Privacy policy
Last updated 25 September 2026
Eco Kitchen helps you use the food you already have before it goes to waste. This policy says exactly what the app collects, why, who else sees it, and how to get rid of it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.
The short version. The app works without an account, and everything stays on your phone until you sign in. If you sign in, the same information is copied to our server so it can sync and be restored. Photographs you scan are sent to an AI service to be read and are never stored — not by us, not by them. We sell nothing to anyone and there is no advertising.
Who is responsible
Nardus Serfontein, trading as Eco Kitchen, South Africa. I am the responsible party and the information officer under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). For anything on this page: serfonteinnardus@gmail.com.
Using the app without an account
The part of Eco Kitchen that matters — the food in your kitchen, what needs using, the recipes that match it — works with no account at all. That information is kept in a database on your phone. It is not sent anywhere, and we cannot see it.
What we hold if you do sign in
Signing in is how your kitchen survives a lost phone and how a household shares a list.
| From signing in | Your e-mail address, your name and profile picture if Google or Apple provides them, which service you used, and that service's identifier for you. We never see or hold your password. |
|---|---|
| Your kitchen | The food you add — name, category, quantity, where it is stored, when you added it, its best-before date and whether it was used or binned. |
| Your lists and spaces | Shopping lists and their items, the spaces you create or join, who is in them and what each person is allowed to do. |
| What you do in the app | Actions such as using an item, cooking a recipe or checking in, with the points and badges they earn. This is what draws your streak and your score. |
| If you buy a plan | A record that a purchase is active, and the credits you have. The payment itself is handled by Google Play or Apple — we never see your card. |
We do not collect your location, your contacts, your calendar or the other apps on your phone.
Photographs, and what happens to them
When you photograph your fridge or a till slip, the picture is sent over an encrypted connection to an AI service that reads it and returns a list of possible foods. The photograph is not saved on your phone by the app, not written to our server, and not kept by us afterwards.
What we do keep is a line in a cost ledger: which model was used, how long it took, how many items came back, whether it succeeded and what it cost. No image, and no description of what was in it.
The AI service is OpenRouter, which passes the image to the model that reads it. Their handling of that request is governed by their own policy. Nothing about you is sent with the picture — not your name, not your e-mail, not an identifier for your account.
Whatever comes back is a suggestion. Nothing is added to your kitchen until you confirm it, and every guess can be corrected or thrown away.
Who else sees anything
- Google or Apple, when you choose to sign in with them. They tell us who you are; we tell them nothing about what you do in the app.
- OpenRouter and the AI model, for the moment it takes to read a photograph, as above.
- Google Play or the App Store, if you buy a plan. They handle the payment and tell our server whether the plan is active.
- Our hosting provider, which runs the server the data sits on, in South Africa.
- People you invite. If you share a space or a list, the people in it see what is in it. That is the point of sharing, and you choose who and what they may change.
Nobody buys this data, because it is not for sale. There is no advertising in Eco Kitchen and no advertising or analytics trackers in the app.
Shared links
A shopping list can be shared as a link that works without the app. Anyone holding that link can see and tick that one list — so send it to the people you mean to, and revoke it in the app when you are done. A revoked link stops working immediately.
How long it is kept
For as long as you have an account. Delete the account and everything tied to it is erased from the server: your details, your food, your lists, your actions and badges. Backups of the server are kept for fourteen days and then overwritten, so a deleted account disappears from those within two weeks.
Deleting everything
In the app: Profile → Settings → Delete account. It happens immediately and cannot be undone. If you have already removed the app, use the deletion request page and it will be done within 30 days, usually the same day.
Your rights under POPIA
You may ask what we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, object to how it is used, or ask for a copy. Write to serfonteinnardus@gmail.com and you will have an answer within 30 days. The app can also export your data to a file at any time, without asking anyone.
If you are unhappy with the answer, you may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa: inforegulator.org.za.
Keeping it safe
Everything between the app and the server travels over HTTPS. The database is not reachable from the internet. Invitation codes are stored hashed, never as plain text. Sign-in uses a signed token with a limited life rather than a password we could lose.
Children
Eco Kitchen is meant for people of 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect anything from children.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the app will say so before the change takes effect. The date at the top always reflects the current version.