Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 30, 2026

EatingIntel ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application ("App"), which helps you log meals, track nutrition and body weight, and set calorie targets, using data from the USDA FoodData Central (FDC) database and AI-assisted food recognition, and which can optionally connect to Apple Health or Health Connect. By creating an account or using the App, you agree to this Privacy Policy. Your use of the App is also governed by our Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the App.

1. Important Disclaimers

No Medical Advice: The nutrition information and any AI-generated guidance provided by the App are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical concerns. Do not use the App for medical purposes.

Calorie Targets and Weight Goals: Suggested calorie targets are calculated automatically by the App from the food and weight you log, using a standard estimate of the energy in body-weight change. They are general estimates, not a diet prescribed for you, and they change only if you choose to accept them. Suggested targets are never below 1,200 kcal a day, but even that may not be right for you. Talk to a healthcare provider before changing how you eat if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, under 18, have or have had an eating disorder, or have a medical condition (for example diabetes or kidney disease). Stop using these features and seek help if tracking food or weight is causing you distress.

Accuracy of Information: Nutrition data comes from the FDC database and from AI estimates. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of this information. AI-generated food identifications and nutrient estimates may be wrong or incomplete; please review them before relying on them. We are not liable for inaccuracies or for any damages resulting from your use of the App.

2. What Data We Collect

Account Information

• Name/display name and email address: collected when you create an account (including via Sign in with Apple or Google) or contact us for support.
• Profile photo: if you choose to add one.

Profile Information for Nutrient Targets (optional)

• Birth year, sex, and pregnancy or breastfeeding status: if you provide them in Settings, they are used only to look up recommended daily nutrient amounts for your life stage. You can clear them at any time.

Nutrition and Meal Data

• The foods, meals, portions, notes, and nutrition goals you enter, the saved meals and recipes you create, and a history of the foods you log (used for your Recent, Frequent and Favorites lists). This data is stored in our cloud database (Google Firebase/Firestore) and synced to your account so it is available across your devices.

Weight and Goal Data (optional)

• Weigh-ins you enter, or that you choose to bring in from Apple Health or Health Connect (Section 5), and your goal weight and weekly rate.
• Values the App calculates from them: your trend weight, an estimate of the calories you burn each day, and suggested calorie targets. These are calculated by the App from your own data.
• Weight data is stored in our cloud database with your account. You can turn weight tracking off in Settings → Features.

Settings and Preferences

• Which optional features you have turned on, your weight unit, and when you last reviewed a calorie-target suggestion.

Camera and Photos

• Meal photos: if you use photo-based logging, the photo you capture or select is sent to our AI provider to identify the foods (see Section 4).
• Barcode scanning: the App uses your camera to scan product barcodes. Barcode images are processed on your device; only the resulting barcode number is used to look up a product.

Free-Text and Coaching Inputs

• The meal descriptions you type in Add food and analyze with Analyze, and the questions you ask the in-app nutrition coach, along with a summary of your goals and logged intake that the coach needs to answer, are sent to our AI provider (see Section 4).

Data Stored on Your Device

• Offline copy: the App keeps a copy of your data on your device so you can log without a connection; it syncs when you are back online.
• Home-screen widget: if you add the EatingIntel widget, today's calories eaten, your calorie goal and calories left are stored on your device for the widget to show. Anyone who can see your home screen can see these numbers. You can turn the widget off in Settings → Features.

Usage and Technical Data

• App interactions: searches, viewed items, and navigation patterns, used to improve the App.
• Device information: device type, operating system, and identifiers.
• IP address: collected temporarily for analytics, security, and performance.
• Crash reports: diagnostic data to identify and fix issues.

Advertising Data

• Google AdMob: unless you subscribe to remove ads (Section 9), the App uses Google AdMob, which may collect device identifiers, IP addresses, and usage data to serve ads. See Section 7 and Google’s Privacy Policy.

3. Why We Collect Data

• To provide App services: to store your meals and goals, deliver nutrition information, and power AI food recognition and coaching.
• To personalize targets: to look up recommended nutrient amounts for your profile and, if you use weight tracking, to show your weight trend and suggest calorie targets.
• To sync your data across your devices and safeguard it against device loss, and, if you turn it on, with Apple Health or Health Connect.
• To improve the App through analytics and diagnostics.
• For advertising via Google AdMob (for non-subscribers).
• To process subscriptions and grant ad removal.
• To ensure security and prevent fraud or unauthorized access.

4. AI Processing and Third-Party AI Providers

Several features rely on third-party artificial-intelligence providers. To provide these features, the App sends the relevant input to a provider through our secure backend (Google Cloud Functions):

• Analyze (in Add food): your typed meal description and, if used, your meal photo are sent to the AI provider to identify foods and estimate portions and nutrients.
• Photo logging: the meal image you provide is sent to the AI provider for food recognition.
• Nutrition coach: your question, plus a summary of your goals and recently logged intake, is sent to the AI provider so it can answer using your own numbers.

Our current AI providers are Anthropic (Claude) and, as an alternative, xAI (Grok). This data is processed to provide the feature and is handled under each provider’s API terms and privacy policy. See Anthropic’s Privacy Policy and xAI’s Privacy Policy. We do not use your meal photos or descriptions to serve you advertising.

Your profile details (birth year, sex, pregnancy or breastfeeding status), your weight data, and any data from Apple Health or Health Connect are not sent to AI providers. Calorie-target suggestions are calculated by the App, not by AI.

5. Apple Health and Health Connect

Connecting to Apple Health (iPhone) or Health Connect (Android) is optional and off unless you turn it on in Settings → Features and grant permission on your device. If you do:

• What the App writes: for each meal you log, its calories and nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fat, saturated fat, fiber, sugar, sodium, cholesterol, calcium, iron, potassium, and vitamins C and D); and the weights you enter in the App. When you edit or delete a meal, the App updates that day in Apple Health or Health Connect. The App only changes or removes records that it wrote.
• What the App reads: only your body weight, for example from a smart scale or another app, which is added to your weight log in the App (and therefore stored in our cloud database with your account) for days you have not logged a weight yourself.
• How we use it: only to provide these features to you. We do not use data from Apple Health or Health Connect for advertising or marketing, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with third parties (including AI providers and advertising networks) except as needed to run the App's features, as described in Section 6, or as required by law. Our staff do not read it except with your consent, to fix a security problem, or as required by law.
• Your control: you can change what the App may read or write at any time in the Health app (iPhone) or in Health Connect (Android). Turning sync off in the App stops it; data the App already wrote stays in Apple Health or Health Connect until you delete it there.

The App's use of information received from Health Connect adheres to the Health Connect Permissions policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

6. Who We Share Data With

We do not sell your personal information. We share data with the following service providers only as needed to run the App:

• Google Firebase / Google Cloud: hosts our authentication, cloud database (Firestore), file storage, and backend functions. Your account and nutrition data are stored here. See Firebase Privacy.
• AI providers (Anthropic, xAI): receive the inputs described in Section 4 to provide AI features.
• USDA FoodData Central: receives food search queries to return nutrition data. It does not receive your account identity.
• Google AdMob: serves ads to non-subscribers and may process device identifiers and usage data. AdMob does not receive your nutrition, weight, or health data. See Google’s AdMob Policies.
• Apple Health and Health Connect: only if you turn on sync, and only the data described in Section 5. This data stays on your device or in your Apple or Google health account and is governed by Apple's or Google's terms.
• Apple and Google (app stores): process subscription payments and provide receipts we use to verify your subscription. We do not receive your full payment card details.
• People you share a recipe with: when you share a recipe as a link, a copy of the recipe and your display name are stored so that anyone with the link can see them, in the App or on our website. Nothing else from your account is included. Shared links are removed when you delete your account.
• Legal obligations: we may disclose data if required by law or to protect our rights, safety, or property.

