1. Who we are

RecipeGuide (the "App") is published on the Apple App Store by ArkvectorAI ("we," "us," "our"). For privacy questions, the controller of record is reachable at support@arkvectorai.com.

This policy applies to the iOS and iPadOS versions of RecipeGuide and to the support pages we host at arkvectorai.com/support/recipe-guide.

Use of the App is also governed by our Terms of Service. The on-device AI features are powered by Google's Gemma model family; your use of those features is additionally subject to the Gemma Terms of Use and the Gemma Prohibited Use Policy.

2. Summary in plain language

• No account, no sign-in. The App does not require you to create an account or hand over any identifying information to use it.
• AI runs on your device. Recipe extraction, meal planning, and the AI Chef use a locally-stored language model. Your recipes, photos, voice, and pantry contents are processed on the device itself.
• Your data lives on your device. Recipes, meal plans, shopping lists, photos, and food-log entries are stored in Apple's SwiftData (local SQLite). They are not sent to our servers — we operate no backend that receives user data.
• Optional iCloud sync. Premium users can enable Apple iCloud sync. When enabled, your data syncs through your own private iCloud container. We have no access to it.
• Advertising. The free version of the App shows ads served by Google AdMob. AdMob may use device identifiers and behavioral signals to personalize ads, governed by your App Tracking Transparency choice.
• Imports go where you point them. If you paste a recipe URL or YouTube link, the App fetches that page directly from the publisher. If you use the in-app web search, your query is sent to Google.
• One-time model download. The first time you launch the App, it downloads its on-device language model from Hugging Face. That download exposes your IP address to Hugging Face, which logs it. After the download completes, the model runs entirely on your device and Hugging Face is not contacted again.

3. Data we collect and why

The categories below correspond to Apple's Privacy Nutrition Label categories used in the App Store. We have grouped each data flow under Data Linked to You, Data Not Linked to You, or Data Not Collected by Us.

3.1 Data Not Collected by Us

The following categories are processed entirely on your device. We never receive them, and they are not transmitted to any ArkvectorAI-controlled server:

• User Content — Recipes, ingredients, steps, notes, photos, ratings, tags. Stored locally in SwiftData. Used to populate your library and run features such as serving-size scaling, voice cook mode, and meal planning.
• User Content — Meal plans, shopping lists, food log, pantry photos. Stored locally. Used to plan meals, generate shopping lists, and keep a personal cooking history.
• User Content — Microphone audio and speech transcripts. Voice cook mode uses Apple's on-device SFSpeechRecognizer where supported, limited to wake words such as "next," "back," "repeat," and "set timer." Audio is processed and discarded; it is not retained or transmitted by the App. Apple may apply its own platform privacy terms to speech recognition — see Apple's privacy policy.
• User Content — Camera and photo library access. When you scan a recipe card or pick a fridge photo, the image is processed on-device using Apple Vision OCR plus the on-device language model. The image is stored only if you save it as part of a recipe; nothing is uploaded.
• Sensitive Info — Dietary preferences, calorie/macro targets, health-relevant ingredients. Stored on the device in user defaults. Used to filter recipes and compute nutrition information locally.
• Location — Approximate location, when in use. If you grant location permission, the App passes your current location to Apple Maps (via system map URLs) so it can show nearby grocery stores. The App itself does not store your location, transmit it to ArkvectorAI, or share it with any advertising partner.
• Calendar — Event creation. If you grant calendar access, the App writes cook-session events to your local calendar via Apple's EventKit. We do not read, copy, or transmit calendar contents.

3.2 Data Not Linked to You

The following categories are collected by third-party SDKs in the App but, by default, are not linked to your real-world identity. They are used to serve and frequency-cap advertising:

• Identifiers — Device-level ad identifiers (non-IDFA), AdMob session ID. Collected by the Google Mobile Ads SDK to deliver ads and prevent the same ad from being shown repeatedly.
• Usage Data — Ad impressions, taps, and time on ad. Collected by the Google Mobile Ads SDK for ad-delivery and billing measurement.
• Diagnostics — Crash logs and SDK telemetry. Limited to what the Google Mobile Ads SDK and Apple's operating system collect at the platform level. We do not operate Crashlytics, Sentry, or any custom crash-reporting pipeline.
• Identifiers — Device ID derived from IP address (Hugging Face model download). When the App first launches and downloads its on-device language model from Hugging Face, the request carries your IP address and a standard user-agent string, which Hugging Face logs as part of its standard CDN access logs. The App does not authenticate to Hugging Face on your behalf and sends no other personal data with the request.
• Diagnostics — Other (Hugging Face download metadata). The download request includes the model repository identifier, file size, range headers, and a user-agent string identifying the App. Hugging Face uses this to serve the file and aggregate download counts. We do not receive any of this data ourselves.

