Privacy Policy

This policy covers simmerlist.com, the Simmer List apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Android, and the connector that lets an AI assistant use your account. It says what we collect, why, who it goes to, how long we keep it and how to have it deleted. “We” is Simmer List. Questions go to [email protected].

You can browse the map and the city guides without an account. Most of what follows applies once you sign up.

What we collect

Your account

• Your email address, your name if you give it, a short bio and a profile photo if you add them, and your member number.
• Your password, stored only as a one-way hash (argon2). We cannot read it.
• Settings you choose: time zone, distance units, allergens, the hours you are usually free to eat out, reminder times and whether your followers need your approval.
• When you sign up, the operator is sent an email with your email address, name, member number, IP address and browser or app version, so a new member can be welcomed and abuse can be spotted.

What you add

• Places you log a visit to, home meals, ratings, reviews, comments, likes, photos and the people you ate with.
• Lists and their notes, dishes you mark as loved or want to try, who recommended them, and places or chains you hide.
• Your Plate: the Daily Dozen servings you tick, the meals and nutrition you log (calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat, fibre, water), your targets, and anything you type in reply to a reminder.
• Menus, receipts and venue details you send us, and corrections you make to a venue.
• People you add who are not members, so you can say you ate with them or invite them: their name, and their email address and dietary details if you enter them. If you invite them to a meal, we email them the invitation.

Photos are re-encoded when you upload them, which removes the location and camera details a photo file usually carries.

Your location

• If you allow it, the app reads your device’s location to show places near you, and sends it to us once so the app can open on your area and set your time zone. We store that position as sent, which is precise. The web asks for your location only when you use “near me”.
• If the device cannot give a location, the app asks ipapi.co for an approximate one based on your IP address.
• When you add a photo, the app can read the location saved in the photo on your phone to suggest where the meal was. That stays on your phone unless you choose the suggested place.
• You can refuse location access. The map still works; you move it yourself.

Apple Health

On iPhone you can turn on syncing to Apple Health. It is off until you turn it on. We then write the meals you log on your Plate to Health (energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat, fibre and water). We never read anything from Health, and nothing from Health is sent to us.

What your device and browser send

• A notification token, if you allow notifications, so we can send them.
• Server logs of each request (IP address, page, time, browser or app version), kept for a short rolling period to run and protect the service.
• The IP address that signed you in, kept with each sign-in session.

How we use it

• To run the service: show the map, your diary, your Plate and your lists, and keep you signed in.
• To work things out for you: estimate the nutrition of a meal you log, suggest where to eat and what to try, and write your daily note and reminders.
• To send the email and notifications described below.
• To keep the service working and safe: fix errors, stop abuse and understand which pages and features are used.

We do not sell personal information, we do not show advertising, and we do not share your information with advertisers.

AI models

Several features send what you give us to an AI model, and nothing is sent unless you use one of them:

• Logging a meal: its description, the dishes and the photo, to estimate what it adds to your Plate.
• Asking the map a question in your own words.
• Sending a menu or receipt photo.
• Your daily note, your taste page and your reminders, which are written from your diary, and your replies to a reminder.

Most of this goes to Google’s Gemini models through Google Cloud (Vertex AI). Some features use models reached through OpenRouter, which passes the request to the model’s maker (Google, Anthropic or OpenAI). We keep a record of each request and its answer for 30 days to check the results and fix mistakes, and then delete it. The questions you ask the map are kept for six months so we can see what people look for and could not find.

Who can see what you add

• Each visit has a setting: public, your approved followers, or only you and the people you ate with. Public reviews and photos appear on the venue’s page with your name and photo.
• A photo of a dish from a visit is shown publicly only while the visit itself is public.
• Home meals, your Plate, your notes, your allergens and your location are never shown to anyone else.
• New visits from the app start as visible to your followers; on the website they start as public. You can change either before you post.

