Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to Cookster ("we," "our," or "us"). We value your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and safeguard your data when you use Cookster.

By using Cookster, you agree to the practices described in this policy.

2. Information We Collect

A. Account & Authentication Information

We collect information needed to create and authenticate your account, including:

• Email address
• Display name
• Authentication tokens
• Google Sign-In identity data (if you choose Google login)
• Apple Sign In identity data (if you choose Apple login)
• Firebase user ID and related account identifiers

This is handled through Firebase Authentication.

B. Content You Submit

We collect data that you willingly upload or provide:

• TikTok URLs
• YouTube, Instagram, or other cooking-video URLs
• Uploaded images
• Meal photos and food-photo cutouts
• Saved recipes, cookbooks, grocery lists, and cooked-recipe logs
• Recipe notes, edits, or custom content
• Profile information, including handle, bio, location, avatar, tastes, and public profile details
• Social information, including follows, followers, blocked users, shared profile links, and public profile counters
• Sage coach chat messages, check-ins, and actions you confirm
• AI-generated recipes or metadata saved to your account

We do not store full TikTok videos.

C. Health, Nutrition & Wellness Information

If you use Cookster's nutrition, food log, meal photo, or Sage coach features, we collect information you provide or confirm, including:

• Height, weight, sex, age range, activity level, and goals
• Calculated calorie and macro targets
• Food logs, meal slots, servings eaten, macro estimates, and nutrition attributes
• Feeling check-ins, mood, digestion, energy, sleep, and notes
• Dietary preferences and custom dietary notes

Cookster provides general nutrition support only. It is not a medical device and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

D. Processing Data (AI + Pipeline)

When processing a video URL (such as TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram), meal photo, recipe, or Sage coach message:

• We may temporarily download the video and extract frames
• We may extract and transcribe the video's audio
• We may send meal photos for food recognition, macro estimation, and background removal
• We may send recipe ingredients, dietary preferences, food logs, feeling check-ins, and coach chat context to AI services when needed to provide those features
• We may generate text, metadata, or recipe information
• We send video captions, transcripts, audio, and selected frames to third-party AI providers (such as OpenAI and Anthropic) to generate recipes, estimate nutrition, analyze meal photos, and power Sage
• The downloaded video and the raw audio and frames are deleted after processing
• To improve speed and avoid re-processing the same video, we may retain the generated recipe data and non-personal processing outputs (such as transcripts and frame descriptions). This data is associated with the source video, not with your account, and contains no personal information. See Sections 4 and 8.

Real-time progress updates are transmitted through WebSockets.

E. Usage, Analytics & Device Information

We automatically collect:

• Browser type
• Operating system
• Device identifiers
• Interactions with the site
• Mobile app analytics events, including recipe extraction, quota, cookbook, screen, and product interaction events
• Pages visited
• IP address
• Cookie identifiers
• Crash logs and performance metrics

3. How We Use Your Information

We use collected data to:

• Provide and maintain the Cookster service
• Process TikTok URLs and generate recipes
• Save recipes, cookbooks, cooked meals, meal photos, and food logs to your account
• Calculate nutrition targets and provide Sage coach responses
• Operate public profile, follow, follower, blocking, and sharing features
• Send real-time WebSocket progress updates
• Improve features, performance, and user experience
• Personalize saved content for your account
• Measure product usage and diagnose reliability issues with Firebase Analytics and related tools
• Prevent fraud, abuse, or misuse
• Debug, monitor, and secure the platform
• Comply with legal obligations

If paid features are introduced in the future, we may collect additional billing data with your consent.

4. Data Storage

Your data may be stored in:

• Firebase Firestore (account-linked recipes, cookbooks, profiles, social data, food logs, health profiles, feeling check-ins, quotas, URLs, and metadata)
• Firebase Storage (uploaded images, meal-photo cutouts, and recipe thumbnails)
• Firebase Authentication (account data)
• Firebase Analytics (app events, identifiers, and product interaction data)
• Your device storage for local caches and offline access
• A shared recipe cache (generated recipe data and non-personal processing outputs derived from a source video, stored to avoid re-processing the same video). This cache is keyed to the video, not to your account, and contains no personal information.

Raw processing data (the downloaded video, extracted audio, and raw frames) is stored in memory or ephemeral storage and deleted shortly after use.

We do not store full video files.

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share data with:

A. Service Providers

Including but not limited to:

• Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage)
• Firebase Analytics and related Google services
• OpenAI (AI processing — audio transcription and recipe generation)
• Anthropic (AI processing — Sage coach responses and nutrition estimation)
• Hosting and analytics providers

Service providers process data for Cookster's features, security, analytics, hosting, storage, or AI functionality. We do not permit them to use your personal data for cross-app tracking or selling personal information on our behalf.

B. Compliance & Safety

We may disclose information if required:

• By law or legal process
• To protect our rights or the safety of users

C. Business Transfers

If Cookster is acquired or merged, user data may be transferred.

6. Third-Party Services

Cookster interacts with external platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and uses third-party AI providers (such as OpenAI and Anthropic) to process content, estimate nutrition, and generate recipes or Sage responses. We are not affiliated with those social platforms. Your use of them is governed by their own policies, and content sent to AI providers is subject to those providers' policies.

7. Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

• Maintain sessions
• Analyze usage
• Improve user experience

You may disable cookies through your browser, but some features may not function properly.

8. Data Retention

We retain:

• Saved recipes
• Uploaded images
• TikTok URLs
• Account information
• Profile and social data
• Meal photos and cooked-meal history
• Health profiles, nutrition targets, food logs, and feeling check-ins
• Sage coach quota and chat-related data needed to provide the feature

for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the relevant feature.

Raw processing data (the downloaded video, extracted audio, and raw frames) is deleted after completion. Meal-photo analysis requests are processed to return results; meal-photo cutouts may be stored when you save them to your account.

We may retain generated recipe data and non-personal processing outputs (such as transcripts and frame descriptions) in a shared cache associated with the source video — not with your account — to speed up processing and avoid repeating it for the same video. This cached data contains no personal information and may persist independently of your account.

When you delete your account in the app, Cookster attempts to delete your Firebase account, user document, saved recipes, health logs, feeling check-ins, profile, follow/follower links, blocked-user records, and meal-photo storage tied to your user ID. Some backups, logs, analytics records, provider-side records, or non-personal shared cache entries may remain for a limited period where required for security, legal compliance, abuse prevention, debugging, or normal backup rotation.

9. Your Rights

Depending on your region, you may have the right to:

• Access your data
• Request deletion
• Rectify inaccurate information
• Restrict or object to processing
• Export your data (portability)
• Withdraw consent

Contact us to exercise these rights.

10. Children's Privacy

Cookster is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us immediately for removal.

11. Security

We use technical and organizational measures to protect your data. However, no system is 100% secure. You use Cookster at your own risk.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date and may notify users directly.

13. Contact Us

For questions or privacy concerns: