This Privacy Policy explains what Artificial Ingredients ("we," "our," or "us") collects and processes when you use the Artificial Ingredients mobile app, web app, and related services (the "Service").
Public copy: The same policy text is published at https://www.artificial-ingredients.top/privacy.html so users and app store reviewers can open it in a browser without installing the app.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not use advertising trackers. We do not use a third-party analytics SDK to profile how you use the app.
1. Information We Collect
1.1 Account information
If you create an account, we collect:
- Email address: Used for login, email verification, password reset, and account communication.
- Password: Stored using industry-standard password protection. The plain-text password is never stored.
You can use the Service and subscribe as a supporter as a guest without registering. A guest session is an anonymous account on our servers. Creating an account imports your guest profiles and scans automatically. After signing into an existing account, you can import those profiles and scans or permanently discard them. Subscription linking happens separately and is kept with either choice.
When you use Google or Apple to sign in, we receive a provider account identifier, your name when supplied, and your email address. Apple may provide a private relay address. We store encrypted provider access and refresh tokens to maintain the connection and revoke it when you delete your account. We do not receive your Google or Apple password.
1.2 Optional profile information
If you choose to enter it, we store:
- Allergy information: Included in ingredient analysis whenever selected.
- Pet information: Used when the selected consumer is a pet.
- Profile photos: Optional avatars are cropped, resized, and compressed on your device before upload. They are used to display profiles and are not sent to the ingredient-analysis model.
Account photos can come from your Google profile, Gravatar, or an upload. We check Google and Gravatar periodically while you use the account screen. For Gravatar, we send a SHA-256 hash of your normalized account email, including an Apple relay address when that is your account email. Loading a remote photo also sends your IP address to its provider. If no photo is available, we display initials from your email. Uploaded photos take priority and remain until you replace or remove them.
1.3 Product images and analysis
When you scan a product, the app resizes the photo on your device and uploads it to the Service. We send that image to an AI vision model so it can read the ingredients list and return an assessment. There is no separate optical-character-recognition step, and we do not convert the photo to grayscale before upload.
We store the uploaded image, the analysis text, a snapshot of the product type, consumer settings, and analysis language, and any allergy or pet context you included for that scan. That history is tied to your guest session or account so you can reopen it later, including on another device after you sign in.
1.4 Preferences stored on your device
The app stores some settings locally on your device or browser:
- Preferences: Theme, interface language, analysis language, product type, No profile consumer settings, active profile selection, disclaimer acknowledgement, and tutorial state.
- Authentication state: On native apps, the login token is stored using platform secure storage. On web, login is handled with secure browser cookies.
1.5 Email and support flows
We use email infrastructure to send verification and password reset emails. Verification and reset records are short-lived and removed once the flow completes or times out.
1.6 Subscriptions
Apple or Google processes subscription payments. We store store transaction identifiers, purchase tokens, product identifiers, renewal and expiration status, and a random billing account identifier to verify purchases, restore access, and prevent duplicate claims. We do not receive your payment card details. After account deletion, we detach these billing records from the deleted account and retain them for purchase restoration and billing support. Account deletion does not cancel store renewal.
1.7 Operational logs
The Service may keep operational logs for debugging, security, and reliability. We design these logs to avoid recording passwords, email contents, or raw scan text.
2. How We Use Information
We use information only to operate the Service:
- Create, verify, authenticate, and manage accounts and guest sessions.
- Process ingredient-list images with an AI vision model and return ingredient analysis.
- Apply selected allergens and the relevant pet context to each scan.
- Store scan history with your account or guest session, and move guest scans onto an account when you register.
- Send verification and password reset emails.
- Diagnose errors, protect the Service, and prevent abuse.
- Comply with legal obligations.
We do not use scan images or profile information for advertising. We do not sell scan data, profile data, or account data.
3. Categories of Service Providers
We share data with service providers only as needed to operate the Service. We use providers in these categories:
- Cloud infrastructure providers that host our backend, database, and file storage.
- AI model providers that receive the uploaded image and return ingredient analysis.
- Email infrastructure providers that deliver verification and password reset emails.
- Apple and Google that process store purchases and provide subscription verification and notifications.
A current list of named sub-processors is available on request via the contact email below.
Sharing a result
Opening Share on a completed scan for the first time makes its photo, analysis, and original scan settings accessible to anyone with its unlisted link or QR code. The shared page does not include your account identity, profile name, or avatar. The analysis itself may mention allergy, pregnancy, baby, or pet context.
You can revoke the link from Share. The link and its QR codes then stop opening the result. Reopening Share keeps a revoked result private until you choose to make it accessible again or confirm a share. Making it accessible again reactivates the same link and QR codes. Downloaded images and other copies remain with their recipients.
We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect the rights, safety, and security of users or the Service.
4. Data Retention
4.1 Backend account data
- Account email, password record, optional allergies, and optional pet information: Kept while your account exists.
- Pending registration and password reset records: Short-lived; removed once the flow completes or times out.
- Guest session records: Kept until you convert the session to a registered account, delete the related history, or the session is removed.
4.2 Product images and scan results
Scan images and analysis results stay on our infrastructure, linked to your account or guest session, until you delete that scan, use Delete All History, or delete your account.
Rejected or unused uploads may be kept for 24 hours to investigate upload failures. An hourly cleanup job removes them after that period. Older unreferenced uploads are checked daily. Oversized scan uploads are rejected without storing the file. Account deletion also removes unused uploads associated with that account.
4.3 Operational logs
Operational logs are retained as needed for debugging, security, and reliability, then rotated or deleted on a normal infrastructure cycle.
5. How To Delete Your Data
5.1 Delete scan history
You can delete scan history in the app:
- Delete an individual scan from its result screen or from History.
- Open Account and use Delete All History.
- That removes the stored images and analysis for those scans from our servers. Local preferences stay on the device until you clear app or browser storage or uninstall the app.
5.2 Delete your account
You can request account deletion in the app from Account. Account deletion removes account data, optional profile data, authentication state, pending reset or verification records for that email, and the scan images and analysis stored for that account.
For Google and Apple accounts, we revoke the linked login authorization before deleting the account. If the provider cannot confirm revocation, deletion does not complete and you can retry. Social accounts do not need a password to delete their account, but may need to sign in again. Uploaded account photos and cached remote photo URLs are removed with the account. This does not delete your Google, Apple, or Gravatar account, or cancel an App Store or Google Play subscription.
You can also email info@artificial-ingredients.top from the email address associated with your account to request help with deletion. We may ask you to verify your identity.
6. Your Choices
- You can run standard scans as a guest without creating an email account.
- Pregnancy, baby, pet, cosmetics, and allergy analysis require a supporter subscription, available to guests and registered accounts.
- You can edit allergy and pet information in your profile.
- You can delete scan history at any time.
- Creating an account lets you keep history across devices.
7. Security
We use HTTPS for communication with the Service. Passwords are protected using industry-standard password hashing. Native authentication tokens are stored with platform secure storage, and web authentication uses secure cookies. Access to data on our side is limited to what is needed to operate and support the Service.
No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we design the Service to avoid collecting more data than it needs.
8. Children
The Service is not intended for children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.
9. International Processing
The Service may process data in countries different from where you live, including where our service providers operate.
10. Changes
We may update this Privacy Policy when the Service or its data handling changes. We will update the "Last Updated" date and publish the current version in the app and at the public URL above.
11. Contact Us
For privacy questions or deletion requests, contact: