Plateflow

Privacy Policy

Effective 13 October 2026

Plateflow keeps your recipes on your device and in your own iCloud account, and we do not sell your data or show ads. This policy explains what the app handles, where it goes and what choices you have.

Plateflow (“the app”) is operated by Joshua Reno Nicastro, ABN 46 236 259 956, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the Plateflow app and this website, plateflow.app.

Information we collect

Plateflow stores what you put into it. We do not ask you to create a Plateflow account, and we do not collect your name, email address, contacts, location or advertising identifier.

  • Your content: recipes, ingredients, methods, notes, categories, cookbooks and food photos you add.
  • Nutrition and cost data: calories, macros, ingredient prices, price history and meal costs, and (once released) your daily macro-intake timeline.
  • Photos you choose to scan: receipts, price tags, nutrition labels and recipe photos you submit to a scanning or import feature.
  • Searches and lookups: the words you search a food database for, the barcodes you scan, and the ingredients you choose to look up at Coles or Woolworths. These pass through our relay to the services described in “Food databases, store lookups and websites” below.
  • Shared cookbook details: if you share a cookbook, the people you share it with and the content in it, handled through Apple’s CloudKit sharing.
  • Subscription status: Apple tells the app whether you have an active Plateflow Premium subscription. We do not see your payment details.
  • Usage counters: when you use an AI feature, look up a store price or share a product with Open Food Facts, our relay counts your requests against an identifier Apple assigns to your subscription (or, in TestFlight beta versions, to your installation of the app), not your name or email, so we can apply fair-use limits. These counters expire within two days. Free food searches are limited by a short-lived counter that Cloudflare keeps in memory for about a minute and does not store.
  • Diagnostics: crash and performance reports that Apple provides to developers, only if you have chosen to share analytics with developers on your device. We use no third-party analytics, crash-reporting or advertising tools.
  • Support messages: anything you send us when you email [email protected].
  • This website: it is hosted on Cloudflare, which may process technical data such as your IP address to deliver pages. We do not add cookies or analytics to the website.

How we use information

We use the information the app handles only to:

  • run the app’s features, including costing, macros, price tracking and recipe import;
  • look up foods, barcodes and store prices when you ask;
  • sync your library across your devices through iCloud;
  • carry out AI features when you ask for them (see “AI features and third parties” below);
  • confirm your Premium subscription and unlock paid features;
  • answer support requests, fix bugs and keep the app secure; and
  • meet our legal obligations.

We do not use your recipes, photos or receipts for advertising, and we do not use them to train AI models. Under Anthropic’s commercial terms, Anthropic does not train its models on content sent through its API by default.

Where your data lives

Your library is stored on your device. If iCloud is on for Plateflow, it also syncs through your private iCloud (CloudKit) storage, under your Apple ID and Apple’s security. We cannot read the contents of your private iCloud data, and we do not run a server that stores your recipes.

Your choice about sending content to Anthropic (see below) is kept on your device and synced to your other devices through iCloud key-value storage, so you are not asked twice.

If you turn iCloud off for the app, your data stays on that device only and will not sync or back up through iCloud. Apple’s privacy policy governs its handling of iCloud data.

If you share a cookbook, everyone you share it with can see its contents and can contribute according to the permissions you set. Shared cookbooks count against the owner’s iCloud storage.

AI features and third parties

Some features (recipe import, receipt and price-tag scanning) use AI. They run in one of two ways.

On your device. On devices that support it, the app uses Apple’s on-device model (the FoundationModels framework). Your content is processed on the device and is not sent to us or anyone else.

Through Anthropic. On devices that cannot run the on-device model, and for Premium AI features, the app sends the content you submit to Anthropic, PBC, whose Claude models do the processing. This content is the text, web page content or photo you choose to import or scan, together with the instructions and ingredient names needed to do the task. It does not include your whole library, your name, your email address or your Apple ID.

The content reaches Anthropic through a relay we run on Cloudflare. The relay checks that you have an active subscription and passes your request on. It does not store the content of your requests, and we have switched off request logging. Anthropic processes the content in the United States and keeps it for a limited period under its own terms. See Anthropic’s privacy policy and commercial terms.

Your permission. After you start a free trial or subscription, the app asks whether you allow Plateflow to send content to Anthropic. If you say no, AI features that need Anthropic stay off, and the rest of the app, including on-device AI where your device supports it, keeps working. You can change your choice at any time in Settings.

Receipts and photos. A receipt can show card digits, loyalty numbers or a name. Crop these out before scanning. Photos you scan are used to read prices and items, and we do not keep them beyond that request.

Food databases, store lookups and websites

The app needs no keys or accounts from you for these features. Our relay on Cloudflare holds the keys, does not store or log the content of your requests, and does not pass on your IP address or any identifier.

Food search and barcodes. When you search for a food or scan a barcode, the relay sends only the search words or the barcode to USDA FoodData Central (run by the United States Department of Agriculture) or Open Food Facts (an open food database run by a French non-profit), and returns the result.

Sharing a product with Open Food Facts. This is off unless you turn it on in Settings, and nothing is sent until you tap Share on an ingredient you read from its nutrition label. The relay then sends that product’s barcode, name, brand and nutrition per 100 g to Open Food Facts, under Plateflow’s own Open Food Facts account. Open Food Facts publishes it openly under the Open Database Licence, so it becomes public and may stay public. Nothing about you is included.

Coles and Woolworths price lookups. Plateflow comes with no prices. If you choose to look up an ingredient at Coles or Woolworths, or refresh the price of an ingredient you linked to one of their products, the relay sends the search words or that product page’s address to Apify, a web-data service we use, which reads the price from the store’s public website. Apify keeps the lookup and its result for a limited period under its own terms. Nothing that identifies you is sent. Plateflow is not affiliated with or endorsed by Coles or Woolworths.

Recipe websites. When you import a recipe from a web address, the app downloads that page and its photos directly from the website, not through our relay. That website receives your IP address and the usual technical details of the request, under its own privacy policy.

Sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in these cases:

  • People you share with: members of a shared cookbook can see what is in it.
  • Apple: Apple handles iCloud sync and processes Premium purchases, free trials and renewals under its own terms and privacy policy.
  • Anthropic: only when an AI feature is processed through Anthropic, as described above.
  • Food databases: USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts receive your food searches and barcodes, and Open Food Facts receives products you choose to share, as described above.
  • Apify: it runs the Coles and Woolworths price lookups you choose to make.
  • Recipe websites: a website you import a recipe from receives your request for its page.
  • Cloudflare: it hosts our relay and this website, so requests pass through its systems.
  • Legal reasons: where the law requires it, or to protect our rights or someone’s safety.
  • Business change: if Plateflow is sold or transferred, your information would go to the new owner, who must honour this policy.

Keeping and deleting your data

Your content stays until you delete it. Deleting a recipe or cookbook in the app removes it from your synced devices.

To remove everything stored in iCloud, open iPhone Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then Manage Account Storage, choose Plateflow and delete its data. Deleting the app alone does not remove iCloud copies.

Our relay keeps no request content, and its usage counters expire within two days. Apify keeps price lookups for a limited period under its terms. Products you share with Open Food Facts are public and openly licensed, so they may remain there; contact Open Food Facts to ask about changes. Support emails are kept for as long as needed to deal with your request and meet our legal obligations. You can cancel Premium at any time in your Apple ID subscription settings.

Your rights and complaints

We handle personal information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). You can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, and to correct or delete it. Because your library lives on your device and in your iCloud, you can already view, edit and delete most of it yourself.

If you are in the UK, European Economic Area or California, you also have the rights those laws give you, such as access, deletion and objection. We rely on providing the app you asked for, your consent (for sending content to Anthropic) and our legitimate interest in keeping the app secure.

If you have a privacy concern, email [email protected] first. If we do not resolve it, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Security, children, transfers, changes and contact

Security. Your data is protected by your device’s encryption and Apple’s iCloud security. Keep your device and Apple ID secure. No system is perfectly safe, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children. Plateflow is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

International transfers. Content sent to Anthropic is processed in the United States. Food searches, barcodes and store lookups are handled by services in the United States and Europe (USDA FoodData Central, Open Food Facts and Apify). iCloud data may be stored on Apple servers outside Australia.

Changes. We may update this policy. We will change the effective date and, for material changes, tell you in the app before they apply.

Contact. Joshua Reno Nicastro, Brisbane QLD, Australia. Email [email protected].