Privacy Policy

Last updated: 8 November 2026

Draft. This text has not been reviewed yet and may change before the app is released.

Recipe Optimizer is an Android app for collecting recipes and reading them in your own style. This policy explains which personal data the app and this website process, why, who else is involved, and what rights you have.

Who is responsible

The controller under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is Christoph Altmann, Hallergasse, 1110 Vienna, Austria. For any question or request about your data, write to christoph.altmann.dev@gmail.com, in English or German.

What we store and why

Your account. You sign in with Google. Google gives us your name, email address, a link to your profile picture and your Google account ID; we also record when you signed up and last signed in.
Your content. Recipes you import or write (title, description, ingredients, steps, servings, times, categories, image and the link they came from), your Templates and all their versions, the Renditions and translations the app creates for you, your meal plan and your settings (language, units, Default Template).
Shared Recipe Books. Your Recipe Book carries your name from your Google profile (its default name contains your first name). When you join someone else's Recipe Book, we store your name and role there, and your email address, which only the owner of that book can see.
AI usage, Trial and subscription. How many AI Operations you have used and have left, when your Trial started and ends, and your subscription status (see Trial and payments).
Technical logs. When the app calls our server functions, Google Cloud records technical logs: time, IP address, device and app details, which function was called and error messages (which can contain short parts of a recipe). We use them to keep the service secure and to fix errors.
Emails. If you write to us, we use your message and email address to answer you.

We process your account, content, sharing, AI and subscription data to provide the app you signed up for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Technical logs, the Trial and purchase records described below and the website's access data are based on our legitimate interest in running the service securely and preventing misuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Emails are handled under Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR, depending on what they are about.

You need a Google account to sign in, and without signing in you cannot use the app. Everything else, such as which recipes you add, is up to you. We do not sell your data, do not use it for advertising, and do not make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

AI processing

Recipe Optimizer uses Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. Our server (not your phone) sends Anthropic:

For every Rendition: the recipe (title, description, categories, servings, ingredients and steps), the text of the Template and your target language. A Rendition in your Default Template is created automatically after each import, and again whenever you ask for one, also for recipes in Recipe Books shared with you.
For an import with AI (when the app cannot read a recipe by itself): the text it could not read (the web page's main text, the Instagram caption, the text you pasted, or the text recognised in a photo), your Default Template and your target language. For a photo with almost no readable text, the photo itself is sent.

We do not send your name, email address or account ID, and Anthropic does not see your IP address. Anything you write into a recipe or a Template is sent as it is, so please don't put personal details there that you don't want processed this way.

Our contract partner is Anthropic Ireland, Limited, Dublin, Ireland. It processes the data only on our behalf, under its Data Processing Addendum (Art. 28 GDPR). The processing takes place in the USA (by Anthropic PBC) and possibly in other countries outside the EU, through Anthropic's sub-processors. These transfers are protected by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses that are part of that addendum (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). Under its Commercial Terms, Anthropic may not train its models on this data. Anthropic deletes inputs and results within 30 days, unless the law requires it to keep them longer or a request is flagged as a possible breach of its Usage Policy (then up to 2 years).

Trial and payments

Subscriptions are bought and paid through Google Play. Google sells them on our behalf (Google Commerce Limited, Ireland) and processes your payment under its own privacy policy; we never see your payment details. When you buy, the app gives Google Play your internal Recipe Optimizer user ID so that the purchase can be matched to your account. Google Play then tells our server about the purchase, and we store with your account: the product, whether it is active and will renew, when it started and ends, Google Play's purchase token and your remaining AI Operations (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Google Play also gives us sales reports (for example order number, product, price, date and the buyer's country), which we keep for as long as Austrian tax law requires, usually 7 years (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).

Two small records are kept even after you delete your account (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR: our legitimate interest in preventing repeated Trials and the misuse of subscriptions):

Trial record. So that each Google account gets only one free Trial, we keep a one-way hash of your Google account ID together with your Trial's start, end and remaining AI Operations. It contains neither the ID itself nor your email address, but it is matched again if the same Google account signs up again.
Purchase record. For each Google Play purchase, a one-way hash of its purchase token and the internal user ID of the account it belongs to. This makes sure a subscription is used by only one account, and lets you move it to a new account if you restore it after deleting your old one.

You can object to this (see Your rights).

On your device

Text in recipe photos is recognised on your phone (Google ML Kit); the photo is not sent to Google for this. ML Kit sends Google technical usage data (device model, Android and app version, performance figures and an installation ID). The photo is only uploaded when you save it as the recipe's image, or when AI has to read it (see AI processing).
To read an Instagram post you share into the app, the app opens the post in a hidden browser on your phone. Instagram (Meta) sees this visit, with your IP address and device details, as if you had opened the post in a browser without logging in; Instagram's privacy policy applies to it.
Recipe websites you import from, and recipe links in an Instagram caption, are loaded from your phone, so those websites see your IP address, and their own privacy policies apply. The recipe's image is downloaded from the website and stored with the recipe.
The first time it needs them, the app downloads its fonts from Google Fonts; Google sees your IP address (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR: displaying the app as designed).
The app keeps a copy of your data on your phone so that it also works offline. That copy stays on the phone after you sign out or delete your account, until you uninstall the app or clear its storage.

When you share a recipe, the app creates a copy of it with a Public Link. Anyone who has the link can read that copy (title, description, ingredients, steps, image, the link to its source and when it was shared), also without the app, and can pass the link on. The copy does not show your name; it contains an internal user ID that does not reveal who you are. Later changes to your recipe don't change the copy. Public Links work until you delete your account; to remove a single one earlier, write to us. People who saved the recipe to their own Recipe Book keep their copy.

When you invite someone to your Recipe Book, every member sees its recipes, its name, your name and the names of the other members; Editors can also add, change and delete recipes. As the owner, you also see the members' email addresses. When a member leaves or is removed, their own data in that book (their Renditions, translations and email address) is deleted.

Service providers

Google (Google Ireland Limited, Ireland, and Google LLC, USA), Firebase: sign-in, database, file storage, server functions and this website, as our processor under the Firebase Data Processing and Security Terms. The database, files and server functions are in Frankfurt, Germany (europe-west3). Sign-in (Firebase Authentication) is processed in the USA, and this website is delivered through Google's worldwide network. Google LLC is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which the European Commission has decided that it ensures an adequate level of protection (Art. 45 GDPR); otherwise the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in Google's terms apply.
Google as an independent controller, under its own privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy): signing in with your Google account, Google Play (purchases and payments), Google Fonts and ML Kit's usage data.
Anthropic Ireland, Limited, Ireland, with Anthropic PBC, USA: AI processing as described under AI processing.

We do not pass your data to anyone else, except where the law obliges us to, for example on the order of a court or authority (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR), or where we need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

This website

This website sets no cookies and uses no analytics. Firebase Hosting (Google) processes your IP address and browser details to deliver the pages and keeps IP addresses for a few months to detect abuse; we do not store them ourselves (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR: delivering the website securely). A Public Link page loads the recipe directly from Firebase. If the recipe's image is still a link to the website it came from, your browser loads the image from there. A Public Link page also links to the recipe's source; if you follow it, you leave this website, and the other website's own privacy policy applies.

How long we keep data

We keep your data as long as you have an account. When you delete your account in the app (Settings → Delete account), we delete right away: your account, your Recipe Book with its recipes and images (also for its members), your Templates, Renditions, translations, meal plan and settings, your Trial and subscription status, your memberships in other Recipe Books with your data there, and your Public Links. Recipes you added to someone else's Recipe Book stay in that book, and copies that others saved to their own Recipe Books are theirs.

Kept after that: the Trial and purchase records (as long as we offer Recipe Optimizer) and the sales reports for tax (see Trial and payments). Technical logs are deleted after 30 days. Anthropic deletes AI inputs within 30 days (see AI processing). Google removes deleted sign-in data from its backups within 180 days and keeps sign-in IP addresses for a few weeks. Emails are kept as long as needed to deal with your request and any legal claims arising from it. See also Delete your account.

Security

We protect your data with technical and organisational measures appropriate to the risk (Art. 32 GDPR). All connections between the app, this website and our servers are encrypted, and Google encrypts the stored data. Access rules on the server make sure that only you can read your account, settings and Templates, that only the members of a Recipe Book can read its recipes, and that a shared copy can be read only through its Public Link (see Sharing). Trial, AI Operations and subscription status can only be changed by our server functions, and the AI provider's access key stays on our server, never on your phone. No system is completely secure, so please keep your phone and your Google account protected too.

Your rights

You have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict its processing and to receive it in a portable format. You can delete your account and data yourself at any time in the app. For everything else, write to christoph.altmann.dev@gmail.com. We answer within one month; if a request is complex, we may extend this by up to two more months and tell you why (Art. 12(3) GDPR). To protect your data, we may ask you to write from the email address of the Google account you signed in with.

Uninstalling the app stops it from processing data on your phone, but it does not delete your account or the data stored on our servers: delete your account for that.

Right to object: where we process data based on our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), you can object at any time for reasons arising from your particular situation. We then stop, unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, or need the data to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

You can also complain to the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde, Barichgasse 40–42, 1030 Vienna, dsb.gv.at) or to the authority of the EU country where you live or work.

Children

You may use Recipe Optimizer only if you are old enough under the law of your country to agree to our terms and to the processing of your data (in Austria, 14). We do not knowingly process the data of younger children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has created an account without being old enough, write to christoph.altmann.dev@gmail.com, and we will delete the account and its data.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Before important changes take effect, we will tell you by email to the address of your Google account.