Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal data HealthyBite collects, why, who receives it, how long it is kept, and the choices and rights you have. It covers the website at healthybite.app and the HealthyBite apps for iPhone and Android (together, the “Service”).

Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy also covers your dietary and health information. It is written for the Washington, Nevada and Connecticut health-data laws, and it applies wherever you live.

1. Who we are

HealthyBite is run by the operator of HealthyBite (“we”, “us”, “our”), based in the United States. We decide how and why your personal data is used, so under the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we are the “controller”.

Contact us about privacy at Healthybiteapp@gmail.com. That address is also how you exercise your rights (section 11).

2. What we collect, and where it comes from

Most of what HealthyBite knows comes from you. We don’t buy data about you, and we don’t get it from data brokers. Items marked sensitive get extra protection (section 4).

Dietary profile — sensitive (health and religious belief)

The allergies and intolerances you avoid, your severe-allergy note, lifestyle choices (such as vegan), diet patterns (such as keto or low-FODMAP), and religious food rules (such as halal, kosher or Jain). Also an optional profile photo you add. Source: you. Optional: yes; the app works without it, but marks need it.

As a guest, this stays on your device and we never receive it. If you sign in, it is stored with your account only if you give separate consent (section 4). If you don’t, it stays on that device only.

Account details

Your email address, your account ID (a random string), when the account was created, and how you sign in. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your name, email address and profile-photo link with us. If you sign in with Apple, Apple shares the email address you choose to share (which can be a private relay address Apple creates) and, the first time only, your name. Your password is handled by Google Firebase Authentication; our servers never receive it. Source: you, and Google or Apple if you sign in with them. Optional: yes. You can use HealthyBite without an account.

Your public name

The name shown on things you post: a name you choose, or a pseudonym such as “Diner 3FA2” made from your account ID. Source: you. Optional: yes; the pseudonym is the default.

Choices and records

• Age check result. Whether you said you are 18 or older, and the date you answered. We ask for your birth month and year, but we don’t store them.
• Consents. Which version of the Terms you accepted and when; whether you agreed to store your dietary profile with your account, and when; and when you accepted the Community Guidelines.
• Your blocked list. The account IDs of people you have blocked.

Source: you. These are kept on your device and, when you are signed in, with your account.

Saved places and activity

Your SafeList (saved restaurants, with their name, address and how far away they were), your own ratings, and which places you have rated. On your device only, the app also keeps restaurants you have recently seen or opened (up to 500), unsent review drafts, cached images and review summaries, your theme and sort settings, and a tally of the cuisines you save. That tally never leaves your device. Source: your use of the app. When you are signed in, your SafeList and ratings sync to your account.

Content you post — public

Reviews (text, title, stars, the dishes you had and how they went, and up to three photos), “helpful” votes, answers to a restaurant’s safety scorecard, dishes you add to a menu, and menu photos you add. Source: you. Optional: yes. See section 7 for what others can see.

Photos

• Menu scans (HealthyBite Plus). A photo you take of a printed menu. It is sent to Google Gemini to read (section 5). We don’t keep it unless you choose to add it to the restaurant’s menu photos.
• Review and menu photos. Photos you choose to post. They are public.
• Profile photo. Part of your dietary profile, handled the same way.

The app uses your camera or photo library only when you choose to take or pick a photo.

Location — sensitive (precise location)

Your device’s location, with your permission, or an address you type. Optional: yes; you can type an address instead. See section 8.

Subscription details

If you buy HealthyBite Plus, the purchase is made through the Apple App Store or Google Play, and that store handles payment. We receive and store only what we need to know whether your subscription is active: a flag, its expiry date, the product, which store, and an identifier the store uses for the subscription itself. We keep a link between that identifier and your account, so one purchase can’t be claimed by several accounts. We never receive or store your card number, billing address, or any other payment credential.

Reports and messages

When you report a review, photo, dish or restaurant, we receive the restaurant, the item, the reason and your message. The report does not include who you are. When you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write.

Technical data

Our server sees your IP address with each request. We hold it in memory for a few minutes to limit abuse, and the app doesn’t write it to a log. Our hosting provider’s platform logs may record request details such as IP address, time and page requested. HealthyBite sets no cookies and has no analytics or advertising tools. We don’t collect advertising IDs, contacts, or your browsing on other sites.

