Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Take Eat Easy is a trading name of FareGuard Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16810407), registered office 64 Lincoln Street, Birmingham, B12 9EX.

FareGuard Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. That means we decide what is collected and why, and we are accountable for it under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a data controller, registration reference ZC029515.

This policy covers the Take Eat Easy mobile app and the website at takeeateasy.co.uk. You can reach us about anything on this page at hello@fareguard.co.uk.

2. Summary

You can use the app without an account. If you do, your diary stays on your phone.
If you create an account, we store your email address and your diary so it can sync to your other devices.
We do not sell your data, and we do not share it for advertising.
You can delete your account and everything in it from inside the app, or from our account deletion page.

3. What we collect

Information you give us

Account details: Your email address and a password. Passwords are hashed by our authentication provider and are never visible to us.
Food diary: The foods you log, the amounts, and the dates you logged them. Foods you create yourself, and the nutrition values you give them.
Goals and profile: Your daily calorie and macronutrient targets. If you use the target calculator, the height, weight, age, sex and activity level you enter.
Dietary preferences: The diets you switch on so the app can flag conflicting products — for example vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher or gluten-free.

Information collected automatically

App usage: A count of the product lookups you make each day, so we can apply the free daily allowance. This is a number, not a list of what you scanned.
Technical data: When your app or browser contacts our services it sends an IP address and basic device or browser information. Our providers process this to deliver the service and keep it secure.
Website analytics: If you accept analytics cookies, our website uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. Reject them and none of this is collected. See section 9.

We do not collect your location or your contacts, and we do not access your photo library.

Camera, barcodes and receipts

Barcode recognition happens on your device. We receive only the barcode number, so that we can look the product up. The camera image is never uploaded and never stored.

Receipt scanning is different, because the image itself has to be read to extract the text on it. It is not switched on in the current release. When it is, the image will be processed only to extract that text, and we will set out here where that processing happens and how long anything is kept before the feature becomes available.

4. Dietary and health-related information

Some of what the app holds can reveal something about your health or your beliefs — a gluten-free setting may imply a medical condition, and a halal or kosher setting may imply a religious belief. Under Article 9 of the UK GDPR this is special category data, which carries extra protection.

We rely on your explicit consent to process it, given when you choose those settings. You can withdraw that consent at any time by turning the preferences off or by deleting your account. We use this data only to run the features you asked for. We never use it for advertising or profiling, and we never share it with third parties for their own purposes.

5. Why we use your data, and our lawful basis

To run the app: Logging food, calculating totals and showing your progress. Basis: performance of a contract with you.
To sync your account: Keeping your diary available across your devices and restoring it if you reinstall. Basis: performance of a contract with you.
To flag dietary conflicts: Checking product data against the preferences you set. Basis: your explicit consent.
To manage subscriptions: Confirming whether you have an active premium subscription. Basis: performance of a contract with you.
To keep the service secure: Preventing abuse, diagnosing faults and enforcing the free usage allowance. Basis: our legitimate interests in a working, fairly used service.
To improve the website: Understanding which pages people read. Basis: your consent, through cookies.
To meet legal duties: Keeping accounting records and responding to lawful requests. Basis: compliance with a legal obligation.

We do not sell personal data and we do not share it with advertisers. We use a small number of service providers who process data on our instructions:

Supabase: Hosts our database and handles sign-in. Your account and synced diary are stored here, in a data centre in the European Union.
Resend: Sends account emails such as sign-up confirmation and password resets.
Google Play: Distributes the Android app and processes subscription payments. Google is the merchant of record, so we never see your card details. Google’s own privacy policy applies to that payment.
Google Analytics: Measures website traffic, where you consent to analytics cookies.
Vercel: Hosts takeeateasy.co.uk and processes server logs, including IP addresses, to serve the site and protect it from abuse.

We may also disclose data where we are legally required to, or to establish or defend legal claims. If FareGuard Ltd is ever sold or restructured, data may transfer to the new owner, who would remain bound by this policy.

Product nutrition data

Product information comes from Open Food Facts, an open database licensed under the ODbL. When you scan a barcode the app sends only that barcode to look the product up. It does not send your identity, your account, your diary or your dietary settings.

7. Where your data is stored

Your account and diary are stored in the European Union. Some of our providers are based in the United States and may process data there. Where data leaves the UK we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, or on UK adequacy regulations, so that your data keeps an equivalent level of protection.

8. How long we keep it

While your account is open: we keep your account and diary so the app works. Your records are retained for as long as your account remains open, rather than being deleted after a fixed period.
If you delete your account: your account and diary are removed immediately, and purged from encrypted backups within 30 days.
Dormant accounts: if an account goes unused for three years we will email you before deleting it.
Financial records: where a purchase has been made we keep the records tax law requires, normally six years. These identify a transaction, not your food diary.
Local-only use: if you never create an account, your data stays on your phone and goes when you uninstall the app. We never receive it.

9. Cookies

The app does not use cookies or advertising identifiers.

The website sets no cookies at all unless you allow it. Google Analytics is the only non-essential cookie we would set, and it is not loaded until you choose Accept on the banner shown on your first visit. Choose Reject and it is never loaded. The site works exactly the same either way.

You can change your mind at any time using the Cookie settings link in the footer of any page. Withdrawing consent clears the analytics cookies already on your device. You can also opt out of Google Analytics across every website using Google’s browser add-on.

Your choice is remembered in your browser’s local storage rather than in a cookie, so that recording it does not itself require setting one.

10. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

Access the personal data we hold about you, and receive a copy.
Correct anything inaccurate. Most of it you can edit in the app directly.
Delete your data — see deleting your account.
Restrict or object to how we use it, including anything we base on our legitimate interests.
Withdraw consent at any time, for anything based on consent. This does not affect processing already carried out.
Portability— receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.

To exercise any of these, email hello@fareguard.co.uk. We will respond within one month, and there is no charge.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. We would ask that you raise the matter with us in the first instance.

11. Security

Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and encrypted at rest by our database provider. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Access to production data is restricted to those who need it. Our database enforces row-level security, so an account can only ever read its own rows.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your rights and freedoms we will report it to the ICO within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay where we are required to.

12. Children

Take Eat Easy is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. In the UK, a child aged 13 or over can consent to an online service of this kind on their own behalf. If you are under 18, we would encourage you to read this policy with a parent or guardian. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal data, email us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of the page. Where a change materially affects you we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

14. Contact us

FareGuard Ltd, 64 Lincoln Street, Birmingham, B12 9EX, United Kingdom
hello@fareguard.co.uk