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Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how SmartChief: AI Culinary Planner collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects information when you use our mobile app and related services.
1. Information We Collect
We collect only the information needed to operate SmartChief, personalize cooking suggestions, sync your account, process subscriptions, and provide support.
| Category | Examples | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Account information | Email address, display name, user ID, authentication status. | Required for account features. |
| Profile and preference data | Language, country, currency, dietary restrictions, nutritional goal, dark mode preference. | Optional, but used for personalization. |
| Cooking and planning content | Saved recipes, recipe notes, favorites, liked recipes, pantry items, shopping list items, meal plans, chat history. | Optional, based on your app activity. |
| AI request data | Ingredients, pantry items, preferences, servings, time available, event menu details, and prompts sent for recipe generation. | Required only when you use AI features. |
| Subscription and payment data | Plan, trial status, subscription status, billing cycle, Stripe customer or subscription identifiers, M-Pesa phone number and transaction reference when used. | Required for paid features. |
| Push notification data | Firebase Cloud Messaging token, notification preference, notification update timestamps. | Optional; used only if notifications are enabled or permission is granted. |
| Usage and diagnostics | AI usage counts, event usage counts, request status, response time, prompt and response length, error codes. | Collected to enforce limits, improve reliability, and troubleshoot issues. |
2. How We Use Information
- To create and secure your account.
- To sync recipes, pantry items, shopping lists, meal plans, preferences, and chat history across devices.
- To generate recipe suggestions, meal plans, country recipes, category recipes, and event menus.
- To personalize recommendations using your dietary restrictions, country, language, nutritional goal, and saved recipes.
- To process subscription trials, Stripe checkout, M-Pesa payments, cancellations, and purchase restoration.
- To send optional push notifications, including cooking reminders and recipe prompts.
- To prevent abuse, enforce plan limits, debug failures, and improve app reliability.
- To provide data export and account deletion features.
3. Third-Party Services and Sharing
We do not sell your personal information. We share information only with service providers that help us operate the app or when required by law.
| Service | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Firebase | Authentication, Firestore database, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging, and Storage infrastructure. | Account data, app content, notification tokens, usage records, and server logs. |
| Hugging Face | AI recipe and meal planning generation. | Prompts and cooking context needed to generate the requested output. |
| Stripe | Subscription checkout, verification, cancellation, and restoration. | Customer identifiers, subscription identifiers, checkout session details, and metadata. |
| M-Pesa | Mobile money payment processing in supported regions. | Phone number, payment amount, service provider details, and transaction references. |
| Expo | App updates, development services, and mobile platform support. | Technical app metadata and update delivery data. |
4. Permissions
SmartChief requests permissions only when needed for a feature. You can deny or revoke permissions in your device settings.
- Notifications: used to send optional recipe reminders and cooking prompts.
- Internet access: required for sign-in, syncing, AI generation, payments, and app updates.
The current app code uses notification functionality and does not require location data for SmartChief's cooking features.
5. Data Safety Summary for Google Play
| Google Play data type | Collected? | Purpose | Shared? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info: email, name, phone number for M-Pesa payments | Yes | Account management, profile, payments. | Shared with Firebase, Stripe, or M-Pesa as needed. |
| Financial info: payment and subscription data | Yes | Subscriptions, checkout, payment verification. | Shared with Stripe or M-Pesa. |
| App activity: app interactions and AI usage | Yes | Feature limits, analytics, reliability, personalization. | Shared with Firebase infrastructure; AI prompts shared with Hugging Face when AI is used. |
| App info and performance: diagnostics | Yes | Debugging and service reliability. | Shared with Firebase infrastructure. |
| Messages or user-generated content | Yes | Chat history, recipes, notes, pantry, shopping list, meal plan sync. | Shared with Firebase infrastructure; AI prompts may be shared with Hugging Face. |
| Location | No | Not used by the app's core cooking features. | No. |
| Contacts | No | Not used. | No. |
6. Data Retention
We keep account and cooking data while your account is active or as long as needed to provide the service. AI request logs and diagnostic records may be retained to enforce plan limits, prevent abuse, and improve reliability. Payment records may be retained as required for accounting, fraud prevention, dispute handling, and legal compliance.
7. Account Deletion and Data Export
SmartChief includes account export and deletion features. In the app, go to your profile and use the available account controls to export your data or delete your account.
Account deletion removes your main user profile from Firestore and requests deletion of your Firebase Authentication account. Some records may remain where retention is required by law, payment obligations, fraud prevention, security, or backup operations.
You may also request help by emailing privacy@smartchiefai.com from the email address associated with your SmartChief account. Full instructions are available on the Data Deletion page.
8. Security
We use Firebase Authentication, Firestore security rules, encrypted transport, server-side functions, and provider-managed infrastructure to protect user information. No internet service can be guaranteed to be completely secure, but we limit access and use technical safeguards appropriate for the data we process.
9. Children's Privacy
SmartChief is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can take appropriate action.
10. International Processing
SmartChief may process information in countries where our service providers operate. By using the app, you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed outside your country of residence.
11. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy when the app, legal requirements, or service providers change. We will update the effective date above and, where appropriate, provide notice in the app or by other reasonable means.
12. Contact Us
For privacy questions, data requests, or Google Play privacy review questions, contact: privacy@smartchiefai.com.