Privacy policy
Culina is a cooking app for Android. This policy explains what information the app uses, why, where it goes and the choices you have. In short: there are no accounts, your pantry and recipes stay on your phone, and we only send what's needed to create recipes and photos for you.
Who we are
Culina is made by an independent developer. You can reach us about anything in this policy at hello@culina.fit.
What stays on your phone
These are stored only on your device. We can't see them.
- Your pantry: food names, categories, amounts and use-by dates.
- Recipes you've made, favourites, meals you've logged and your calorie and macro targets.
- Your answers to the starting questions: name (optional), goal, diet, allergies, cooking time and household size.
- App settings, such as theme and sound.
- Photos created for your recipes and ingredients.
Uninstalling the app, or Settings > Clear all local data, deletes all of it.
What we send, and why
| When | What is sent | To whom |
|---|---|---|
| You ask for a recipe | The food names and use-by dates in your pantry, your diet, allergies, goal, cooking time, household size and macro targets. Never your name. | OpenAI, which writes the recipe |
| You photograph your fridge and tap Analyze | That photo, reduced in size | OpenAI, which lists the food it sees |
| A photo is made for a recipe or ingredient | A short description of the food, and a random ID for this installation (not linked to you) | Our photo service on Google Firebase, and OpenAI to create the image |
| Step illustrations and stock photos | The ingredient or step text being illustrated | Unsplash and Pollinations image services |
| You use the app | Usage events (such as “recipe created”), device model, Android version and crash reports | Google Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics |
| You subscribe | Purchases are handled entirely by Google Play. We receive only whether your subscription is active. | Google Play |
Please don't put personal information into ingredient names, since they're sent to create recipes.
Shared photos
To keep the app affordable, a food photo made for one person can be shown to another person who makes the same dish or adds the same ingredient. These photos show only food. The random installation ID is used only so you're never shown a photo you created, or the same reused photo twice.
The camera
Barcode scanning happens on your phone. A fridge photo leaves your phone only when you choose to analyze it.
Why we're allowed to use it
We use your information to provide the app you asked for (performance of a contract), to keep it working and fix crashes (our legitimate interest in a reliable app), and to handle subscriptions through Google Play. We don't sell your information, and we don't use it for advertising.
How long it's kept
- On your phone: until you delete it or uninstall the app.
- OpenAI: requests sent through its API are not used to train its models and are kept for a limited time for abuse monitoring, as described in OpenAI's policies.
- Shared food photos: kept while the app is offered, because they contain no personal data.
- Analytics and crash reports: kept by Google Firebase according to its retention settings, at most 14 months.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK), you can ask to access, correct or delete your information, object to its use, or complain to your data protection authority. Since almost everything is on your phone, you can delete it yourself at any time. For anything held by our services, email hello@culina.fit and we'll answer within 30 days.
You can turn off analytics by contacting us, and you can stop all data sharing by not using the AI features.
Children
Culina is not meant for children under 13 (or under 16 in some countries), and we don't knowingly collect their information.
International transfers
OpenAI and Google may process information in the United States and other countries. They do so under safeguards such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
Changes
If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we'll update the date above and tell you in the app.