SmarTasty
Count calories with a photo
This is a courtesy translation. The German version (https://smartasty.de/datenschutz) is the legally binding text.
Last updated: 24 October 2026
The controller responsible for data processing on smartasty.de and in the SmarTasty apps for iOS and Android is:
Daniel Lehner
Theodor-Alt-Str. 6
81737 München
Email: kontakt@smartasty.de
Phone: 017680426421
For any questions about data protection and to exercise your rights, an email to the address above is sufficient.
You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR). You can withdraw any consent you have given at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR); this does not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before the withdrawal.
You can also lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, for example the authority responsible for us: Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht (BayLDA, Bavarian Data Protection Authority), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach.
You can delete your account yourself at any time in Settings (“Delete account”). You can remove health data separately via Settings → “Delete all health data”.
We do not sell any data and do not use it for advertising. The only recipients are the following service providers, each for the purpose stated:
Where these providers act on our behalf, we have data processing agreements with them (Art. 28 GDPR). Where data is processed outside the EU or the EEA, we state the basis for the transfer in the relevant section.
We run the website, the app interface (API) and the server with Render Services, Inc., San Francisco, USA, in its data centre in Frankfurt am Main. Render routes requests through the Cloudflare network as a sub-processor. When you access the service, the server processes technically necessary data: IP address, date and time, the address requested, browser or app identifier and referrer. These logs are used for operation, security and troubleshooting and are kept by the host only for a limited period.
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in secure and stable operation); for registered users additionally Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. Render is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (adequacy decision of the European Commission of 10 July 2023, Art. 45 GDPR); EU standard contractual clauses apply in addition.
We store your account data and content (e.g. profile, saved recipes, meal plans, diary, health data) as well as uploaded images in a PostgreSQL database or file storage provided by Supabase, Inc., USA. The database is located in a data centre in London (United Kingdom). There is an adequacy decision of the European Commission for the United Kingdom (Art. 45 GDPR); EU standard contractual clauses apply to any access from the USA. The data is transmitted in encrypted form and stored in encrypted form by the provider. Images (including profile pictures and progress photos) are delivered via the Supabase content delivery network at addresses that are hard to guess; anyone who knows the address can retrieve the image.
Meal photos: If you are signed in, have a meal recognised from a photo and accept the entry, we store the photo with that diary entry so that you can recognise your meal later. To do this, we reduce its size (to a maximum of 800 pixels) and remove metadata such as the location where it was taken and camera data. Unlike the other images, meal photos are kept in non-public storage: only you can see them in the app or on the website, which each receive an address for this purpose that becomes invalid after one hour. A new photo for the same entry replaces the old one. If you delete the entry or your account, we also delete the photo. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
Preview image on your device: In addition, with or without an account, the app stores a small preview image of the photo (192 × 192 pixels) only on your device, so that you can recognise your meal in the diary, even without an account and without an internet connection. Nothing is sent to us for this. The preview image is deleted when you delete the entry or sign out (preview images for your account), and after 90 days at the latest. If you sign in after making entries without an account and you have agreed to photo recognition, we upload these preview images as meal photos for the transferred entries (as described above, in non-public storage).
We manage sign-in and passwords ourselves: we store passwords only as a secure hash (bcrypt), and your session is kept on your device by means of a signed token (JWT).
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract of use); for health data, your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR, see Section 9).
On your device (local storage, session storage, and in the app the app storage) we store only what is needed for the features you use: sign-in status, your choice in the consent banner, your AI consents, filters, the shopping list for guests and the coach chat history. The legal basis is § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG (German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act; strictly necessary) or Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
Recommendations “For you”: So that you don’t see the same recipes every day and your suggestions match what you look at and cook, SmarTasty remembers on your device: which recipes you opened most recently (the last 10), which recipes were suggested at the top on the last 8 days, which recipes you logged in your diary (recipe and day, the last 60) and, once a day, your saved recipes. Only recipe identifiers and days are stored, even if you are not signed in. The app or the website calculates the selection on your device; we do not send this information to our server. We delete the recently opened recipes when you sign out and the suggestions after 8 days; the other entries are replaced by newer ones. You can remove all of it by deleting the website data in your browser or deleting the app. Legal basis: § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG (necessary for the recipe selection you use) and Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
Progress and achievements: We store your weekly goal, which achievements we have already shown you and in which weeks you had a meal plan only on your device, separately for each account. We recalculate the achievements themselves each time they are requested, from data that is already in your account anyway (diary, saved recipes, meal plan); we do not store anything additional for this. Legal basis: § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG and Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
On the website we use Google Analytics 4 (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) only if you consent to the “Statistics” category in the banner. Before that, the Analytics script is not loaded (Google Consent Mode v2, default setting “denied”). With your consent, page views, time spent on pages, approximate location (from the shortened IP address), device and browser data as well as events such as registrations are processed and cookies are set. Google may transfer data to Google LLC in the USA; Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Google Analytics is disabled in the app.
