Culinia privacy policy.
This privacy policy governs your use of the software application Culinia (“Application”) for iPhone, created by Liquid Thought, LLC (“we”, “us”). The Application helps you cook with the food you already have: you capture your ingredients with photos, by speaking, or by typing, and the Application suggests published recipes and original recipe ideas. You can save, rate, and share the recipes you make.
In short: we don't have accounts, we don't show ads, we don't track you across apps or websites, and we don't sell your information. Your photos, recipes, notes, and ratings stay on your iPhone. To suggest recipes, the Application sends what you captured to our server, which passes it to the recipe and AI services described below.
What information does the Application obtain and how is it used?
Information that stays on your device: The photos you take of your food, your ingredient list, your common available ingredients, your diet and time preferences, the recipes you like or make, your dish photos, ratings, notes, and the dates you made a recipe are stored only on your iPhone (and in your device backups, if you use them). We never receive them except as described in the next paragraph.
Information sent to recognize ingredients and suggest recipes: When you ask the Application to identify ingredients in your photos, suggest recipes, or create recipe ideas, it sends the needed content to our server over an encrypted connection:
- Photos you choose to identify, to recognize the ingredients in them. (If you pick Apple's model in Settings, photos are processed by Apple Intelligence on your device or in Apple's Private Cloud Compute instead, and are not sent to us.)
- Your ingredient list, common available ingredients, and diet and time preferences, to find and write recipes.
- What you said, as text, when you speak your ingredients and your iPhone can't turn it into a list on its own.
Our server does not store your photos or your ingredient lists. It forwards them to the services below and returns their answers to the Application. Those services may keep what they receive for a limited time (typically up to 30 days) to detect and prevent abuse, and then delete it; they don't use it to train their models.
Speech: When you speak your ingredients, speech is turned into text by Apple's speech recognition on your iPhone. On older iPhones or languages without on-device support, Apple's speech recognition may process the audio on Apple's servers under Apple's privacy policy. We never receive your audio.
Reminders: If you tap “Add to Reminders”, the Application adds the ingredients you need to buy to your Reminders list on your device, with your permission. It does not read your other reminders, except to avoid adding the same item twice.
Recipe illustrations: Pictures for Culinia's recipe ideas are created on your iPhone with Apple's Image Playground where your iPhone supports it. Otherwise our server asks OpenAI's image model for one, sending only the idea's name, its one-line description, and the main ingredients it uses.
Automatically collected information
To run the service, prevent abuse, and keep track of what it costs, our server records basic information about each request: the time, a random identifier the Application uses for your device (Apple's “identifier for vendor”, which is not linked to your name, Apple ID, or other apps), a random identifier for each capture session, which service was used, whether the request succeeded, and how much it cost (for example, the number of AI tokens). These records do not contain your photos, your ingredients, or recipes. Our server's connection logs may include your IP address, as is standard for any internet service.
The Application does not use advertising identifiers, third-party analytics, or tracking tools.
Subscriptions and the free try
Culinia can be tried once for free, then requires a subscription that starts with a free week. Purchases are handled entirely by Apple through your Apple Account; we never see your name, email address, or payment details. To check that a subscription is active, our server receives the subscription information Apple provides to developers (such as a transaction identifier, the product, and the expiration date), and Apple notifies our server when a subscription is renewed, canceled, or refunded. To make sure the free try is used only once per iPhone, the Application uses Apple's DeviceCheck service, which lets us store a small flag about your device with Apple without identifying you.
Does the Application collect precise real-time location information of the device?
The Application does not collect information about the location of your device.
Do third parties see and/or have access to information obtained by the Application?
Only the following service providers receive information, only what they need to do their part, and only through our server (they don't receive your device identifier or IP address):
- Anthropic (the Claude AI model) receives photos you ask to identify, your ingredient list and preferences, and spoken text when needed, to recognize ingredients, rank recipes, and write recipe ideas. Anthropic's commercial terms don't allow it to train its models on this content; it may keep requests for a limited time (typically up to 30 days) for safety and abuse monitoring. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
- Spoonacular receives the names of your ingredients to find published recipes. See Spoonacular's privacy policy.
- OpenAI (the OpenAI API) receives the name, description, and main ingredients of a Culinia recipe idea to draw a picture of it. OpenAI doesn't use content sent through its API to train its models; it may keep requests for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring. See OpenAI's API data commitments and OpenAI's privacy policy.
- Apple provides on-device and Private Cloud Compute AI, speech recognition, in-app purchases, and DeviceCheck, under Apple's privacy policy.
When you share a recipe, the Application opens Apple's share sheet and you choose what to share and with whom; we don't receive it.
We may disclose information if required by law. If Liquid Thought, LLC is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, the Application will feature a prominent notice of any change in this privacy policy.
What are my opt-out rights?
You decide what to capture and when to ask for recipes; nothing is sent until you do. You can type or speak your ingredients instead of taking photos, and you can turn off the Application's access to the camera, microphone, speech recognition, photos, or Reminders at any time in your iPhone's Settings. You can cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. You can stop all collection by uninstalling the Application.
Data retention policy, managing your information
Information stored on your iPhone stays there until you delete it in the Application (for example with Clear or by removing a saved recipe) or uninstall the Application. Our server does not keep your photos, ingredient lists, or recipe requests after answering them; recipe search results are held in memory for up to one hour to answer repeated searches quickly. Request records and subscription information are kept as long as needed to run the service, prevent abuse, and meet legal and accounting obligations. To ask us to delete the records associated with your device, contact us.
Security
All communication between the Application and our server is encrypted (HTTPS), and our server only accepts requests from the Application. Information on your iPhone is protected by your device's data protection. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we use reasonable measures to protect the information we handle.
Changes
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. We will post the new Privacy Policy here and the Application will feature a prominent notice of significant changes. You can check the version history of this policy.
Your consent
By using the Application, you are consenting to the processing of your information as set forth in this Privacy Policy now and as amended by us.
Contact us
If you have any questions about privacy while using the Application, or about our practices, please contact us.