Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 5, 2026

Calorie Tracker ("the App") is designed with privacy in mind. This policy explains what data is processed by the App, where that data is stored, and which third-party services are used for specific features.

1. Data Stored Locally on Your Device

The App stores your tracking data locally on your device using iOS storage:

• Meal entries and nutrients
• Exercise entries and calorie burn history
• Goal settings and nutrient targets
• Tracked nutrient preferences
• PCC menu cache and related app preferences
• Onboarding and app customization settings

2. iCloud Private Sync (CloudKit)

If your iCloud account is available, the App can sync app-state data through your private CloudKit database to keep data consistent across your Apple devices. This includes saved entries, goals, archives, and preferences needed to restore your tracker state.

CloudKit data is associated with your Apple ID and managed under Apple's iCloud privacy and security model.

3. Health Data (Apple Health)

If you connect Apple Health, the App reads the following data to calculate and adjust goals:

• Biological sex — for BMR calculation
• Date of birth — to calculate age for BMR
• Height — for BMR calculation
• Body mass (weight) — for BMR calculation
• Active energy burned — to adjust your daily calorie goal based on activity

The App does not write data to Apple Health. Health data is used in-app for BMR and goal calculations.

4. Motion & Fitness (Step Count)

With permission, the App reads step count from the device pedometer to estimate activity burn and adjust your daily calorie goal.

5. Camera and Photo Library

The App can use camera or photo-library access for:

• Barcode scanning — to detect barcode values for food lookup.
• AI plate portion estimates — plate photos are analyzed with selected menu items to estimate portions.
• AI food photo / nutrition-label scan — food photos or nutrition labels are analyzed to create draft entries.

6. Data Sent to External Services

The App makes limited network requests for features:

• USDA FoodData Central (via backend proxy) — your search query is sent to our Firebase backend and then to USDA.
• Open Food Facts — scanned barcode numbers are sent to Open Food Facts to retrieve nutrition data.
• PCC Dining Nutrislice API — menu data is fetched from Nutrislice endpoints.
• Google Gemini (via backend) — for AI plate estimates and AI food/label analysis, the App sends image data and feature-specific food context to backend endpoints that call Gemini.
• Apple CloudKit (private database) — used for app-state sync when iCloud is available.

The App does not require creating an in-app account. Requests may still include technical metadata such as IP address, timestamps, and device/network headers as part of normal web and cloud operation.

7. Analytics & Tracking

The App does not include third-party advertising SDKs and does not sell personal data. We use limited technical logging for reliability and debugging of backend features.

8. Children

The App is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent version. Continued use of the App after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact

For questions about this Privacy Policy or the App's data practices, contact the developer through the app's listed support channel.