Legal basis: your consent (§ 25(1) TDDDG, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can withdraw it at any time via “Cookie settings” in the footer of the website. Your choice is stored for 12 months; after that we ask again.
In addition, we count page views on our own server without cookies: we store a shortened hash of the IP address and browser identifier that changes daily (the IP address itself is not stored for this), country, referring website or the campaign tag of the link (see below), device type and the page visited. This does not allow visitors to be recognised across several days (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We create analyses of features (e.g. which filters or tracker functions are used) for improvement purposes; where this involves reading an identifier on your device, only with your consent to “Statistics”. On the website, this includes roughly how long the first page you opened was visible (in bands only, e.g. “15–30 seconds”) and whether you opened another page – without an account.
Where visits come from: Links that we share ourselves (e.g. on Pinterest or Instagram) and links that you send from SmarTasty via “Share” carry a campaign tag in the address (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, e.g. “utm_source=pinterest”). When you share, the tag only contains “share”, whether the link was shared from the app or the website, and the type of content (e.g. “recipe” or “plan”) – no name and no user or device identifier. When someone opens such a link, we store the tag (reduced to letters, digits and a few characters) as the source together with the page view or the start of the visit. If someone buys an e-book on a product page via a link tagged in this way, we also store the tag with the purchase. This shows us which channels bring visitors. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in measuring the reach of our channels). The tag is stored for as long as the page view or purchase concerned. If you share something while signed in on the website or in the Android app, the address also contains your invite code (“ref=…”, see Section 11, “Invite friends”); it does not reveal your name.
Search queries: When you use the recipe search, we count the search term anonymously to see which recipes people search for and which are missing. We store only the term, the day, the platform (web, iOS, Android) and whether there were results or a recipe was opened – as daily counters, without user account, IP address, device or session identifier and without cookies. Terms that look like email addresses, phone numbers or links, and texts longer than 60 characters, are discarded. We use your IP address only as a value made unrecognisable, held in memory for no more than one minute, to curb misuse; it is not stored. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in offering suitable recipes (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete the counters after 180 days.
Search when logging food: When you search for a food while logging, we count the last search term anonymously to find missing or unsuitable results. We store only the term, the day, the platform (web, iOS, Android), whether there were matching results and how the entry was made (result, card, estimate or your own values) – as daily counters, without user account, IP address, device or session identifier, without time of day and without cookies. Single keystrokes are not counted. Terms that look like email addresses, phone numbers, long numbers, links or names, and texts longer than 40 characters, are discarded. As with the recipe search, we use your IP address only briefly to curb misuse. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a search that finds what you eat (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete the counters after 180 days.
Portion corrections in photo and text recognition: When you log a recognised meal, we store anonymous portion corrections without any personal reference (food name, estimated and logged amount, day) to improve our estimates, and delete them after 180 days (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). If you discard a photo recognition result instead of logging it (e.g. with “New photo”, by closing or going back), we likewise store an anonymous row about it – with or without an account – to see how well recognition works: the calendar day (no time of day), the number of recognised ingredients, a rough calorie range (e.g. “400–700 kcal”), whether the result was recognised as uncertain, whether you edited it or took a new photo, whether the photo was taken with the camera or chosen from the gallery, roughly how long the result was open (in bands, e.g. “10–30 seconds”) and the app version. We do not store the photo, names of ingredients or of the meal, exact calories or times, or any account, device or session identifier. The information is sent without sign-in and without cookies; nothing is stored on or read from your device for this. We use your IP address only as a value made unrecognisable, held in memory for no more than one minute, to curb misuse; it is not stored. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in improving photo recognition). We delete these rows automatically after 180 days.
For the free 7-day trial and the limits of the free version (1 photo per day, 3 questions to the Health Coach, 3 recipe imports, 1 pantry scan and 1 supplement label scan per week) we store how often you have used these features – only the number per day or week, no photos, questions or links. If you are signed in, the counter belongs to your account. If different limits apply to new accounts (terms of use 7.1), this depends on when your trial started and whether your app can show those limits; we do not store anything extra for this. Towards and after the end of the trial we show you these numbers as a recap (“Your first week”: days with entries, recognised photos, questions to the Coach, the week’s Health Score).