7. Google AdMob Disclosure

As required by Google, we disclose that the App uses Google AdMob to serve ads to users who have not subscribed to remove them. AdMob may collect device identifiers, IP addresses, information about your interactions with ads, and usage data to personalize and measure ads. On iPhone, the App asks for permission (Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt) before AdMob may use your device's advertising identifier to personalize ads; if you decline, you can still use the App and may see less relevant ads. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Google's consent form asks for your choices first, and you can change them later in Settings → Ad privacy choices. You can also manage ad preferences through your device settings or Google’s Ad Settings. For more details, see Google’s Privacy Policy.

8. Data Retention and Deletion

• Account and nutrition data: retained in our cloud database for as long as your account is active.
• Deleting your account: you can delete your account at any time from Settings → Account deletion: turn on Allow account deletion, then tap Delete account. This permanently removes your account and all data stored with it from our systems, including your food log, saved meals, recipes and recipe links you shared, food history, weight log, settings, and photos, and cannot be undone. It does not remove data the App already wrote to Apple Health or Health Connect; you can delete that in those apps.
• Turning features off: turning off weight tracking or calorie-target suggestions hides them but keeps your data so you can turn them back on; delete individual weigh-ins in the App, or delete your account to remove everything.
• AI inputs: meal descriptions, photos, and coach messages are transmitted to the AI provider to generate a response and are retained by that provider only as described in its policy; we do not retain your meal photos after the response is returned beyond what is needed to save your log.
• Usage and technical data: retained in anonymized form for up to 24 months for analytics, then deleted.
• Deletion requests: you may also email us (Section 13) and we will delete your personal information within 30 days unless retention is required by law.

9. Subscriptions and Payments

EatingIntel offers an optional auto-renewing subscription ("Premium") that removes ads from the App.

• Billing: payment is charged to your Apple App Store or Google Play account at confirmation of purchase. Current prices and billing periods (e.g., monthly or yearly) are shown in the App before you subscribe.
• Auto-renewal: subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends.
• Managing and canceling: you can manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store or Google Play account settings. Removing the App does not cancel a subscription.
• Refunds: purchases are handled by Apple and Google and are subject to their refund policies; we cannot directly issue refunds for store purchases.
• Ad removal: ads are removed only while a subscription is active. If a subscription lapses, AdMob ads resume.

10. User Rights

Subject to applicable laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA/CPRA), you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Delete your personal information (see Section 8).
• Restrict or object to certain processing.
• Data portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format. You can do this yourself at any time from Settings → Your data → Export my data, which gives you a complete copy (JSON) and your food log as a spreadsheet (CSV).
• Withdraw consent (e.g., for personalized ads) at any time.
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

To exercise these rights, contact us at support@eatingintel.online. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Data Security

• Encryption in transit: data between your device, our backend, and our providers is encrypted using industry-standard protocols (e.g., TLS).
• Access controls: your cloud data is scoped to your account; our security rules prevent other users from accessing it.
• App integrity: backend requests are protected by app-attestation (App Check).

No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security but are committed to protecting your data.

12. Children’s Privacy

The App is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age required in your jurisdiction), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it. The weight-tracking and calorie-target features are designed for adults; users under 18 should use them only with the guidance of a parent or healthcare provider.

13. Compliance and Contact

We comply with applicable data privacy laws, including the GDPR (for the EEA) and the CCPA/CPRA (for California residents), and relevant laws in other jurisdictions where the App is available.

For questions or to exercise your rights, contact us at:

• Email: support@eatingintel.online
• Mailing Address: EatingIntel, P.O. Box 127, Clinton, MI 49236

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. Significant changes will be reflected in the "Last Updated" date and, where required, you will be asked to review and accept the updated document in the App. By continuing to use the App, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.