Email and notifications

We send email through Resend: the confirmation when you sign up, a welcome, password resets, meal invitations you ask us to send and their confirmations. We send no newsletter and no marketing email. Notifications on your phone go through Firebase Cloud Messaging (and, on Apple devices, Apple’s notification service): friends, activity on your posts, and the Plate reminder you can switch off in the app.

Connecting other services

Google Calendar

If you connect Google Calendar to find a time to eat with friends, we read when you are free or busy and can add the meal to your calendar with the people you invite. We do not read what your other events are about. You can disconnect it at any time. Our use of information from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

AI assistants

If you connect an AI assistant such as Claude to your Simmer List account, you approve what it may do when you connect it. It can then read and change your visits, photos, lists, dish marks and Plate on your behalf, and search places. You can disconnect it at any time. What the assistant’s maker does with your conversation is covered by its own privacy policy.

The companies that handle it for us

These providers process information only to run the service for us:

• Oracle Cloud: the server our database and website run on.
• Cloudflare: delivers the website, protects it from abuse, and stores photos and our database backups (Cloudflare R2).
• Google: Gemini models (Vertex AI), Google Analytics and Firebase Analytics, Firebase Cloud Messaging, and Google Calendar if you connect it.
• OpenRouter, for some AI features (see above).
• Resend, for email.
• Sentry, for error reports.
• Mapbox, for maps and for turning a place you type into a position on the map; it receives the text you type and the area you are looking at.
• Nominatim, an open map search service, when you add a place by name; it receives the name you type and the area around it.
• ipapi.co, for an approximate location when your device has none.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect people’s safety or our rights.

Analytics and error reports

We use Google Analytics on the website and Firebase Analytics in the app to count visits to pages and screens and the use of features. These record the address of each page you visit, your approximate location from your IP address, and your device and browser type. On the map, a page address can include the place you searched for. Events we send ourselves never include text you have written. We do not link analytics to your account.

When something breaks, Sentry receives an error report with technical details of what went wrong. We have turned off its collection of personal details, and the app removes search terms from addresses before it reports.

Cookies and storage on your device

The website stores your sign-in in your browser’s local storage, along with a few preferences and any unsent draft. We set no cookies of our own; Google Analytics sets its own cookies to count visits. The app keeps your sign-in on your device.

How long we keep it

• Your account and what you add: until you delete them or your account.
• AI requests and answers: 30 days.
• Questions you ask the map: six months.
• Database backups: 14 days, then overwritten.
• Server request logs: a short rolling window, typically days.

Deleting your account, and your other rights

You can delete your account in the app (Settings, Delete account) or on the website (Settings, Account). It happens straight away: your account and what is linked to it go, including your visits, reviews, comments, photos, lists, Plate, notes, settings and the records of your AI requests. Public pages that showed your reviews stop showing them within the hour. Copies in our backups disappear as the backups roll over, within 14 days. Venue details you contributed, such as a place you added, opening hours or a menu you sent, stay on the map without your name. You can also ask us by email, and we will delete the account within 30 days.

You can also ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, to correct it, or to stop a particular use of it. Email us and we will answer within one month. We may ask you to confirm the request from the email address on your account. Where the law gives you further rights, such as under the GDPR in Europe and the UK or the CCPA in California, we honour them, and you can complain to your local data protection authority.

Where it is stored

Our server and our providers may be in a country other than yours, including the United States. Wherever your information is handled, we expect the same protection as this policy describes.

Keeping it safe

Everything travels over encrypted connections, passwords are hashed, and the database is not reachable from the internet. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot promise that information will never be exposed; if a breach affects you, we will tell you.

Children

Simmer List is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

Links to other sites

Venue pages link to restaurants’ own websites, menus and social accounts. Those sites have their own policies, and this one stops applying once you follow a link.

Changes to this policy

When what we collect or who we send it to changes, we update this page and its date. If a change matters to how your information is used, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Governing law

This policy is governed by the laws of Australia, the same law as our end-user licence agreement. Where the law of the country you live in gives you more protection, that protection still applies.

Contact

Any question about your information, or a request to see, correct or delete it: [email protected].