Privacy Policy

No Account Required

Clean Bite is fully anonymous. There is no sign-up, login, password, or user profile of any kind. You can scan a product and view its analysis without providing any personal information.

Information We Collect

When you scan a barcode, the barcode is sent to our backend server so it can look up the product and, if needed, generate a safety analysis of its ingredients.

The resulting product, ingredient, and analysis data is cached on our server, keyed to the barcode itself (not to you or your device), for up to six months. This lets us avoid re-analyzing the same product unnecessarily.

Like any web service, our servers automatically record standard technical logs for each request, such as IP address and browser/user agent, for operating and securing the Service.

Your language preference and whether you have accepted this Privacy Policy, the Terms of Service, the Disclaimer, and the Cookie Policy are stored only in your browser's local storage, on your own device. This information is never transmitted to our servers, is not linked to any identity, and is cleared automatically if you clear your browser's site data.

Third-Party Services We Use

Open Food Facts: to identify a scanned product and its ingredients, we query Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), a free, community-maintained, third-party product database. We do not send any personal information to Open Food Facts beyond the barcode being looked up.

Google Gemini API: after a product is identified, we send its name, brand, and ingredient text to Google's Gemini API so it can generate the safety analysis shown in the Service. This is the only case in which content you trigger by scanning a product is sent to a third-party AI service for processing.

Advertising (planned, not yet active): we intend to show ads through Google AdSense on the web and Google AdMob in the native app in the future. As of the date of this policy, no advertising is active on the Service. Once enabled, these services may use device identifiers or similar technologies to personalize ads, in accordance with Google's own privacy practices. You will be able to limit ad personalization and tracking through your device or browser settings. We will update this policy before or when advertising is enabled.

How We Use Information

We use the information described above solely to operate, maintain, and improve the Service: to look up and analyze scanned products, to keep the Service in your preferred language, to avoid asking you to accept our policies repeatedly, to monitor for abuse, and, once enabled, to support advertising that keeps the Service free.

Data Retention

Cached product and analysis data is retained on our server for up to six months from the date it was generated, after which it may be deleted or re-analyzed on the next scan.

Local storage data (language preference, consent status) remains on your device until you clear your browser's site data or storage, or use the reset option on the Settings page.

Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the information handled by the Service. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security against unauthorized access, hacking, or other circumstances beyond our reasonable control.

Children

The Service is intended for a general audience and does not knowingly target children. Because the Service is anonymous and does not collect personal information, we do not perform age verification. Parents or guardians who have concerns about a child's use of the Service are welcome to contact us.

Your Choices

You can clear your language preference and consent status at any time by clearing your browser's local storage for this site, or via the reset control on the Settings page. Doing so resets your language to the default and shows the consent prompt again the next time it is required.

Once advertising is enabled, you will be able to limit ad tracking and personalization through your device's or browser's privacy settings.

Changes to This Policy

Because the Service does not collect any means of contacting you directly, such as an email address, we cannot notify you individually of changes to this Policy. We will instead post any changes on this page along with an updated “Last updated” date. Please check back periodically.