Privacy policy

The short version

Meal AI has no login screen and no password. It signs you in anonymously so the server can tell one install from another, sends the photographs you take of your kitchen to be identified, and keeps your pantry on your device. There are no ads, no analytics, and no trackers.

Photographs you take

When you scan a shelf, the photographs you take are resized on the device and sent to Anthropic's Claude API over an encrypted connection, by way of our own server function. Claude identifies the ingredients it can see and returns a list.

• Photographs are sent only for a scan you start. The camera is never used in the background.
• They are transmitted for identification and are not stored on our server. The server function that handles a scan performs no writes at all: it reads recipes, calls Claude, and keeps nothing.
• A copy of each scan's image is written to your device so you can go back and look at what was identified. That copy never leaves the phone and is deleted with the scan.
• Camera and photo library access are used only for the images you deliberately capture or choose. No other photo is read.

The anonymous sign-in

Meal AI signs you in anonymously through Supabase. This creates an identifier and a session token for your install so the server can verify a request is coming from the app. It carries no email address, no password, no name, and nothing that identifies you as a person. There is no sign-up screen because there is no account to make.

What stays on your device

• Your pantry: everything a scan added, what you edited, and what cooking has since removed.
• Your saved recipes, your scan history, and the images from those scans.
• Your preferences: time limit, servings, and your avoid list.

All of it is stored in the app's own folder on your phone. Meal AI does not sync, and none of the above is copied to a server.

How recipes are found

To suggest recipes, the app sends the names of the ingredients in your pantry and your stated preferences to our server function. That function looks for matches in a shared, anonymous recipe corpus, the same read-only corpus that powers OpenPantry's Explore tab. It then asks Claude to work up the results. Ingredient names and preferences are what travel; nothing that identifies you does.

Third parties

• Anthropic (Claude API): identifies ingredients in your photographs and generates recipes. anthropic.com/privacy
• Supabase: provides the anonymous session and hosts the server function and the shared recipe corpus. supabase.com/privacy

Meal AI runs on the same Supabase project as OpenPantry, so it can read that app's recipe corpus. Its access to that corpus is read-only.

What we don't collect

• No email address, name, password, or account you have to create.
• No analytics SDK, crash reporter, tracking pixel, or advertising identifier. No App Tracking Transparency prompt, because there is nothing to track.
• No contacts, calendar, microphone, location, or health data. The app requests none of these permissions.
• No payment information, because there is nothing to buy.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes your pantry, your saved recipes, your scan history and the scan images, because all of it is on the device. To have the anonymous session record removed from our side as well, email the address below.

Children

Meal AI is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes and contact

We will update this page when the policy changes and bump the date at the top. Material changes will also be noted in the app.

Questions? Email [email protected].

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