ChopCue
Privacy Policy
ChopCue is a guided-cooking app. It is designed to work fully offline, and you never need an account to cook. This policy explains the small amount of data the app handles and where it lives.
1. What we collect
If you never create an account, everything stays on your device and is never sent to us:
- Your recipes, custom ingredients, prep boards, checkoff state, and timers
- Your free-tier usage state and unlock status
- App preferences
If you delete the app, this local data is deleted with it.
If you create an account (optional, cooking never requires one), we store:
- An account identifier from Firebase Authentication (e.g., your email address or a sign-in provider ID, plus a Firebase user ID)
- Your email address and display name in a lookup list, so friends and family members can find you by email. Your email is shown to the friends and family members you connect with
- A private backup of your app settings, so they survive clearing the app's data or moving to a new phone. This includes your Diet & Preferences: the allergies you declare and, if you switch it on, calorie tracking and your daily calorie goal. Allergies are health information. This backup is readable only by your own account, never by other users or by our moderators, and it is deleted with your account
- With Full ChopCue, also a private backup of your recipes and your kitchen (custom ingredients, prep bundles, grocery list, pantry, spending and meal plan). This copy is not public and is separate from anything you share
If you additionally opt into community features (sharing, likes/dislikes, feedback, Explore feed submissions):
- The content you choose to share: recipes you submit to the Explore feed, likes/dislikes, feedback text, CookSnap photos and your profile photo, shown with your display name
- If you report a recipe or comment, your report together with your name and email address, so moderators can follow up
- Basic timestamps associated with that content
If you use the barcode scanner to look up a product while adding it to your grocery list, the scanned barcode number (not your name, account, or location) is sent to Open Food Facts and/or UPCitemdb to look up a product name.
If you translate a recipe step or comment, that text is sent to a translation provider to produce the translation: currently MyMemory Translated, ChopCue's always-available keyless provider; DeepL or Microsoft Translator may also be used if we've configured a key for them at build time. No account information is attached to a translation request.
If you allow website analytics, chopcue.com uses PostHog EU to collect anonymous page views, clicks, feature-demo interactions, device/browser details, and privacy-masked session replays. Analytics does not start unless you choose “Allow analytics.” Form inputs and email addresses are excluded and masked.
We do not collect your precise location, contacts, photos (beyond the ones you choose to attach to a shared recipe, your profile or a CookSnap), advertising identifiers, or browsing history.
What we never see: payment details. Purchases are processed entirely by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play). We receive only a confirmation that the one-time unlock was purchased, never your card number, billing address, or payment credentials.
2. How we use it
- Local data exists solely to make the app work on your device.
- The settings, recipe and kitchen backups exist solely so you don't lose them if you clear the app's data or replace your device; they are never shown to other users.
- Account and community data are used to operate the Explore feed: displaying shared recipes, attributing them, counting likes/dislikes, and routing feedback to recipe authors and moderators.
- Shared recipes go live immediately; reports and feedback may be reviewed by our moderators, who can remove or restrict content after publication if it breaks the rules.
We do not sell your data and do not use it to target advertising to you. There are no third-party ad networks and no ad-tracking SDKs in ChopCue. ChopCue does show its own promotional banners from advertisers we approve directly (a paid placement we run ourselves, not a third-party ad exchange); each tap on a banner is recorded, with your account ID if you are signed in, so we can count clicks, bill advertisers and spot fake clicks. Advertisers only ever receive totals, never who tapped.
3. Third parties
- Firebase (Google LLC): If you create an account, authentication and account/community data use Firebase. Your settings backup, and with Full ChopCue your recipe and kitchen backup, are stored privately in Google Cloud Firestore. Google processes this data on our behalf under its own terms; see Google's Privacy Policy and the Firebase privacy documentation.
- Cloudinary: Photos you attach to a shared recipe, profile, or CookSnap are hosted by Cloudinary so they're visible to other users, under Cloudinary's own privacy terms.
- Translation providers (MyMemory Translated, and DeepL / Microsoft Translator if configured): text you ask to translate is sent to whichever provider is available, solely to return the translation.
- Open Food Facts and UPCitemdb: a barcode you scan is sent to these product databases to look up a product name.
- Apple / Google billing: In-app purchases are handled by the App Store or Google Play under their respective privacy policies. We never receive payment details.
- PostHog EU: if you consent on chopcue.com, PostHog processes anonymous website analytics and privacy-masked session replay so we can understand which pages and product demonstrations are useful. Email and form values are not captured. You can decline analytics when first visiting the site.
We do not share your data with any other third party, and we do not sell it.
4. Data retention
- Local data stays on your device until you delete it or uninstall the app.
- Account and community data are retained while your account exists.
- When you delete your account in the app, we immediately delete your account record, your settings, recipe and kitchen backups, your friend and family memberships, your inbox and notifications, and your email and username lookup entries. Your name is removed from your profile and from the recipes you shared.
- Recipes, comments and CookSnaps you published stay up and show as "Deleted user", so other people's saved copies and conversations still work. If you want them removed too, delete them before deleting your account, or email us and we will remove them.
- Reports you filed and banner-tap records are kept for moderation and advertiser billing, and are deleted on request.
5. Children's privacy
ChopCue is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your jurisdiction). Community features require an account and are not intended for children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children; if you believe a child has provided us personal data, contact us at support@chopcue.com and we will delete it.
6. Your rights
Depending on where you live (e.g., GDPR in the EU/UK, CCPA in California), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, and to object to or restrict certain processing. Because almost all app data lives only on your device, most of this is under your direct control. You can delete your account at any time from Settings in the app, which removes your account, backups, friend and family memberships, and activity, and removes your name from anything you've published. For anything else, contact us at support@chopcue.com and we will respond within the timeframe required by applicable law.
7. Security
Community data is stored in Firebase using industry-standard protections (encryption in transit, access rules restricting reads/writes). No system is perfectly secure, but we limit what we collect so there is little to lose.
8. Changes to this policy
If we materially change this policy, we will update the effective date above and note the change in the app or store listing.
9. Contact
Questions or requests: support@chopcue.com