Privacy Policy

MacrAU ("we", "our", "the app") is an Australian calorie and macro tracking app. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights.

What stays on your device

All of the following lives in a private database on your phone. Your diary as a whole only leaves your phone if you sign in, which turns on cloud backup. A few features send specific pieces of it, and the sections below say exactly which.

• Your food log — what you ate, when, and the macros
• Custom foods, recipes, and meal templates you've created
• Favourites and frequently logged items
• Weight, water, and exercise entries
• Your preferences — meal structure, energy unit, theme, all that
• Body stats for TDEE calculation (age, height, weight, sex, activity level)
• Anything you've let the app read from Apple Health or Health Connect (see below)

What we send to our servers

When you use certain features, some data is sent to our servers. Our database and your backups are stored in Sydney, Australia.

Account Optional

You can sign in with Apple (iPhone), Google (Android), or email and password. We store your email address and an account ID. If you sign in with Google, Google also sends the name and profile photo on your Google account. We don't keep them: our server deletes them as they arrive. Apple and Google handle their part of signing in under their own privacy policies. The app works perfectly without an account — it's completely optional.

Cloud backup Optional

When you're signed in, the app backs up its whole on-device database to your account automatically (usually about once a day), and whenever you tap Back Up Now. That's everything in the list above, including weight and exercise data the app has read from Apple Health or Health Connect. Backups are encrypted at rest. We keep your most recent few and delete older ones automatically. Deleting your account deletes them all.

Food submissions

When you create a food, or edit one that has a barcode, signed in or not, its name, brand, barcode, and nutrition details are sent to us to improve the community database, along with a random device ID (see below). If you're signed in, the submission is also linked to your account. When you sign in, any foods you submitted from that phone before signing in are linked to your account too.

Food reports

If you flag a food as incorrect, we store your report (the reason and any comment you add) with your random device ID, and with your account if you're signed in.

Sharing recipes and meals Optional

When you share a recipe or saved meal, the app uploads it to our database so it can make a link. What's uploaded is the recipe or meal itself: its name, serves and notes, and each ingredient's name, amount and nutrition details. Nothing else from your diary goes with it. You need to be signed in to share, and the share is linked to your account so we can delete it with your account.

Anyone who has the link can see what you shared. Links can't be guessed, but they can be forwarded, so only share what you're happy for others to see. Links stop working after 90 days, and the shares are then deleted automatically. Deleting your account deletes them straight away.

When you open a share link in the app, the app asks our server for that share. Like any request to our server, that shows us your phone's IP address. If you open a link without the app, you'll see a simple web page that doesn't load the share. When you save a shared recipe or meal, it's saved on your phone like one you made yourself.

Popular foods

To rank search results, the app sends a daily count of which database foods were logged on your phone. These counts carry a scrambled one-way code made from your device ID, the date, and a secret that never leaves your phone. They're sent without your sign-in, so they aren't linked to your account, and they don't include anything else from your diary.

Device identifier

On first launch, the app creates a random ID. It isn't your Apple ID, your phone's advertising ID, or anything else about you. It's attached to your food submissions and reports so we can spot duplicates and abuse. Once you sign in, it's linked to your account as described above. If you delete your account, the app makes a new random ID, so what you submitted before can't be linked to an account you use later.

AI features

Some features use AI to read things for you. The text or photos below are sent through our server to OpenAI (in the United States), and only the results come back to your phone:

• Photos of a nutrition panel or product label, when you add a missing food
• The name and brand you type for a new food, so we can tidy up spelling and capitals
• Recipes you import — the text of a recipe web page, your photos of a recipe, or text you paste
• The ingredient names from a recipe, along with possible matching foods from our database

Our server doesn't save any of it. OpenAI's terms for its API say it doesn't use this data to train its models. It may keep it for up to 30 days to check for abuse, then deletes it.

When you import a recipe from a web link, your phone fetches the page itself, so our servers never contact the site. The page's text is then sent to OpenAI as above, and the link is saved on the recipe so you know where it came from.

To stop these features being abused, our server records when each request was made. The record holds your account ID if you're signed in, or your IP address if you're not. Records more than a day old are cleared out from time to time.

Apple Health and Health Connect Optional

On iPhone the app can connect to Apple Health, and on Android to Health Connect. If you turn this on in the app and grant permission:

• We read your workouts, calories burned, your steps, and (on iPhone) active energy burned, to work out your exercise calories. We only read these while exercise tracking is on. If you also turn on weight sync, we read your body weight.
• We write your daily nutrition totals (energy, protein, carbs, and fat) to Apple Health or Health Connect, so you can see them there and in apps you've connected to it.

What we read is saved in your diary on your phone. If you're signed in, it's included in your cloud backup like the rest of your diary, which is encrypted at rest and deleted when you delete your account. Turning the connection off stops all reading and writing. It's never used for advertising, never sold, never used to decide on credit or insurance, and never shared with anyone else. The app works great without it.

You can change or withdraw these permissions at any time in the Health app (iPhone) or in Health Connect's settings (Android).

Crash reporting

We use Sentry (in the United States) to catch crashes and slow spots. Reports include technical details like your phone model, operating system, app version, and what the app was doing when it went wrong. That can include the web addresses the app had just contacted. The app removes your account ID and any share links from them before a report is sent. We don't add your name, email, or food diary. This just helps us fix things faster.

Overseas services

A few services we use are outside Australia:

• OpenAI (United States) — the AI features above
• Sentry (United States) — crash reports
• Expo (United States) — each time the app starts, it checks Expo's servers for app updates. That check shares your IP address and a random install ID.
• Apple and Google — if you use them to sign in
• Vercel (United States) — hosts our website, including the page a share link opens if the app isn't installed

Our database and your backups stay in Sydney.

What we don't collect None

• Location data
• Contacts or address book
• Browsing history
• Advertising identifiers (IDFA)
• Microphone or call data
• Data from other apps, apart from Apple Health or Health Connect when you allow it
• Third-party analytics (no Firebase, no Mixpanel, nothing)
• Ads or ad networks of any kind

Security

• Database and backups hosted in Sydney, Australia
• Cloud backups encrypted at rest
• All communication over HTTPS/TLS
• Industry-standard authentication protocols

Your rights

Export

You can export everything you've recorded any time from Settings > Export my data: your food log, weight, exercise, water, your own foods, recipes, saved meals and targets, as a zip of spreadsheet (CSV) files.

Delete

• Local data: Uninstall the app and it's gone
• Cloud data: Delete your account (Profile > Account > Delete Account). We delete your account, all your backups and any recipes or meals you've shared. Foods you submitted and reports you made stay in the community database, but they're no longer linked to your account.

Australian Privacy Act

You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it. If you reckon we've breached the Australian Privacy Principles, get in touch or lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Kids

MacrAU isn't designed for children under 13. We don't knowingly collect data from kids.

Changes

We might update this policy down the track. If anything major changes, we'll let you know in the app. The date up top tells you when it was last revised.

Get in touch

Privacy questions or data requests: privacy@macrau.app