Privacy policy

Last updated 2 November 2026

In short

• No account needed. Browsing, searching, recipes, cooking mode and the meal planner work without signing in.
• No ads, no selling data, no tracking for advertising.
• If you sign in with Google, we keep your profile, saved recipes, meal plans and cooking history in your private area of our database so you can use them on any device. Only you can read it.
• Usage statistics are optional and only collected if you press “Allow”.
• You can download or delete your account data at any time.

Who we are

FriendsPantry (friendspantry.org) is responsible for your data (the “data controller”). Contact us about anything on this page at friendspantryorg@gmail.com.

Data kept only on your device

Without an account, your favourites, recently viewed recipes, saved searches, preferences (units, diets, allergens), shopping list (with the optional postcode or Eircode and favourite shop you give it), studio creations, meal plans and Wellness logs (food you mark as eaten, water, activity, steps, weight and the city you choose for weather) are stored in your browser (local storage and IndexedDB). We never receive them. The postcode or Eircode is only used on your device to choose the country, region and shops to show; it is never sent to shops, price sources or anyone else. You can clear them on the Preferences page or in your browser settings. Details of each item are in the cookie policy.

If you sign in with Google

What we receive and store

• From Google: your name, email address, profile photo link and a unique user id. We don’t receive your Google password or access to anything else in your Google account.
• Profile: sign-up and last sign-in dates, time zone (for cooking streaks), cooking goals, cooking level, diet and cuisine preferences you choose, and your collections.
• What you save: saved and bookmarked recipes (recipe id, title, image link, cuisine, country, time), meal plans, your shopping list (with its ticks, “have it” marks and, if you gave them, your postcode or Eircode, region and favourite shop), and the recipes you mark as cooked (date, optional rating and notes).
• Wellness (only if you use it): your food log (recipe, portions and the recipe’s calculated nutrition), water, activity, steps, weigh-ins, units, water goal and the city you chose for weather — one record per day under your account. This is health-related data you choose to enter; it is visible only to you. Administrators can’t read it: they only see anonymous totals such as how many people used the food log this week. It’s included in “Download my data” and removed when you delete your account, and signing out removes the copy on that device.
• Taste profile (only if you rate recipes): one record per recipe you rated after cooking or eating it — your answer (loved it, liked it, okay, didn’t like it), up to four reasons and an optional short note — plus your taste settings (on or off, your corrections, and when you last reset it). The profile itself is worked out on your device and never stored. It is visible only to you: administrators can’t read it. Only anonymous, aggregated community statistics are ever computed from ratings. It’s included in “Download my data”, removed when you reset it or delete your account, and signing out removes the copy on that device.
• Progress: points, level, streaks and achievements, calculated from your own cooking history, plan commitments (which planned meals were in a saved plan, and when) and Academy quiz answers.

Why (legal basis)

• To provide the account features you ask for — keeping your recipes, plans and history and showing them on any device (performance of our agreement with you).
• To keep the service secure and working, e.g. preventing abuse (our legitimate interests).

Your private data is protected by access rules that allow only your signed-in account to read or change it. We don’t use it for advertising, we don’t sell it, and we don’t share it with anyone except the service providers below.

Kitchen League and public leaderboards

Your points are worked out from your own records. Once a day an automated job (running on GitHub’s servers) recalculates them and updates the leaderboards. It reads only what it needs: your cooking records, plan commitments, quiz answers, time zone and league settings.

Public leaderboards are opt-in. Only if you switch on “Show me on public leaderboards” do we show your chosen display name, your points, number of recipes cooked and badges — plus your Google photo and the name of the last dish you cooked only if you choose those too. We never show your email, account id, meal plans, diets, notes or ratings. Switch it off at any time; you’re removed at the next daily update.

Optional usage statistics

If — and only if — you press Allow on the banner, we use Google Analytics for Firebase to count visits and feature use, such as “a recipe was saved” or “a meal plan was created”, with a recipe or achievement id. We never send your name, email or notes. IP addresses are anonymised, and Google signals and ad personalisation are switched off. The legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time on the Preferences page.

Service providers

These providers may process data outside your country, including in the United States. They do so under their data-processing terms, which include the safeguards required by UK and EU law (such as Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum).

How long we keep it

• Account data: until you delete it or your account. Deleting a saved recipe, meal plan or cooking record removes it straight away.
• If you delete your account, we delete your profile and everything saved under it immediately; copies in our providers’ backups expire within their standard backup periods.
• Usage statistics: 2 months (Google Analytics’ standard retention setting).

Your rights

You can ask to access, correct, download, or delete your data, object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw consent for statistics. Most of this you can do yourself:

• Download your data as a file, or delete your account and all its data, from My Pantry Journey.
• Remove individual saved recipes, meal plans or cooking records whenever you like.
• Turn usage statistics off on the Preferences page.

For anything else, write to friendspantryorg@gmail.com. We’ll reply within one month. If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to your data-protection authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

Children

FriendsPantry isn’t directed at children under 13, and children under 13 shouldn’t create an account. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Security

Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Account data is stored with Google Cloud and protected by access rules tested to ensure only the owner can read it. No method is perfectly secure, but we keep what we store small and never store passwords.

Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top, and for significant changes we’ll tell signed-in users on the site.

Related: Privacy policy · Cookie policy · Terms of use