3.3 Data Linked to You (only with your ATT consent)

If, and only if, you tap "Allow Tracking" in response to Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, the following identifier becomes available to AdMob and may be used for cross-app personalization:

• Identifiers — IDFA (Apple's ID for Advertisers). Used by Google AdMob to personalize ads and measure conversions across apps. If you decline the ATT prompt or later disable tracking in iOS Settings, IDFA is not shared.
• Usage Data — Ad interactions tied to IDFA. Collected by Google AdMob for personalized advertising.

You can change your ATT choice at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.

4. Third parties

4.1 Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) and Google User Messaging Platform

The free version of RecipeGuide displays native ads served by Google's AdMob SDK. Google acts as an independent controller / business with respect to data it collects through its SDK. Its handling is governed by the Google Privacy Policy and the Google AdMob & AdSense terms. The Google User Messaging Platform SDK is included to present consent prompts where required by EU/UK ePrivacy or comparable law.

4.2 Google Search (in-app browser)

If you use the in-app recipe search, the App opens a Google search results page inside an Apple WKWebView, restricted to Google's domains and a curated allow-list of recipe sites. Your search query and standard browsing metadata (IP address, user agent, cookies if you are signed in to Google) are sent to Google as part of any ordinary visit to google.com. The App does not read, copy, or transmit your search query or browsing activity to ArkvectorAI.

4.3 YouTube and Facebook (recipe imports)

If you import a recipe from a YouTube or Facebook URL, the App calls the public YouTube oEmbed endpoint, the Facebook oEmbed endpoint, and (for YouTube) fetches the video page HTML to extract the description. This sends the URL you provided, your IP address, and a standard user-agent string to those providers. We do not send any other personal data, and we do not authenticate to those services on your behalf.

4.4 Recipe websites you import from

When you paste a recipe URL or open a result inside the in-app browser, the App fetches that page directly from the publisher. That publisher will see your IP address and user agent the same way any browser visit does. The App enforces an allow-list of ~100 recipe domains for in-app navigation; off-list links open in your system browser.

4.5 Apple iCloud (optional)

If you are a Premium subscriber and have enabled iCloud sync, your recipe library is synced through Apple's CloudKit service into your private iCloud container (iCloud.com.arkvectorai.RecipeGuide). Apple is the processor; ArkvectorAI does not have read access to that container. Apple's handling is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.

4.6 Hugging Face (one-time model download)

The on-device language model that powers recipe extraction, meal planning, and the AI Chef is hosted on Hugging Face and downloaded once on first launch (and again only if a future App update points to a different model file or if the integrity check below fails). The download is a direct HTTPS request from your device to Hugging Face's CDN. Hugging Face logs the IP address, user agent, and requested file path of every download as part of its standard access logs and aggregate download metrics. Hugging Face is an independent controller / business with respect to that data; its handling is governed by the Hugging Face Privacy Policy. The App does not transmit your recipes, prompts, generations, or any other content to Hugging Face — only the one-time file download is in scope.

The App downloads from a mirror we maintain at multimodel/gemma-4-E2B-it-litert-lm, which we publish to keep the source URL stable across App versions. The mirror is a bit-for-bit copy of the original LiteRT-LM release; we do not modify the model weights or tokenizer.

By default, the model downloads only over Wi-Fi to avoid consuming your cellular data; you can opt in to cellular from the onboarding screen. After the download completes, the App verifies the file's SHA-256 hash against a known-good value before loading the model. A corrupted or tampered file is deleted and the user is asked to retry; no such file is ever loaded into memory.

4.7 No other third parties

The App does not bundle Firebase, Crashlytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Segment, Sentry, AppsFlyer, or any analogous analytics or attribution SDK. We do not operate a backend that receives user data from the App.

5. Permissions you control

The App requests the following iOS permissions. Each is optional; declining a permission only disables the feature that uses it, not the rest of the App.

• Camera — to scan recipes from cookbooks, magazines, and handwritten cards.
• Photo Library — to import recipe photos and scan ingredients from your fridge or pantry.
• Microphone — for voice commands during hands-free cook mode.
• Speech Recognition — to recognize your voice commands using Apple's on-device recognizer where supported.
• Location (When In Use) — to surface nearby grocery stores via Apple Maps.
• Calendar — to add cook-session reminders to your calendar.
• Notifications — for local meal reminders generated on the device. We do not register for or transmit APNS push tokens.
• App Tracking Transparency — required by Apple before any SDK may access the IDFA. Used solely to ask whether AdMob may show personalized ads.

You can revoke any permission at any time in iOS Settings → RecipeGuide.

6. Children

RecipeGuide is a general-audience app. It is not directed at children under 13 and is not designed to comply with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the UK Children's Code, or comparable child-specific frameworks. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to us, contact us and we will delete it.

7. Data retention

• On-device data persists until you delete the recipe, meal plan, or related entry, or uninstall the App. The App does not implement automatic time-based deletion.
• iCloud-synced data persists in your iCloud container until you delete it. You can remove it from iOS Settings → Apple ID → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → RecipeGuide.
• The downloaded language model is stored inside the App's sandbox on your device and is explicitly excluded from iCloud backup, so it does not consume your iCloud storage quota and is not copied to Apple's backup servers. Uninstalling the App removes it.
• AdMob data is retained according to Google's policies, linked above.

8. Your rights

Because we operate no backend that receives user data, most of your rights under privacy law are exercised directly on the device or with the third parties that do receive data.

8.1 Right of access and portability

All data the App holds about you is on your device. You can view it inside the App. To request a copy of any data we ourselves hold (we generally hold none beyond email correspondence you initiate), email support@arkvectorai.com.

8.2 Right to deletion

Open Settings → Reset inside the App to erase recipes, meal plans, food log, and shopping lists. To remove the downloaded language model and all on-device data, delete the App from your device. To delete iCloud-synced data, see Section 7.

8.3 Right to correct or restrict

You can edit or delete any recipe, ingredient, or preference directly in the App.

8.4 California — CCPA/CPRA

California residents have the right to know, the right to delete, the right to correct, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information.

We do not sell or share your personal information. We do not exchange your data for monetary or other valuable consideration. The advertising shown in the App is served by Google AdMob and may, with your ATT consent, involve cross-context behavioral advertising as defined under the CPRA. You can opt out of personalized ads by declining or revoking the ATT prompt in iOS Settings, which prevents IDFA sharing. You may also exercise CCPA/CPRA rights against Google directly under their privacy controls.

To exercise your rights with us, email support@arkvectorai.com with the subject "CCPA Request." We will verify your request by reasonable means and respond within 45 days.

8.5 European Economic Area, United Kingdom — GDPR / UK GDPR

Lawful bases under Article 6 GDPR:

• Performance of a contract / pre-contractual steps (Art. 6(1)(b)) — providing the App you have downloaded and installed.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — operating, debugging, and securing the App.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — personalized advertising via AdMob and IDFA, granted through the App Tracking Transparency prompt and, where applicable, the Google User Messaging Platform consent screen.

You have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection. You can withdraw consent at any time. You can lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority (e.g., the ICO in the UK, the CNIL in France, the BfDI in Germany). For requests to ArkvectorAI, email support@arkvectorai.com.

8.6 Virginia (VCDPA), and other US state laws

Residents of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and other US states with comparable laws have rights of access, deletion, correction, and opt-out from targeted advertising and the sale of personal information. See Section 8.4 above; the same opt-out mechanism (declining the ATT prompt or disabling tracking in iOS Settings) applies to opt out of targeted advertising as defined under those statutes.

9. International transfers

We do not operate servers that receive user data, so we ourselves do not transfer your data internationally. The third parties listed in Section 4 (Google, Apple, recipe publishers) operate global infrastructure and may transfer data outside your jurisdiction under their own legal mechanisms (Standard Contractual Clauses, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, etc.), described in their respective privacy policies.

10. Security

On-device data is protected by iOS data protection (AES-256 encryption tied to your device passcode/biometric). iCloud-synced data is encrypted in transit and at rest by Apple. Network calls to YouTube, Facebook, Google, and recipe sites use HTTPS where the publisher supports it. The on-device language model is downloaded over HTTPS and verified against a known SHA-256 hash before use; a file that fails verification is rejected and never loaded. We do not handle passwords or payment data; subscriptions are processed by Apple via In-App Purchase.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the App evolves. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the App after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

12. How to contact us

ArkvectorAI · Data Protection Contact
Email: support@arkvectorai.com
Subject lines we route quickly: "Privacy Request," "CCPA Request," "GDPR Request," "Deletion Request."

For App Store issues unrelated to privacy, see the RecipeGuide support page.