Without signing in, we use a random identifier of your app installation that the app or your browser creates itself and keeps in local storage; it has no connection to your person or to identifiers of your device. It is only sent with requests to our AI, Premium and invite features (e.g. Photo Scan, the Coach, Recipe Import, retrieving your Premium status), not with other page views. We only store an irreversible hash of it (SHA-256) together with when your trial started, your time zone and – if you sign in on the device – which account signed in there first. This way the trial applies only once per device and account, and signing in or out does not give you an extra photo. For older app versions without this identifier we count via a salted, irreversible hash of the IP address.
Time zone: so that day and week match your clock, the app or browser sends your device’s time zone (e.g. “Europe/Berlin”). We store it with your account or device entry together with the time of the last change and accept at most one change per day.
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the free version with the limits described in our terms and the trial) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (protection against misuse, e.g. repeated trials). Creating, storing and sending the identifier is strictly necessary for this service you requested (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG). Retention: we delete counters after 70 days and device entries 13 months after the first contact; data linked to your account is deleted with the account.
For an account we process your email address, username and password hash, voluntary profile information (e.g. first name, goals, diet, intolerances, body data) and your content (recipes, comments, ratings, saved lists, meal plans, diary). Only content that you publish (e.g. comments with your username, your own recipes) and profile information that you explicitly make public is publicly visible. We store direct messages between users so that you can read them; if a message is reported, the operator may review it. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
We also store with your account when you last used SmarTasty while signed in (updated at most every 15 minutes) and via which platform (website, iPhone or Android app). We identify the platform from the origin information that the browser or app sends with every request anyway; nothing is stored on or read from your device for this. Each new value replaces the old one. We see this information in our user administration and analyse it in aggregated form to identify inactive accounts, to understand how SmarTasty is used and to improve the service. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a functioning, improved service). This information is deleted together with the account.
Active days: In addition, we store with your account on which calendar days you used SmarTasty while signed in – for each day only the date, the platform (website, iPhone or Android app) and the time of first use on that day; no pages viewed, content or input. This information is generated on our server from the requests that the app or browser sends anyway for the features you use; nothing is stored on or read from your device for this. We see the days in our user administration and analyse them in aggregated form, for example how many users come back after a week, in order to improve SmarTasty. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in understanding whether SmarTasty is used regularly and what we need to improve). We delete the entries automatically after 14 months, and immediately together with your account.
We send system emails (confirmation of your email address, password reset, order confirmations, replies to contact requests) and the newsletter via the mail server of our provider ALL-INKL.COM – Neue Medien Münnich, Hauptstraße 68, 02742 Friedersdorf, Germany (processor). Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR; for the newsletter, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR.
You only receive the newsletter after confirming by double opt-in. We store your email address and the time of sign-up and of confirmation. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in every issue. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).
On Android devices, you can sign up on recipe pages to be notified as soon as the SmarTasty app is available on Google Play. For this we store your email address, your language and the time of sign-up and of confirmation. Your sign-up only counts after confirming by double opt-in; you will not receive a newsletter. We will write to you once at launch and delete the list no later than three months after that. You can withdraw your consent at any time by email to the address above. Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).
If, when getting a free product, you explicitly choose the newsletter, we transmit your email address, first name and the product to Brevo (Sendinblue SAS, Paris, France) to manage the mailing list. Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).
We use your message and your contact details only to handle your enquiry (Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR).
Answers to the one-time, voluntary question “What’s missing in SmarTasty?” are stored only as text with the date – together with your account if you are signed in, without any identifier as a guest –; we note on your account or on your device when the question was asked, read the answers to improve SmarTasty (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) and delete them automatically after 12 months.
If you choose “Continue with Google” (Google Ireland Limited, Dublin) or “Continue with Apple” (Apple Inc., Cupertino, USA), we receive from the provider your name, your email address (with Apple, possibly an anonymous relay address), with Google possibly your profile picture, and a unique user ID in order to create or match your account. On the website, Google’s sign-in script is only loaded on the sign-in page. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. Processing by the provider is governed by its own privacy policy (Google, Apple); Google and Apple are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
When you sign in with Apple, we exchange the one-time code that Apple hands over at that point with Apple for an access token (refresh token) and store it with your account. We use it exclusively to revoke your sign-in with Apple for SmarTasty at Apple as well when you delete your account; it is deleted together with the account. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.
