What we store about you
When you sign in, we keep these in our database:
- Your name, email address and profile picture, as Google shares them when you sign in.
- Your chef handle and, if you upload one, your own profile photo.
- Your allergen profile: the “free of” filters you choose. This tells us about your allergies, and we use it to filter your deck.
- The recipes you add. These are public.
- Which meals you skipped or chose, the meals you saved, and your activity points.
- Your notifications and, if you allow them, your push subscription.
- Your sign-in sessions, including the IP address and browser details of the device you signed in on.
If you browse without signing in, we do not create an account for you and none of the above is stored.
The app also keeps a few things in your browser's local storage, on this device only: your allergen filter choices when you are signed out, a recipe you shared before signing in, an unfinished meal draft, the Chef Mode mute setting and your last voice transcript. Clearing this site's data in your browser removes them.
Outside services we use
The Meal Game runs on a few outside services. Each one only receives what it needs for its job. We do not sell your data or share it with advertisers, and we do not use analytics or tracking tools.
Always in use
- Vercel
- Hosts the website and runs our server code, so it handles every page request, including your IP address and browser details.
- MongoDB Atlas
- Our database, hosted in the EU. It holds everything listed under “What we store about you” and all public recipes.
- Signs you in. Google learns that you signed in to The Meal Game and shares your name, email address and profile picture with us.
- Upstash Redis
- Short-lived counters keyed to your account that stop the app from being overloaded, a 24 hour cache of ingredient searches, and a file you share into the app from another app, held for at most 5 minutes while it is handed over.
Only when you use a feature
- Anthropic
- When you import a recipe, Anthropic (Claude) reads the recipe text: what you type or paste, the text of a web page you import (our server fetches that page for you), the text we pull from a PDF, Word or Excel file on our own server, or the text of a voice note. To suggest allergen tags, Anthropic receives the ingredient names. We do not send your name or email address with these requests.
- OpenAI
- A voice note you record to add a recipe is sent to OpenAI to turn speech into text. That is all OpenAI receives. We do not send your name or email address with it.
- Cloudinary
- Stores the profile photo you upload, so it can be shown on your chef page.
- Open Food Facts
- Receives the words you type when you search for an ingredient, so it can suggest ingredient names.
- Your browser's push service
- If you turn on notifications, your browser gives us a push address run by its maker (such as Google, Apple or Mozilla). The notifications we send pass through that service to reach your device.
- Your browser's speech recognition
- Chef Mode voice commands use the speech recognition built into your browser. Depending on the browser, its maker (such as Google or Apple) may process that audio. We do not receive or store it.
Sharing a meal
When you share a meal through WhatsApp or your phone's share menu, the message goes from your device to the app you pick. We do not read or store it.
Your choices
- Delete your account at any time from your profile. This removes your account, allergen profile, sessions, swipes, saved meals, notifications, push subscriptions and the recipes you added from our database.
- A profile photo you uploaded is deleted from Cloudinary when you delete your account, and your old photo is deleted when you upload a new one. If anything is left behind, email us and we will remove it.
- Turn off notifications in your profile or in your browser settings.
- Email us to ask for a copy of your data.
Age
Anyone can use The Meal Game without an account, at any age. To create an account, you need to be at least 16, or have permission from a parent or guardian.
Changes
If we change how we handle data, we update this page and the date at the top.
Contact
Questions about your data? Email privacy@themealgame.com.