Privacy policy
In short. Eticko has no account and no server of its own. Your allergies, diets, searches, photos and history stay on your iPhone. Data leaves your iPhone only in the cases listed below, and the optional ones only when you choose. No advertising, no advertising ID, no tracking, and no cookies on this website.
1. Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data is the sole trader, registered in Portugal, who publishes Eticko (“we”). The full name and postal address are shown as the trader information on the Eticko page in the App Store and in the app under Settings › About and attribution › Trader information. We also send them on request.
Contact for all privacy questions and requests: [email protected].
2. Data that stays on your iPhone
The following is stored only on your iPhone. We do not receive it and cannot see it:
- the allergens and diets you mark, and your other preferences;
- your scan history, your lists and the text of your searches;
- photos of labels and products you add, and their drafts;
- saved product data, so the app also works with a weak connection;
- your Open Food Facts sign-in, if you add one, kept in the iOS Keychain.
Label photos are read by the app on your iPhone. They are not sent to us. Photo files are excluded from iCloud backups.
You delete all of this with Settings › Privacy and my data › Delete my data in the app, or by deleting the app. Allergy and diet information is health data, which is why it never leaves your iPhone.
3. When data leaves your iPhone
3.1 Looking up a product
When you scan or search, the app asks Open Food Facts for the product data. Open Food Facts receives the barcode or the search text and, like any website, the IP address of the request. No other information about you is sent. Open Food Facts is an independent non-profit open database; its own privacy policy applies to what it receives.
3.2 Sending a product to Open Food Facts (optional)
If a product is missing, you can send its data and photos to Open Food Facts with your own free Open Food Facts account. This happens only when you choose to send, and only after you have agreed once in the app.
- Open Food Facts is an independent recipient of what you send. It is not our processor, and its terms and privacy policy apply.
- What you send becomes public under the Open Database License (ODbL) and the Database Contents License (DbCL), and photos under Creative Commons BY-SA. It cannot be withdrawn by us or by the app.
- Location and camera details (EXIF metadata) are removed from photos before they are sent. Please do not photograph people.
- Your Open Food Facts user name and password are sent only to Open Food Facts.
Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can withdraw it at any time in Settings › Privacy and my data. Nothing more is sent after that; what was already published stays in Open Food Facts, where you can manage it with your own account.
3.3 Anonymous usage data (optional, off by default)
When you first open the app, it asks whether you want to share anonymous usage data. Nothing is collected unless you choose “Share anonymous usage”. Every feature, including Premium, works the same either way.
- What: which screens and buttons are used, errors, the app and iOS version, and a random identifier created for this installation. When a scanned product is not found, the barcode is included, so we can see which products are missing.
- Never: your allergies, diets, search text, photos, history, name, email address, location, Apple ID or advertising ID.
- Who: PostHog, which stores the data for us in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany) as our processor under a data processing agreement.
- How long: PostHog keeps the events for 12 months. We keep an export of the same events, with no other data, for as long as Eticko is offered, to understand how the app is used over time.
Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and the ePrivacy rules on reading and storing information on your device). To withdraw, turn off Settings › Privacy and my data › Share anonymous usage data. The app then stops sending, deletes the random identifier and any unsent events, so data already sent can no longer be linked to your installation.
3.4 Purchases
Premium is bought through the App Store. Apple handles the payment as an independent controller under its own privacy policy. We do not receive your name, payment details or Apple ID. The app checks your purchase on your iPhone.
3.5 Email, reports and requests
When you write to us, or send a report about a product from the app, it goes from your own mail app. We receive your email address, your message and anything you attach. We use it only to answer you and to correct the product data (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR). Mail to eticko.app addresses is routed by Cloudflare to our mailbox. We delete the messages 90 days after your case is closed.
3.6 Crash reports
If you allow it in iOS settings (Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements › Share With App Developers), Apple shares crash reports with us. They contain no personal data we can link to you. You can turn this off in iOS at any time.
4. This website
eticko.app sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising. It is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes technical data such as your IP address and browser type to deliver the pages and protect them from attacks, as our processor. The fonts are served from this site, not from a third party.
5. Where data is processed
PostHog stores usage data in the EU. Cloudflare operates a worldwide network and may process technical data outside the EU, under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Open Food Facts and Apple process data under their own policies.
6. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was done before. Because most data stays on your iPhone, you control it there directly. For anything else, write to [email protected]; we reply within one month.
You can also complain to a data protection authority, in particular in the EU country where you live. Our lead authority is the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados in Portugal (www.cnpd.pt).
7. Other points
- The score describes products, not people. We make no automated decisions about you.
- Eticko has no account and does not knowingly collect data from children.
- We do not sell personal data and do not share it for advertising.
8. Changes
If this policy changes, we update this page and its date. If a change affects what leaves your iPhone, the app tells you and asks again where consent is needed.