For AI features we use the OpenAI interface. The contracting party for customers in the EU is OpenAI Ireland Ltd., 1st Floor, The Liffey Trust Centre, 117–126 Sheriff Street Upper, Dublin 1, D01 YC43, Ireland; OpenAI is our processor (Art. 28 GDPR). The data is also processed by OpenAI, L.L.C. or its service providers in the USA. OpenAI is not certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; the transfer is based on the EU standard contractual clauses in the data processing agreement (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). OpenAI does not use data from API requests for training and deletes it after 30 days at the latest (retention for abuse detection).
Which data is transmitted for each feature:
Legal bases: Before you use the Health Coach for the first time, we obtain your explicit consent, including to the transfer of your health data to OpenAI (Art. 6(1)(a), Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR). For the lab report scan, your consent to the processing of health data applies (Section 9). Before the meal scan, pantry scan and supplement label scan we also ask for your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). We provide the other features, which you explicitly call up, to perform the contract of use (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR); please do not enter any unnecessary sensitive information there. The consents apply per device; you can withdraw them with one click on the page AI at SmarTasty (in German) or by email.
The results are generated automatically by a language model. They may contain errors and do not replace medical advice. No automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR takes place.
We process health data (Art. 9 GDPR) only with your explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR), which we obtain separately before your first entry or connection. This includes:
Purposes: adjusting your daily target, personalised nutrition and recipe recommendations, pattern notes on your values, reminders of check-up appointments and – only with your separate consent – context for the Health Coach (Section 8). No advertising, no sale, no disclosure to insurers or pharmaceutical companies. We show you values from Apple Health or Health Connect in the app and on the website; we use active energy burned to adjust your daily target to your measured activity. We do not use them for advertising or marketing, do not sell them and do not pass them on to data brokers, insurers or employers. They only reach the Health Coach with your separate coach consent (Section 8).
Recipients: Render and Supabase (Section 4), OpenAI for the lab report scan and – only with coach consent – for the Health Coach (Section 8). We send reminders about blood value check-ups as push notifications (Section 10); these notifications may name a value.
Withdrawal and deletion: You can withdraw your consent at any time by email, or delete all health data via Settings → “Delete all health data” without deleting your account. You can withdraw your consent for Apple Health or Health Connect at any time in the app under Profile → Settings → Privacy → Health data. We then immediately delete all values imported from them and the connection from our servers; values you entered yourself (e.g. weight in the diary, blood values) remain until you delete them. You can revoke access on the device in the Health app (Profile → Apps → SmarTasty) or in Health Connect (app permissions). Individual values and scans can be deleted one by one; a PDF export of your health data is available in Settings.
If you allow notifications, we store a device token in order to send you reminders (e.g. tracking, supplements, blood value check-ups). On iPhones they are sent via the Apple Push Notification service (Apple), on Android devices via Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google Ireland Limited or Google LLC, USA; certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework). Legal basis: your consent via the system prompt (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR); you can withdraw it at any time in your device settings. We may also send you notes about your Premium status, e.g. once two days before your trial ends or about your Premium gift; you can turn them off under Settings › Notifications › “Purchases and Premium”.
So that you don’t get too many reminders, we send at most one per day and none during quiet hours. For this we store, for each account and day, whether a reminder was sent and of what type (e.g. meal plan, pantry). We delete these entries after 14 months. Legal basis: providing the reminder feature you asked for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).
You can take out SmarTasty Premium as a subscription via Apple in the iPhone app. Apple (Apple Distribution International Ltd., Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill, Cork, Ireland) handles the purchase, payment, renewals, cancellations and refunds under its own responsibility; we do not receive your payment details. So that Apple can link the purchase to your SmarTasty account, we pass the random identifier of your account to Apple when you buy (account ID – no name, no email address).
We receive a signed confirmation of the purchase from Apple and later notifications about renewal, cancellation, payment problems, expiry and refunds. They contain, among other things, identifiers of the purchase, the product (monthly or yearly), purchase and expiry date, whether an offer was used (e.g. the founder price), country or store, price and currency, and whether it was a test purchase. Of this, we only store with your account the type of subscription, its status (active, cancelled, expired, refunded), the term and the identifier of the original purchase; for each notification from Apple its type, time, environment, the purchase identifier and whether we could link it to an account. To check the status of a purchase (e.g. when restoring), our server can query it at Apple using the purchase identifier (App Store Server API).
