Privacy Policy

Who this policy is from

This policy covers the MealAce app for iPhone and this website, mealace.app. In this policy, "we" means the developer of MealAce, and "you" means the person using the app.

What we collect

Nothing.

MealAce does not ask you to create an account. There is no sign-up, no login, no email address, and no password. The app makes no network requests of its own, so there is no moment at which your information could be sent to us.

We do not receive your name, your family's names, your allergies, your meal plans, your grocery lists, your cooking history, your location, your contacts, your photos, or your device identifiers.

Where your information lives

Everything you enter into MealAce is written to a private storage area on your own iPhone, inside the app's app group container. iOS keeps that area private to MealAce. Other apps cannot read it, and we cannot read it.

That includes:

• the members of your household and their names as you typed them,
• their allergies, intolerances and food exclusions,
• your kitchen equipment and unit preferences,
• your weekly meal plans and any swaps you make,
• your grocery list and what you have checked off,
• your recent cooking history.

The app also stores one random identifier in your device keychain. It is a randomly generated number created the first time you open the app. It is not derived from you, your device, or your Apple Account, it is never attached to anything you enter, and it is never transmitted. Its only job is to let a future version of the app recognise its own data on the same device.

Allergy and household information

Allergy information is the most sensitive thing MealAce holds, and it is treated accordingly. Allergies, intolerances and exclusions never leave your device. They are never sent to us, never sent to a third party, never placed in an analytics event, and never used for advertising. This is not a policy we could quietly change with a settings toggle — the app has no code that could send them anywhere.

Allergy checking is not a paid feature and never will be. It works the same whether or not you subscribe.

MealAce is a planning tool, not a medical device and not medical advice. It works from what you record about your household. Always read the label on the food you buy and cook.

Children

MealAce is designed for an adult to use on behalf of a household, and a household often includes children. Children do not have their own accounts in MealAce, because MealAce has no accounts at all. A child profile is simply a row in the adult's own on-device data.

When you add a household member, MealAce asks for a name of your choosing and an approximate age band — adult, 10 to 14, 6 to 9, or 2 to 5 — which it uses only to size portions. It does not ask for a date of birth, a photo, a school, a location, or any contact information for a child. It does not ask a child anything directly.

None of this is collected by us. A child's name and allergies stay on the device exactly like every other piece of household information. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, of any age, because we do not collect personal information at all.

Subscriptions and Apple

MealAce offers an optional paid subscription, MealAce Plus. Purchases are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store using StoreKit. When you subscribe:

• Apple collects and processes the payment. We never see your card details, your billing address, or your Apple Account.
• MealAce asks Apple's own on-device APIs a single question: is this subscription currently active? It receives back the answer and the renewal date, and nothing else.
• That entitlement information is not sent to us. There is nowhere for it to be sent.

There is no third-party purchase or subscription analytics service involved. Apple's handling of your purchase is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy. You can view, change or cancel your subscription in the Settings app on your iPhone under your Apple Account.

Apple may share aggregate, anonymised sales and usage reports with us through App Store Connect — for example, how many people downloaded the app in a country in a week. These reports come from Apple, not from the app, and they do not identify individual people.

No tracking and no advertising

MealAce contains no analytics SDK, no crash reporting service, no attribution or install-tracking SDK, and no advertising SDK. It does not ask for permission to track you across other apps and websites, because it has no way to do so. It does not use the advertising identifier.

The app includes one third-party software library, Lottie, which draws the small animations in the interface. It reads animation files that ship inside the app and makes no network requests.

Backups

If you back up your iPhone — to iCloud or to a computer — Apple's backup may include MealAce's data, in the same way it includes data from your other apps. That backup belongs to you and is governed by Apple, not by us. We have no access to it.

MealAce does not sync your household between devices. Data added on one iPhone stays on that iPhone.

Deleting your data

Deleting the MealAce app from your iPhone removes the household data it stored on that device. Because we never received a copy, there is nothing on our side to delete, and no request you need to send us to have it erased.

You can also change or remove individual household members, allergies, plans and grocery items inside the app at any time.

Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription. Cancel a subscription in the Settings app on your iPhone, under your Apple Account, before deleting the app.

Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give people the right to see, correct, export, or delete the personal information a company holds about them, and the right not to have it sold.

We hold no personal information about you, so there is nothing for us to show you, correct, export, or delete. We do not sell or share personal information, and we never have. If you believe we hold something about you, write to us at the address below and we will look into it and answer you.

Changes to this policy

If MealAce ever gains a feature that sends information off your device — for example an optional cloud sync — this policy will be updated before that feature ships, the effective date at the top will change, and the app will tell you what changed and ask before turning anything on. We will not quietly begin collecting data under an old policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about privacy in MealAce, can go to hello@mealace.app. A person reads that mailbox and will reply.