3. How we use it, and why (legal bases)

We use personal data only for the purposes below. For each one we give the legal basis under the GDPR, which matters if you are in the EU, UK or Switzerland.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights, and you can object (section 11). We don’t use your data for advertising. We don’t make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

4. Health, belief and location data

Your dietary profile can reveal health conditions (such as celiac disease or a peanut allergy) and religious belief (such as keeping halal or kosher). Laws such as the GDPR, Washington’s My Health My Data Act and Connecticut’s privacy law treat this as sensitive data. So we handle it like this:

• Guests: it stays on your device. We never receive it.
• Signed in: we store it with your account only after you give explicit consent, on a separate screen with an unticked box. If you say no, it stays on that device only.
• Withdrawing consent: in the app, go to Profile and switch off the privacy setting that stores your dietary profile with your account. We then remove the profile from your account’s cloud copy and keep it on that device only. Withdrawing doesn’t affect anything done before.
• On reviews: your restrictions are published only if you tick “Show what I avoid on this review (public)” for that review. It is off by default.
• Never sold, never used for ads, and never sent to an AI provider.

Precise location is also sensitive in several US states. We use it only after you allow it, only to find restaurants, and we don’t keep a history of it (section 8).

More detail on health data is in our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.

5. AI processing

HealthyBite uses two outside services to read menus and summarize reviews. Here is exactly what they receive.

What goes to Google Gemini

• Review text, without names or account IDs, to write each restaurant’s review summary. A review may describe a health experience, so please don’t put personal details in one.
• Menu photos you scan (HealthyBite Plus), with the names of dishes we already know at that restaurant, so it can read the menu.
• A rounded area, for finding restaurants where map data is thin: the center of a grid square about 1.4 miles across and the area’s name. Not your exact location.
• Restaurant information: names, addresses and text from restaurants’ websites, to find and read menus. Gemini may look these up using Google Search; when it does, the menu shows the pages and searches it used.

What never goes to an AI provider

Your dietary profile, allergies, severe-allergy note, email, name, account ID and exact location. The ✓ / ⚠ / ✕ marks are worked out on your device by ordinary code that compares a dish’s ingredients with your profile.

Spoonacular

Spoonacular receives dish names only, such as “shrimp and grits”, to look up typical ingredients. Nothing about you.

Training and Google’s handling

We do not train AI models on your data. Google processes what we send under its Gemini API terms. It may retain it for a limited period for abuse monitoring and, depending on the service tier, to improve its services. These requests come from our server, so Google and Spoonacular don’t see your IP address.

AI review summaries are labeled as AI-generated in the app, and dish marks are labeled as estimates. AI can be wrong. Always confirm with the restaurant.

6. Who receives data

We don’t sell personal data. We share it only with the service providers below, who process it for us; with the public, when you post; with the app stores, for subscriptions; and with authorities when the law requires it.

Requests to Geoapify, Overpass, Spoonacular and Gemini come from our server, so those providers don’t see your IP address. Our providers’ terms limit what they may do with the data to providing their service to us, except that Google may retain Gemini data as described in section 5. We choose providers whose terms protect your data at least as well as this policy.

Requests your browser makes directly

A few things are loaded by your browser or app straight from another company. Each sees your IP address and what it serves, under its own privacy policy:

• Esri serves the satellite map on a restaurant’s page, so it learns the area you are viewing.
• Google (www.gstatic.com) serves the Firebase software the app uses to sign you in and sync.
• Wikimedia Commons serves some restaurant pictures.
• Restaurant websites and other image hosts serve other restaurant pictures. We tell your browser not to send which page you came from.
• Apple Maps or Google Maps open if you tap for directions, with the restaurant’s location.
• Google sign-in, if you use it, happens on Google’s own pages.
• Sign in with Apple, if you use it, happens in Apple’s own sign-in sheet. When you delete your account, we ask Apple to revoke HealthyBite’s access to your Apple ID.

The app’s update component comes from Capgo, but it sends nothing to Capgo; updates come from our own server.

Other disclosures

We may disclose data if the law requires it, to respond to valid legal process, to protect someone’s life or safety, or to report child sexual abuse material as US law requires. If HealthyBite is sold or transferred, your data would go to the new operator under this policy, and we would tell you first.

7. Public content and your public name

Anyone can see, without signing in: reviews (public name, text, title, stars, dishes and photos, dates, and helpful counts), dishes you add to a menu, menu photos you add, and a restaurant’s AI review summary. A review photo may be used as the restaurant’s picture. Safety-scorecard answers are public with your account ID, but not your name.

• No email address is ever shown. Not as a name, and not anywhere else.
• Pseudonym by default. Unless you set a public name, you appear as “Diner” and four characters, such as “Diner 3FA2”.
• Account ID. Public items carry your account ID, a random string, so other diners can block you. It doesn’t reveal who you are.
• Restrictions on reviews are shown only if you opted in for that review (section 4).

You can delete your reviews at any time. Anything public may already have been seen or copied by others before you delete it.