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing Premium). Retention: subscription data as long as your account exists; notifications from Apple for three years (evidence in case of queries and refunds, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Apple’s privacy policy applies to the processing at Apple.
In the Android app you can take out SmarTasty Premium as a subscription via Google Play. Google (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) handles the purchase, payment, renewals, cancellations and refunds under its own responsibility; we do not receive your payment details. So that Google can link the purchase to your SmarTasty account, we pass Google the random identifier of your account when you buy (account ID – no name, no email address).
After the purchase, when restoring and when the app starts, the app sends the purchase identifier to our server. With it, the server checks the status of the purchase at Google (Google Play Developer API) and acknowledges the purchase there. Google also notifies us about renewal, cancellation, payment problems, expiry and refunds via Google Cloud Pub/Sub (Google processes these notifications on our behalf). The check and the notifications contain, among other things, the purchase identifier, the product (monthly or yearly), start and expiry date, whether an offer was used (e.g. the founder price), the order number, country, price and currency, and whether it was a test purchase. Of this, we only store with your account the type of subscription, its status (active, cancelled, expired, refunded), the term and the purchase identifier; for each notification from Google its type, time, environment, the purchase identifier, for refunds the order number, and whether we could link it to an account. If your account already has a subscription via Apple or the website, we refund an additional purchase at Google via the same interface; if you delete your account, we stop the renewal there.
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing Premium). Retention: subscription data as long as your account exists; notifications from Google for three years (evidence in case of queries and refunds, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Google may transfer data to the USA (certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework). Google’s privacy policy applies to the processing at Google.
With an account you get a personal invite code (8 characters). It is part of your invite link and – if you send something via “Share” while signed in on the website or in the Android app, e.g. a recipe, a shopping list or a meal plan – part of the shared address (“ref=…”; not in the iPhone app). The code does not reveal your name, but we can link it to your account.
If someone opens such a link without being signed in, the browser or the Android app remembers the code in local storage for up to 30 days (the iPhone app does not remember or redeem invites). If the person then creates a new account or enters a code, we store the invite: who invited whom, the time, the status (pending, rewarded, rejected, revoked), the reason for a rejection where applicable, whether the invite came via a link or was added later, and the hash of the device identifier (Section 5). To prevent misuse, we compare the device identifiers and the email addresses of both accounts (in a normalised form, e.g. without dots for Gmail) and check whether the accounts have already invited each other. Whether the invited person has logged food on 3 days we read from their food diary – only the days, no contents. The inviting person only gets their month once the invited account is confirmed (email address confirmed or signed in with Apple or Google); for this we check whether that is the case. For each invite, the inviting person sees in the app the first name of the invited person (if they have given one), when the invite was made, on how many days (up to 3) they have logged food so far, whether their account is confirmed and whether the month has been credited – no last name, no email address, no username and no contents. Gifted months are stored as a credit on your account. In case of misuse we can revoke an invite; we then remove its credits and mark the invite as revoked.
Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (taking part in “Invite friends” under section 7.8 of our terms, including showing the progress to the inviting person) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (protection against misuse). Retention: invites and credits as long as the accounts involved exist. If you delete your account, we delete your credits and remove your account identifier from the invite. So that the same account or device cannot be invited again, the time, status, reason, type (link or added later), the hash of the device identifier and the identifier of the other, still existing account remain stored. Once the invited account has been deleted, we delete this remainder 13 months after the invite (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, protection against misuse).
We process payments for digital products and printed books via Stripe (contracting party: Stripe Payments Europe, Limited, 1 Grand Canal Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland). Stripe receives your email address, for book orders your name, delivery address and phone number, as well as the payment details you enter directly with Stripe; we do not see card details. For payment processing, Stripe acts in part as an independent controller and may transfer data to the USA (certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework). Creators who sell their own content are paid out via Stripe Connect; for this, Stripe collects the legally required identity data directly. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) and (c) GDPR.
We have printed books printed and shipped by Lulu Press, Inc., North Carolina, USA. For this we transmit your name, delivery address, phone number (mandatory in the order step; the parcel service needs it for delivery queries) and the print files. We do not pass your email address on to Lulu; we give our own address as the contact for the print order. The transfer to the USA is necessary to fulfil your order (Art. 6(1)(b), Art. 49(1)(b) GDPR).
