Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data the FoodMate iPhone app collects, where it comes from, why we use it, who processes it, how long it is kept and what your rights are. It covers FoodMate whether you use a test version through Apple’s TestFlight or the App Store version.

It is written to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as incorporated into Norwegian law by the Personal Data Act of 15 June 2018 (personopplysningsloven). The Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) is our supervisory authority.

1. Who we are

FoodMate is provided by Nikolai Langsem, a sole trader trading as Nlongvity ("we", "us"), Sinsenveien, 0572 Oslo, Norway. We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy.

Contact: hello@nlongvity.com. In the app, Profile → Help → Contact FoodMate opens an email to this address.

2. What personal data we process and why

Category	Data	Where it comes from	Purpose	Legal basis (GDPR)
Account	Email address, name, password (stored only as a hash), a random user ID, the times you signed up and last signed in	You, when you sign up; or Apple or Google when you use Sign in with Apple or Google sign-in (Apple may give us a private relay address instead of your real one, and Google also shares a link to your profile picture, which FoodMate does not use)	Your account and sign-in; account emails such as password reset	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Sign in with Apple token	Your Apple user identifier and a token from Apple	Apple, when you sign in with Apple	Revoking FoodMate’s access at Apple when you delete your account	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Profile and taste choices	City name, city point (coordinates), whether the city came from your location or from a city you picked, favourite cuisines, budgets	You, during setup and in Profile; your device’s location only if you allow it (section 6)	Finding restaurants near your city, building battles, Palate	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Allergens and diets	Allergens you want to avoid; diets (vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher)	You, on an optional setup step and in Profile	Allergen warnings, the diet filter, Palate (section 7)	Art. 6(1)(a) consent and Art. 9(2)(a) explicit consent
Battles and picks	Solo and group battles you start or join, their 8 restaurants, each pick you make, winners, group battle memberships, ballot status and invite codes	Your use of the app	Running battles, your history and Palate; anonymous win and loss totals for Hot Places	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Saved places	The restaurants you save	You	Your Saved list	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Creator profile and brackets (creators only)	Handle, display name, bio, Instagram handle; each bracket’s title, city, intro, 8 restaurants, a note and an optional photo per place	You, when you apply as a creator and when you build brackets	Publishing your brackets (section 4)	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Bracket plays	Which creator bracket you played, when you started and finished, your winner, whether you tapped directions or saved it	Your use of the app	Your battle; totals for the creator, who never sees who played	Art. 6(1)(b) contract; Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (giving creators totals)
Reports and blocks	Reports you send (bracket, reason, time) and the creators you block	You	Moderating creator content; hiding creators you blocked (section 5)	Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (keeping FoodMate safe); Art. 6(1)(b) contract (blocks)
Subscription	Whether you have FoodMate Pro, the product, store, renewal and expiry dates, and whether the purchase was a test (sandbox) purchase	Apple, through RevenueCat	Giving you Pro and its features	Art. 6(1)(b) contract
Usage limits	Daily counts of restaurant look-ups, and the times of attempts to join a group battle with an invite code	Your use of the app	Fair use, cost control and stopping people from guessing invite codes	Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (security)
Crash and performance reports	Error details, device model, operating system and app version; timings from a sample of about 20% of app activity	The app, automatically	Finding and fixing crashes and slow screens	Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (keeping the app working)
Anonymous usage stats (only if you allow them)	A random anonymous ID and a few events: how you signed up (email, Apple or Google), battle started and finished (solo or group), paywall viewed and why, Pro purchased	The app, after you tap Allow	Seeing which parts of FoodMate people use	Art. 6(1)(a) consent
Technical data	IP address and request details in our providers’ server logs	Your device’s connections to our servers	Security and operations	Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (security)
Emails to us	Your email address and your message	You	Answering you and handling privacy requests	Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interests (answering you)

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your interests, and you can object (section 12).

If you test FoodMate through TestFlight, Apple shares with us the feedback and crash reports you choose to send from TestFlight and basic information about your test installs, under Apple’s TestFlight terms. If we invited you by email, we also have the name and email address used for the invitation.

3. Service providers and international transfers

We share personal data with the following providers, strictly to run FoodMate. For the services listed in their rows, Apple and Google act as independent controllers under their own privacy policies.

Provider	Purpose	Data shared	Location	Transfer safeguard
Supabase, Inc.	Database, sign-in, storage for creator photos, server functions	Everything FoodMate stores for your account (section 2), and the creator photos	United Kingdom (London, AWS eu-west-2)	UK adequacy decision of the European Commission
Apple	Sign in with Apple, App Store payments, TestFlight, looking up place names from coordinates (iOS geocoding), Apple Maps when you tap Directions	Your Apple sign-in details; your purchase; your coordinates or the city name you type; the restaurant you navigate to	Apple’s own services	Independent controller under Apple’s privacy policy
Google	Google sign-in; Google’s place card on restaurant pages (Places UI Kit); looking up Google’s ID for a restaurant	Sign-in: name, email address, profile picture link. Place card: what the Google Places SDK collects on your device (section 8). ID look-up: a restaurant’s name and position only, sent by our server	Google’s own services	Independent controller under Google’s privacy policy
RevenueCat, Inc.	Subscription management	Your random user ID, your purchases and subscription status from Apple, basic device and app information (such as country, language and app version)	United States	EU Standard Contractual Clauses
Resend, Inc.	Sending account emails from “FoodMate” <foodmate@nlongvity.com>	Your email address and the email	EU (Ireland)	Within the EEA
Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry)	Crash and performance reports	Error details, device model, operating system, app version	EU (Germany)	Within the EEA
PostHog, Inc.	Anonymous usage stats, only if you allow them	A random anonymous ID and the events listed in section 2	EU (Frankfurt)	Within the EEA
OpenStreetMap Overpass API (public servers)	Restaurant listings for an area	A map point and a radius, sent by our server with no account details	Europe	No account data is sent

Our database is in the United Kingdom, which the European Commission has recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection. When personal data goes to the United States (RevenueCat), the transfer relies on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. Providers based in the United States may also access data stored in Europe for support and operations under the safeguards in their data processing terms. You can ask us for more detail about these safeguards at hello@nlongvity.com.

4. What other people can see

Group battles. The other people in a group battle see your display name and whether you have submitted your ballot. They never see your individual picks; only the combined result is shown, after the battle ends.

Creator brackets. Any user can apply to be a creator. Applying makes nothing public: we approve each creator by hand, and until then only you can see your creator profile. Once you are approved, your creator profile (handle, display name, bio and Instagram handle) and the brackets you publish (title, city, intro, the 8 restaurants, your notes and photos) are visible to every signed-in FoodMate user, in Discover and through the bracket’s share link. The share link opens the bracket in the app; the web page it lands on shows only the bracket code.

Creator photos. FoodMate collects photos only from approved creators, who can add a photo to each place in a bracket, picked from the photo library on their iPhone. FoodMate does not access your photos unless you add one this way. Before upload, the app shrinks the photo to at most 1600 pixels on its longest side and saves it as a new JPEG on the phone, which removes the location and camera details (EXIF) stored in the original. Photos are stored by Supabase in a folder under the creator’s user ID and are publicly readable: anyone who has a photo’s web address can open it without a FoodMate account. Only add photos you are happy to make public.

Plays. When people play your bracket, you see totals only: plays, finishes, how often each place won, and how many players tapped directions or saved the winner. You never see who played.

Taking a bracket down. You can take a bracket down at any time: its link stops working and it disappears from Discover. Plays so far are kept. The bracket and its photos stay stored with your account until you delete your account, or until you ask us to remove them.

5. Reports and blocks

Any signed-in user can report a bracket from its page (Report or block) and choose a reason: not about food, offensive or hateful, spam or an ad, wrong or closed place, or something else. We store the report with your user ID, the bracket, the reason and the time. Reports are private: the creator is not told who reported them. A person reads every report. We review reports within 24 hours, and we can remove content and withdraw a creator’s approval.

Blocking a creator hides all of their brackets for you and stops their links from working for you. We store the block (your user ID and the creator’s). There is no unblock button in the app yet, so a block lasts until you or the creator delete the account; email us if you want a block removed.

6. Your location

Location is optional. During setup you can let FoodMate use your location or pick a city yourself. If you allow it, the app asks iOS for your position once, while the app is open, using iOS’s balanced accuracy setting rather than its most precise one. iOS looks up the city name for that position with Apple’s geocoding service, and FoodMate saves the position on your profile as your city point.

FoodMate never reads your location in the background and does not keep a history of where you have been.
When you change city later in Profile, FoodMate uses the city you pick or type. A typed city that is not on FoodMate’s list is located with Apple’s geocoding service.
Your city point is where FoodMate looks for restaurants when you start a battle. The app sends it to our server to find restaurants nearby. When our restaurant list for that area is out of date, our server asks a public OpenStreetMap server for restaurants around that point, without any account details, and keeps a record of the areas it has fetched (point, radius and city name) with no link to you.
When you tap Directions, Apple Maps opens with the restaurant as the destination and works under Apple’s terms.
You can turn the location permission off at any time in iOS Settings. Your saved city stays until you change it in Profile.

7. Allergens and diets (health-related data)

Allergens you want to avoid can reveal information about your health, and some diets (halal, kosher) can reveal religious beliefs. These are special categories of personal data under Article 9 GDPR.

Adding them is optional. The setup step can be skipped, and it tells you that they are saved to your profile only and can be removed at any time.
We process them only with your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a) GDPR), which you give by selecting them, and only to show allergen warnings, to apply the diet filter when you turn it on, and to tune Palate.
They are stored on your profile and only you can see them. They are never shown to other users, never shared with any provider other than our database host, and never used for advertising.
You withdraw your consent by removing them in Profile. We then stop processing them. Withdrawing does not affect processing that has already happened.

Allergen warnings are general guidance based on a restaurant’s cuisine and on allergen information recorded for it in OpenStreetMap, where there is any. They are not checked for each restaurant and have not been reviewed by a dietitian. Always confirm allergens with the restaurant.

8. Restaurant data and Google’s place card

Restaurant listings come from OpenStreetMap: Data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL). Listings for our launch cities are refreshed weekly.

On iPhone, a restaurant’s page can show Google’s own place card (photos, rating and reviews), which the Google Places SDK loads directly from Google. When it does, Google receives your device’s IP address and the data the SDK collects under Google’s terms; according to the SDK’s privacy declaration this can include location, a device identifier, search history, product interaction and diagnostic data. Google acts as an independent controller for this data under its privacy policy. FoodMate does not receive or store the card’s content; we keep only Google’s ID for the restaurant, which our server looks up with the restaurant’s name and position.

9. Usage stats and crash reports

Anonymous usage stats (PostHog, EU) are off until you tap Allow on a one-time prompt, or turn on Anonymous usage stats in Profile. They use a random anonymous ID, never your user ID, name, email address, city or coordinates. Location lookup from your IP address is switched off, and there is no session recording. Turning them off in Profile stops them.

Crash reports (Sentry, EU) are sent automatically when the app crashes or hits an error. They contain the error details, device model, operating system and app version, and timings from a sample of app activity. FoodMate does not add your name, email address or user ID to them.

10. Children

You must be 13 or older to use FoodMate, and the sign-up screen asks you to confirm this. FoodMate is not directed at children. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact hello@nlongvity.com and we will delete it.

11. How long we keep data

Account, profile, taste choices, allergens and diets, saved places, battles, picks and group memberships: until you delete your account. You can remove taste choices, allergens, diets and saved places yourself at any time.
Creator profile, brackets, notes and photos: until you delete your account or ask us to remove them. Taking a bracket down hides it but does not delete it.
Bracket plays: until the player or the creator deletes their account.
Reports: until the person who sent the report deletes their account, or the reported bracket is deleted.
Blocks: until you or the blocked creator delete the account.
Subscription status: until you delete your account. Apple keeps your purchase history under its own terms. RevenueCat keeps its subscription record under your random user ID until you ask us to delete it.
Sign in with Apple token: until you delete your account, when we revoke it at Apple. If Apple cannot be reached at that moment, the token is kept, without any link to you, until the revocation goes through.
Daily restaurant look-up counts: deleted after 7 days. Invite-code attempts: deleted after one day.
Crash reports and usage stats: kept by Sentry and PostHog for a limited period and then deleted. They are not linked to your account.
Server logs: kept by our providers for a limited period and then deleted.
Emails to us: as long as we need them to handle your request.

When you delete your account

Delete your account in the app: Profile → Delete account, then confirm twice. If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple may ask you to confirm once, and we revoke FoodMate’s access at Apple. Deletion happens at once. See also how to delete your account.

Deleted at once:

Your account (email address, name and sign-in links with Apple or Google), your profile and taste choices, including allergens and diets
Your saved places, your picks, your solo battles and the group battles you started that have not ended, and your group battle memberships
Your creator profile, your brackets with their places and notes, and every creator photo stored under your user ID
Your bracket plays, the reports you sent and your blocks

What remains:

Ended group battles stay for the other people who took part, with no link to you.
Restaurant win and loss totals (Hot Places) stay as anonymous totals.
Your subscription. Deleting your account does not cancel FoodMate Pro. Cancel it first in iPhone Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions; the app reminds you. Apple keeps your purchase history, and RevenueCat keeps its record under your random user ID; email us and we will delete that record.
Crash reports and usage stats already sent to Sentry and PostHog. They were never linked to your account.

If you cannot use the app, email hello@nlongvity.com from the address on your account and we will delete it within 30 days.

12. Your rights

You have the following rights, free of charge. Where the app cannot do it, email hello@nlongvity.com from the address on your account.

Right of access (Article 15 GDPR) — email us and we send you a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification (Article 16) — change your city, cuisines, allergens, diets and budget in Profile, and your brackets in the creator studio; for your name, email address or creator profile, email us.
Right to erasure (Article 17) — Profile → Delete account (section 11), or email us.
Right to restriction of processing (Article 18) — email us.
Right to object (Article 21) — to processing based on our legitimate interests (crash reports, usage limits, moderation, creator totals): email us.
Right to data portability (Article 20) — email us and we send your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
Right to withdraw consent (Article 7(3)) — turn off Anonymous usage stats in Profile, remove allergens and diets in Profile, and turn off location in iOS Settings. Withdrawing does not affect processing that has already happened.
Automated decisions (Article 22) — FoodMate makes no decisions about you with legal or similarly significant effects. Palate scores and Hot Places rankings are suggestions computed from your own choices and picks and from anonymous totals.

We answer within 30 days. If we refuse a request, we explain why and tell you about your right to complain to the supervisory authority.

You can complain to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority:

Datatilsynet
Postboks 458 Sentrum
0105 Oslo, Norway
Phone: +47 22 39 69 00
postkasse@datatilsynet.no
www.datatilsynet.no

13. Security

Data travels encrypted (TLS) between the app and our servers.
Row-level security is switched on for every table in our database: each account can read and change only its own data, apart from what other people can see as described in section 4.
On your iPhone, your sign-in session is stored encrypted, with the key kept in the iOS Keychain.
The secret keys for our server and the services it uses are kept on our servers, never in the app.
Group battle ballots are private: other people see only the combined result.
Creator photos are re-saved on the phone before upload, which removes their location and camera details.

No system is perfectly secure. If a personal data breach puts your rights and freedoms at risk, we will notify Datatilsynet within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay if the risk to you is high, as Articles 33 and 34 GDPR require.

14. No ads, no tracking, no sale

FoodMate shows no ads and contains no advertising software.
We do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites, so FoodMate never asks for Apple’s tracking permission.
We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not build marketing profiles.
We do not send marketing emails; the only emails FoodMate sends are account emails.

15. Changes to this policy

We will post any change to this policy on this page and update the date at the top. We will tell you in the app about important changes. Changes that broaden how we use your data require your fresh consent where consent is the legal basis.

16. Contact

Nikolai Langsem, trading as Nlongvity
Sinsenveien, 0572 Oslo, Norway
hello@nlongvity.com

Help with the app: FoodMate support. The rules for using FoodMate: Terms of Use.