CanIEatThis?Privacy Policy
Last updated 4 September 2026
The short version. We keep your email, what you scan, and the photos you scan. Your photos are private unless you deliberately post one. We do not sell anything to anyone, and there is no advertising or third-party tracking on this site. You can export or delete everything from your account page.
1What we collect
- Your email address, so you can sign in and so we can send recall alerts if you turn them on.
- Your password, stored only as a salted PBKDF2-SHA256 hash. We cannot read it, and we cannot recover it for you.
- What you scan — product name, brand, barcode, lot code, dates, nutrition figures, and the verdict we reached.
- Your scan photos, if you are signed in.
- Your display name, only if you choose to post publicly under one.
- Onboarding answers, if you gave them.
- A hashed form of your IP address, used to rate-limit free scans. We hash it with SHA-256 and never store the address itself.
There is no advertising network, analytics tracker, or third-party pixel on this site.
2Your photos
Photos are stored so your pantry items still have a picture when you come back to them, and so we can mark up which printed code a verdict came from.
A photo is private to your account and served only to you. The single exception is a photo you deliberately post to the community pantry — that one becomes publicly visible to anyone who can reach the site, including people without an account. A copy is made for the post, so deleting a post removes that copy.
If you scan without an account, the photo is used for that one answer and is not stored at all.
3Who else sees your data
- Google (Gemini API) — your scan photos are sent to Google's Gemini model to read the label. This is what makes scanning work. Google processes them under its own API terms.
- Cloudflare — hosts the site, the database and the image storage.
- Our email provider — receives your address only when we send you a sign-in link or a recall alert.
We do not sell your data, share it for advertising, or hand it to anyone else, except where the law requires it.
4Cookies
One cookie, rr_session, which keeps you signed in. It is not used for tracking and there are no third-party cookies. Some preferences are kept in your browser's local storage and never leave your device.
5How long we keep things
Pantry items and their photos stay until you delete them or close your account. Deleting a pantry item deletes its photos from storage. Closing your account deletes your items, photos, alerts and community posts.
Recall data itself is public agency data and is not personal to you.
6Your choices
- Export — download everything we hold about you as JSON from your account page.
- Delete — close your account from the same page. This removes your data and cannot be undone.
- Alerts — turn recall emails off at any time.
- Post privately — you never have to post anything. Nothing is public unless you make it public.
7Children
This site is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, email us and we will remove it.
8Security
Passwords are hashed, sessions expire, traffic is served over HTTPS, and photos are served only to the account that owns them. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee this one is.
9Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.
10Contact
Questions, or a request to see or delete your data: hello@canieatthis.site.