Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Information You Provide

• Account Information: Email address, username, display name, bio, and profile avatar.
• Sign-In Provider Data: If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your email address and, where you permit it, your name from that provider in order to create and authenticate your account. We never receive your password. If you use Apple's "Hide My Email" option, we only ever see the relay address Apple generates for you.
• Ratings & Content: Photos of dishes, sentiment ratings (liked, okay, disliked), taste tag preferences, and optional notes about dishes.
• Restaurant Selections: Which restaurants and dish types you rate.

Information Collected Automatically

• Location Data: We collect precise GPS location data to verify your proximity to restaurants when submitting ratings and to show nearby restaurants. Location is only accessed when you use location-dependent features and with your explicit permission.
• Photo Metadata: When you upload a dish photo, we may extract and store EXIF metadata including embedded GPS coordinates and timestamp. This data is used for location verification and is deleted when you delete your account.
• Usage Analytics: We use Amplitude to collect anonymized usage data such as feature interactions, screen views, and app performance metrics. This data does not include your personal ratings or photos.
• Device Information: Device type, operating system version, and app version for compatibility and debugging purposes.

2. How We Use Your Information

• Personalized Rankings: Your sentiment ratings and pairwise comparisons power your personal dish rankings using our Elo-based scoring system.
• Community Leaderboards: Your ratings contribute to community Bayesian scores that help other users find the best dishes. Individual ratings are never displayed publicly with your identity — community scores are aggregated and anonymized.
• Restaurant Discovery: Location data is used to sort restaurants by proximity and verify you are near a restaurant when rating.
• App Improvement: Anonymized analytics help us understand how the App is used so we can improve the experience.
• Account Management: Email is used for authentication and account recovery.

3. How Your Information Appears to Others

• Community Scores: Your ratings contribute to aggregated community scores. These scores are calculated using a Bayesian algorithm and do not reveal individual users' ratings.
• Recent Activity: Your username may appear in the recent battle ticker on the Discover screen, showing that you recently rated a dish at a restaurant. No scores or sentiments are shown.
• Photos: Photos you upload of dishes may appear on dish and restaurant detail pages. Photos are not attributed to your username on these pages.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate the App:

Each third-party service operates under its own privacy policy. We encourage you to review their policies.

5. Data Retention

• Active Accounts: We retain your data for as long as your account is active.
• Account Deletion: When you delete your account through the App:
  • Your personal information (name, email, avatar, bio, push tokens) is anonymized and de-identified. Your profile is retained as an anonymous placeholder to preserve database integrity, but contains no identifiable information.
  • All photos you uploaded (dish photos and profile avatar) are permanently deleted from our storage servers.
  • Photo metadata (EXIF location and timestamps) is permanently deleted.
  • Your individual ratings are anonymized (disassociated from your identity) to preserve the integrity of community leaderboard scores. Only the numerical scores and sentiment are retained — no personal notes, photos, or identifying information remains. No one, including us, can trace these anonymized ratings back to you.
  • Your authentication account is permanently deleted.
• Analytics Data: Anonymized analytics data may be retained indefinitely as it cannot be linked to individual users.

6. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information, including:

• All data transmitted between the App and our servers is encrypted using TLS/SSL.
• Authentication is handled through Supabase's secure auth infrastructure.
• Photos are stored in Supabase's secure cloud storage with access controls.
• We do not store passwords — authentication uses secure token-based sessions.

While we strive to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. Your Rights and Choices

• Account Deletion: You can delete your account at any time from the Settings screen in the App. This is permanent and cannot be undone. If you no longer have the App installed, you can request account and data deletion here.
• Location Permissions: You can revoke location access at any time through your device settings. Some features (nearby restaurant sorting, proximity verification) will be unavailable without location access.
• Photo Permissions: You can revoke camera and photo library access through your device settings. You will not be able to submit new ratings without camera access.
• Data Access: To request a copy of your data, contact us at the email below.

8. Children's Privacy

Forked is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have collected data from a child under 13, we will take steps to delete that information promptly. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy. Continued use of the App after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal data, contact us at privacy@forkedapp.com or visit www.forkedapp.com.