Events for troubleshooting: If, while signed in, you use photo recognition, describing a meal, the barcode scanner, Recipe Import or the Health Coach, save a diary entry or set a goal, we store with your account the type of feature, whether it worked (e.g. recognised, nothing recognised, cancelled, error, daily limit, app left with an open result), for photos and descriptions roughly how long recognition took (in bands such as “3–6 seconds”), the time, the platform and the app version – no photos, texts, barcodes, links or questions. For diary entries, we note which entry it was. If a technical error occurs on our server, we store the area affected. If the app or website crashes, this is reported with platform and version, without reference to your account. This information is generated on our server from requests that are sent anyway for the feature used; nothing is stored on or read from your device for this. Purpose: to detect and fix problems with new versions quickly. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a functioning service). We delete the entries automatically after 14 months, and immediately together with your account.
Where enabled, the website, app and server report technical errors to Sentry (Functional Software, Inc., San Francisco, USA; certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework): error message, page affected, browser and device type. For a small proportion of visits we also measure loading times (performance data). For some errors, a short recording of the sequence of interactions is transmitted in which all text, input and images are made unrecognisable. We do not send IP addresses or contact details with it. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (error-free operation).
Some links to kitchen equipment are partner links of the Amazon Associates programme. The provider is Amazon Europe Core S.à r.l., 38 avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg. The links are marked “Ad” and lead to products or a product search on amazon.de. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The price does not change for you.
We do not embed any scripts, widgets, images or tracking pixels from Amazon on SmarTasty. As long as you only read, no data is sent to Amazon. Only when you click a partner link does Amazon’s site open in a new tab. A partner ID in the link tells Amazon that you came from SmarTasty. On its own pages Amazon may use cookies and similar technologies and is responsible for them itself; see Amazon’s privacy notice for details. From Amazon we only receive aggregated figures on clicks and sales, no information about you.
If you have consented to statistics, we count clicks on partner links on our own server to see whether the links are used. We only store the time, page, clicked category and platform – no account, no session ID, no IP address in the analysis, no cookies. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in evaluating and financing our free service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
If you speak using the microphone (e.g. when logging food, in the coach or in search), speech recognition turns your speech into text. In the iPhone app this happens on your device; the audio recording never leaves it. In the browser, the browser does this (e.g. Google in Chrome) and may process the recording on its servers under its own terms. SmarTasty only receives the recognised text and treats it like typed text. You allow microphone access via the system prompt and can revoke it at any time in your device settings.
When you scan a barcode, search for foods, or when photo or text recognition identifies a packaged product, our server requests nutritional values and product images from Open Food Facts, a freely accessible product database (Open Food Facts, non-profit association, France). Only the barcode or the brand and product name are transmitted. The request is made by our server, not by your device; Open Food Facts therefore receives neither your IP address nor any information about your account.
We publish SmarTasty recipes and videos on our profiles on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest. The website does not embed any social media plugins that send data to these networks when a page is loaded.
When you share a link to a recipe, your meal plan, your shopping list, a profile or a collection, messengers and social networks usually show a preview with a title, short description and image. Our own server generates this preview; we do not use any third-party services for this. It never shows more than the shared page itself: for a meal plan, “Meal plan by …” with the first word of your username (e.g. your first name), the number of days and dishes, and up to three dish names and photos; for the shopping list, only how many ingredients are on it and how many are still open, without names and without individual items; for profiles, the username and photos of public recipes (no photos for non-public profiles); for public collections, their name, description, your username and up to three recipe photos. The recipient’s app retrieves the preview from us and may cache it; we have no influence over this. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (the sharing feature you use).
When you download the app, Apple or Google process data under their own responsibility. Crash reports that you allow in your system settings are provided to us by the stores in aggregated form.
We store account data until you delete your account; after that it is deleted unless there are statutory retention obligations (e.g. 8 or 10 years for invoices and accounting records under § 147 AO (German Fiscal Code) and § 257 HGB (German Commercial Code)). Newsletter data until you unsubscribe. Usage statistics for a maximum of 14 months, active days per account for 14 months (deleted automatically), events for troubleshooting for 14 months, anonymous search counters, portion corrections and discarded photo results for 180 days, answers to the question in the app for 12 months; Premium: counters 70 days, device entries 13 months, notifications from Apple and Google 3 years.
SmarTasty is intended for people aged 16 and over.
All connections to SmarTasty are encrypted with TLS.