will honour them, and we won’t treat you differently for using them. We do not sell personal information or share it for targeted advertising. To make a request, email us from the address you ordered with; we may ask you to confirm it is you before acting on it, and we will reply within 45 days.

Security

We keep photos in private storage that is never public. The QR page and our own tools reach them through signed links that expire. A photo sent to the enhancement service is held there, without its location or other details, behind a long random link until that service deletes it. Card details never touch our servers. Sign-in links and the code in your browser are stored only in scrambled (hashed) form, and every connection to our sites is encrypted. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that affects you, we will tell you.

Children

The shop is for people aged 13 and over, and we don’t knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you think a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it. Photos of children are of course welcome — the advice about location is worth reading first.

Where your information is kept

We are based in Pennsylvania, in the United States, and currently ship to US addresses only. Your information is stored and processed in the United States, and the services listed above may process it in other countries.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and if the change is significant we will say so on the site or by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions or requests: [email protected], or by post to Crystal Bay Creative, LLC, 106 W 3rd Ave, Suite 101, Trappe, PA 19426, USA.

See also our Terms of Use.