Privacy Policy

This is a translation for your convenience. If the two versions differ, the German version prevails.

Who is responsible

We are not required to appoint a data protection officer; for any privacy matter you can reach us directly at the address above.

What data we process

Account data

Your user ID, email address and, if provided, your name. This comes from signing in with Google or Apple. We never store a password.

Profile details

Goals, age, sex, height, weight, activity level, diet, allergies, intolerances, dislikes, cooking time, kitchen equipment and household size.

Content created while using the app

Weekly plans, recipes, shopping lists, pantry items, diary entries, favourites and ratings.

Photos

Pictures of meals, fridge contents or receipts that you take or choose yourself.

Imported recipes

Links, captions and videos that you share with or pick in PlateBuddy for import, and the resulting recipe with a link to the original, the creator's name and the platform.

Subscription data

Whether a subscription is active, which product it is and when it ends. We never see your payment details — only Apple or Google does, depending on where you bought it.

Technical data

Device type, operating system version, app version, language and error logs that arise during operation.

The Android app additionally keeps a sign-in log that records the technical steps of a sign-in. It contains no passwords, tokens or email addresses, stays on your device and only leaves it if you copy it or send it to us yourself.

Information about your health

Weight, goals, allergies and intolerances are special categories of personal data under Article 9 GDPR. Without them the app cannot create a safe plan — allergies always take priority over any other preference.

We process this information only on the basis of your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) GDPR, which you give during onboarding and can withdraw at any time in your profile. Withdrawal takes effect immediately and does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing.

What we use the data for

• Providing the app, your account and syncing between your devices — to perform our contract with you, Article 6(1)(b) GDPR.
• Creating weekly plans, recipe suggestions, shopping lists and insights — also to perform the contract.
• Processing your health information for safe suggestions tailored to you — based on your consent.
• Detecting and fixing errors and preventing abuse — based on our legitimate interest in stable, secure operation, Article 6(1)(f) GDPR.
• Handling and verifying your subscription — to perform the contract.

Photos and AI analysis

When you photograph a meal, your fridge or a receipt, the image is sent encrypted to an AI service and analysed there. What comes back are estimated nutrition values or recognised foods.

The photo itself stays on your device. It is not uploaded to your cloud account, not used for advertising and not released for training AI models.

All nutrition values are estimates from an image analysis, not measurements. They are a guide and do not replace a laboratory analysis.

Recipe import from links and videos

You can share a link to a recipe post or a recipe video you saved yourself with PlateBuddy, or pick it in the app. PlateBuddy turns it into a recipe in your account.

Link

PlateBuddy reads the public caption, the creator's name and the preview image through the platform's official embed or the post's public page — without signing in and without downloading the video. The link and caption are sent to the AI service. If you share via the share sheet, the app sends the link to our server, which builds the recipe and saves it directly in your account.

Video

A video is analysed only on your iPhone. iOS speech recognition converts the sound to text on the device, and text recognition reads on-screen captions. Only these texts and up to 20 downscaled still images, together under 1 MB, are sent to the AI service. The video itself is never uploaded. Temporary files are deleted right after the analysis; a video left via the share sheet is deleted after 24 hours at the latest.

People in the video

Videos and still images may show the face and voice of the creator or other people. They are processed only briefly to recognise the recipe. People are not recognised or identified, and neither still images nor the transcript are stored — neither by us nor by the AI service. Only the finished recipe is saved.

Counting

So that import limits apply, our server counts per account how many imports succeeded — only the number, no content. For this, your subscription status is checked with RevenueCat.

The legal basis is the performance of our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR); the transfer to the AI service is based on your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time in your profile. Where a video contains data of other people, the brief analysis is based on the legitimate interest in being able to cook a recipe you saved yourself (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Recipe import is currently only available in the iPhone app.

Sharing in a household

When you join a household, the other members see your name, your profile picture and the content you share there: shared pantry and shopping lists, dishes you add to the shared plan, and the recipes of those dishes. Such a recipe is visible to the household as long as the dish is in the shared plan. The household only sees other recipes if you share them yourself. Your diary, your goals and your health information stay private. The legal basis is the performance of our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

If you leave the household or another member removes you, your pantry items, shopping list entries and recipes become private again and disappear for the others; dishes you added to the shared plan stay there without your recipe. When the last member leaves, the household is deleted and everything shared in it becomes private again.

Who else processes the data

We use carefully selected service providers who act only on our instructions and under data processing agreements:

• Apple — distribution of the iPhone app, Sign in with Apple, handling and billing of App Store subscriptions.
• Google — distribution of the Android app via Google Play and handling and billing of subscriptions via Google Play Billing.
• Google — only if you sign in with Google, to verify your identity.
• Rork — operating sign-in and forwarding AI requests to the AI providers below.
• Google (Gemini) and, if Google is unavailable, Anthropic (Claude) — analysing photos and creating suggestions.
• OpenAI — generating recipe photos. Only the name of the dish is sent.
• Supabase — operating the database that holds your synced content.
• Cloudflare — operating our server for recipe import from the share sheet and for counting imports.
• RevenueCat — managing your subscription status. A user ID and whether a subscription is active are transmitted — no payment details.

Transfers outside the EU

Some of these providers process data in the United States. For these transfers we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or a certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

What stays on your device

PlateBuddy saves your data locally first and therefore also works without an internet connection. Syncing to your account only serves to bring your plan back on a second device or after losing a device.

How long we keep data

Your content is kept as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, the related data is removed from the database; local data disappears when you uninstall the app.

We keep error logs only briefly and then delete them automatically. Statutory retention obligations remain unaffected; they do not apply to us for payment data, because it arises only at Apple or Google.

This website

This website does not load any third-party content: fonts, scripts and images are served directly from our server. We use no cookies, no tracking and no analytics tools.

The website is hosted by Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA). When you visit, Cloudflare processes technically necessary connection data such as your IP address, time, page requested and browser identifier in order to deliver the site and protect it against attacks. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in secure, fast operation (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). For the transfer to the United States we rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the following rights:

• Access to the data we process about you, Article 15.
• Rectification of inaccurate data, Article 16.
• Erasure of your data, Article 17.
• Restriction of processing, Article 18.
• Receiving your data in a portable format, Article 20.
• Objection to processing based on legitimate interest, Article 21.
• Withdrawal of consent you have given, at any time with effect for the future.

You can do much of this directly in the app: change your details in your profile, delete scans one by one, and remove your account with all its data in your profile under Privacy and data. For anything else, an email to help@plate-buddy.app is enough.

Right to complain

If you believe we are not processing your data lawfully, you can complain to a supervisory authority. The competent authority is the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde), Barichgasse 40—42, 1030 Vienna, dsb@dsb.gv.at.

No tracking, no ads

PlateBuddy includes no ad networks, uses no advertising IDs and creates no profiles for marketing. There is no automated decision-making with legal effect on you.

Children

PlateBuddy is intended for adults. People under 14 should only use the app with the consent of their parents or guardians.

Changes to this policy

As the app evolves, we update this policy. You can always find the current version in the app and on this page; the date at the top shows when it was last updated. We will point out significant changes in the app.