8. Location

• When we ask. Only after you have answered the age question and accepted the Terms. If you have done both before, the app finds your location when it opens. You can say no and type an address instead, and you can turn location off in your device or browser settings at any time.
• What it is used for. Finding restaurants near you and showing distances. Your location goes from your device to our server and to Geoapify. For restaurant map data and for AI discovery, it is first rounded to a grid square.
• No history. We don’t keep a record of where you have been. Our shared search cache stores the center of the grid square (about 1.4 miles across), not your coordinates. We also count searches per area of about 7 miles across, with no account ID, to see where coverage is thin.
• Saved places keep the restaurant’s address and how far away it was when you saw it.

We never use your location in the background. We don’t use it to place geofences.

9. International transfers

We are in the United States, and most of our providers process data in the United States. Geoapify and the main public Overpass server are in Germany. If you use HealthyBite from the EU, UK or Switzerland, your data is transferred to the United States.

Where a provider is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (and its UK and Swiss extensions), we rely on that certification. Otherwise, we rely on the Standard Contractual Clauses in that provider’s data processing terms. You can ask us for more detail.

10. How long we keep data

We keep data only as long as we need it for the purposes above. Where the answer is “until you delete it”, that is what we do: we don’t delete it on a schedule before then.

To delete your account, see how to delete your account. It lists what is deleted and what is kept.

11. Your rights

We offer the rights below to everyone, wherever you live.

If you are in the EU, UK or Switzerland

You have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, restrict how we use it, receive it in a portable format, object to our use of it, and withdraw consent at any time. You can also complain to a data protection authority, such as the one where you live (EU authorities, the UK ICO). We would like the chance to help first.

If you are in the United States

Depending on your state, you have the right to know and access the personal data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, get a portable copy, and opt out of its sale, of targeted advertising, and of profiling that has legal or similarly significant effects. We do none of those three things, so there is nothing to opt out of. You also have the right to appeal if we turn down a request.

How to use your rights

• In the app: “Download my data” in Profile gives you a copy. Delete account is under Profile → Profile Settings → Account & Security. Switch off storing your dietary profile with your account in Profile. You can change your profile and public name directly, and delete your own reviews and photos.
• By email: write to Healthybiteapp@gmail.com from the email address on your account and say what you’d like.
• Verification: we confirm a request by its coming from your account’s email address, or from inside the app while you are signed in. We may ask for a little more if we can’t tell it is you.
• An authorized agent may ask for you. We’ll ask for proof that you gave them permission, and may check with you.
• Timing: we reply within 45 days. If we need more time, we’ll tell you why, and take no more than another 45 days. For EU, UK and Swiss users we reply within one month, extendable by two months for complex requests.
• Appeals: if we turn down your request, reply with “Appeal” in the subject. We’ll answer within 45 days. If we still say no, you can complain to your state Attorney General. Find your Attorney General.
• No discrimination. Using your rights never changes the price or quality of the Service for you.

12. Opt-out signals and tracking

Global Privacy Control (GPC). We don’t sell or share personal data for targeted advertising, so a GPC signal has nothing to switch off today. If that ever changed, we would honor GPC as a request to opt out of sale and sharing.

Do Not Track. We don’t track you across websites, so we treat every visitor as if Do Not Track were on, and the signal changes nothing.

Other parties. No advertising networks or analytics companies collect information about you through HealthyBite, over time or across sites. The only other parties your browser contacts are those listed in section 6, under “Requests your browser makes directly”.

13. Age and children

HealthyBite is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use it.

• When you first open the app, we ask for your birth month and year. We keep only the result (18 or over) and the date you answered. We don’t store your birth date.
• If the answer is under 18, the app blocks use on that device, clears its data there, and, if you are signed in, deletes your account.
• A parent or guardian may use HealthyBite on their own device to choose where the family eats.
• If you believe someone under 18 has given us personal data, email Healthybiteapp@gmail.com with the subject “Child privacy”. We’ll delete it.

14. Security

All traffic is encrypted with HTTPS. Database rules let only you read or change your own account record, and stop anyone, including you, from changing a subscription status from the app. Reviews, dishes and photos can only be written through our server, which checks them first. Passwords are handled by Google Firebase Authentication and never reach our server. No system is perfectly secure, so we can’t promise that nothing will ever go wrong.

If a data breach affects your personal data, we will notify you, and the authorities, as the law requires.

Found a security problem? See our security contact.

15. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top and tell you in the app. If a change is material, we will ask you to agree again in the app before it applies to you. We will never treat simply continuing to use HealthyBite as consent to use your health or other sensitive data in a new way. That always needs your fresh, explicit consent.

16. Contact

Questions, requests or complaints about privacy: Healthybiteapp@gmail.com.

Related pages: Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Delete your account.