Privacy Policy

🔒 Our Privacy Commitment

Mealio is engineered on a strict Local-First, Privacy-by-Design foundation: your recipes, meal planning schedules, and culinary preferences are stored exclusively on your device and are never uploaded to our servers. We believe your kitchen data and cooking habits belong solely to you.

This Privacy Policy explains what information is collected, how it is handled, and the controls you have across our iOS application and website — in plain, honest language.

📱 On-Device Data & Local Persistence

The following information is stored locally on your device using Apple's CoreData framework and is never sent to our servers:

• Personal Recipe Library — generated recipes, ingredients, structured steps, cover photos, and custom tags.
• 3-Week Meal Schedules — breakfast, lunch, and dinner calendar slots across previous, current, and future weeks.
• User Preferences — dietary restrictions (e.g., keto, low-sodium), equipment choices, and disclaimer acknowledgments.
• Daily Quota Status — on-device tracking of daily generation credits and unlocked rewards.

iCloud Backup Protection: Rebuildable local image caches (such as recipe cover thumbnails) are explicitly flagged with isExcludedFromBackup = true, ensuring Mealio never consumes your personal iCloud backup storage.

You can purge all locally stored recipes, schedules, and settings at any time by navigating to Settings → Clear All Local Data.

🤖 AI Processing with Google Gemini 3.5 Flash

Mealio leverages Google Gemini 3.5 Flash via an authenticated, secure Cloud Run AI Gateway to power its recipe discovery and cooking assistant capabilities. When you initiate an AI action, only the data required for that specific request is transmitted:

• Recipe Prompts: Dish cravings, ingredient lists, dietary requirements, and servings.
• Cooking Copilot Context: Current recipe steps and culinary questions you ask via text or voice.
• Ingredient & Cooking Photos: Selected images for ingredient recognition or doneness assessments.

Photos are processed in-memory for inference and are never permanently stored or archived by Mealio. Google processes requests under the Google Privacy Policy and Gemini API Terms.

📷 Photo Privacy & Zero Permission Storm

Mealio utilizes Apple's modern PhotosPicker framework (iOS 16+), which operates completely out-of-process in an isolated system view service.

• Zero Permission Prompts on Launch: Mealio never asks for permission to scan or read your overall photo library.
• Explicit Selection Only: The app only gains access to the individual photograph you deliberately tap and choose for ingredient identification or recipe cover customization.
• Selected images remain strictly on your device or in temporary memory during Gemini inference.

📺 Advertising & App Tracking Transparency (ATT)

To ensure every home cook can enjoy Mealio's AI features for free without forced monthly subscriptions, Mealio provides a generous daily generation quota (2 free recipes daily + 1 vision check per recipe). Users who wish to generate additional recipes beyond the daily quota may voluntarily opt into watching Google AdMob Rewarded Video Ads.

• App Tracking Transparency: When prompted by iOS, you will see Apple's standardized ATT disclosure asking whether you allow Mealio to track activity across other apps and websites for advertising purposes.
• Your Choice: You have absolute freedom to tap "Ask App not to Track" or "Allow". Your decision has zero impact on core functionality or your ability to earn rewarded video unlocks.
• Zero Data Sale: We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal recipes, culinary history, or dietary preferences to ad brokers or third parties.
• For information regarding how Google handles advertising data, review the Google Advertising Privacy Terms.

🎤 Microphone & Voice Input

When using voice prompts within the AI Copilot, audio transcription is handled using Apple's on-device Speech Recognition framework. Audio is transcribed locally whenever possible, and Mealio never records, transmits, or archives your voice recordings.

📊 Analytics & Third-Party SDKs

Mealio operates with a lightweight, clean native architecture. We do not integrate third-party invasive behavioral analytics (such as Firebase Analytics, Mixpanel, or Facebook SDK).

If you enable Apple's optional Share iPhone Analytics setting, Apple may share anonymized crash logs and general performance diagnostics via App Store Connect to help us debug application stability.

💳 Purchases & Subscriptions

If optional in-app upgrades or token packs are offered, all monetary transactions are processed securely by Apple StoreKit. Mealio never receives, processes, or stores your credit card or billing details.

👶 Children's Privacy

Mealio is designed for general audiences and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a minor has used the app without supervision, please reach out to us for complete local data clearance guidance.

🔄 Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as new features are released. Any significant updates will be reflected with a revised "Last updated" date on this page. Your continued use of Mealio after modifications indicates acceptance of the updated policy.