Privacy policy

Applies to

The Smiley Man Recipe app for iPhone, version 1.0, and the reading server it uses

Operator

Daniel Praid, 120 N. Pearl Street, Apt 407, Port Chester, NY 10573, United States

Privacy contact

smileymanrecipe@gmail.com

Last updated

November 9, 2026

The short version

• Your recipes, photos, people, cooking history and shopping list are stored on your iPhone. There is no account and no sign-in.
• To read a handwritten card, the app first tries your iPhone itself. If it can't, a copy of the page may go to Apple's Private Cloud Compute. A copy goes through our reading server to OpenAI only if you turn on the cloud fallback or choose the cloud reader. Our server doesn't store it.
• Importing a recipe link sends that link through our reading server to OpenAI.
• Voice commands are recognized on your iPhone. No ads, no tracking, no analytics, and no selling or sharing of your information.

What stays on your iPhone

Recipes and their original photos, the people you tag them to, family groups, cook-offs and votes, finished-dish photos and notes, ratings, your shopping list and pantry, your name and bio, badges and streaks. They are stored only in the app on your iPhone. Family groups are on this iPhone only for now; nothing is shared with other phones.

If you use iCloud Backup, your iPhone's backup includes the app's data, as it does for most apps. That backup is between you and Apple.

Reading a recipe card

When you read a card, the app tries up to three ways, in this order:

1. On your iPhone. If your iPhone supports Apple Intelligence, the page is read on the phone and nothing is sent.
2. Apple Private Cloud Compute. If the phone can't read it, a copy of the page may be sent to Apple's Private Cloud Compute. Apple says this data is used only to answer the request and is not kept or made available to Apple. You can turn this off with the "On-device only" choice in Reading & privacy.
3. Our reading server and OpenAI, only if you allow it. The "Allow existing cloud parser as fallback" switch in Reading & privacy is off unless you turn it on. When it is on and Apple can't read a page, the app sends the page photos (re-encoded, with location and camera details removed), a random install ID and a request ID to our reading server, a Cloudflare Worker. The server passes the photos to OpenAI to read and sends the result back to your phone. Our server does not store the photos or the reading. OpenAI says it does not use API data to train its models by default and may keep it for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse.

If you choose "Existing cloud parser" as the reader in Reading & privacy, the app skips both Apple steps and sends the pages straight through our reading server to OpenAI, as in step 3.

You always check the reading against your card before anything is saved.

Importing a recipe link

If you paste a recipe link, the app sends the link, a random install ID and a request ID to our reading server. The server fetches that public page and sends its text to OpenAI to read, then returns the result to your phone. Neither the link nor the page is stored on our server. Links to private addresses are refused.

Limits on our reading server

To keep the reading server from being misused, it counts requests per internet address for about an hour, and counts its own daily use of OpenAI. It stores only a scrambled (hashed) form of the address, never the address itself, and never any recipe content. The app also proves to the server that it is the real app on a real iPhone, using Apple's App Attest. Unless you choose "On-device only", it does this once when it first starts: it sends a new app key with Apple's confirmation, and the random install ID. The server keeps the key's public half and a count of its uses. It doesn't keep the install ID, and none of this contains recipes or identifies you.

Voice, camera and notifications

• Voice. Hands-free cooking is off until you turn it on, and the app remembers your choice for the next cook. When it's on, the microphone listens only while the cooking screen is open, speech is recognized on your iPhone, and nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
• Camera and photos. Used to snap recipe cards and finished dishes. The photos are kept in the app on your iPhone.
• Notifications. Timer alerts are scheduled on your iPhone so a finished timer can alert you when the phone is locked. They are not sent from a server.

Purchases

Subscriptions are sold and handled by Apple. The app never sees your payment details. It checks your subscription with Apple on your iPhone and does not send purchase records to our server.

What the app does not do

• No ads, and no advertising or analytics SDKs.
• No tracking across apps or websites.
• No selling or sharing of your information.
• No accounts, so there is no profile of you on any server.

Children

Smiley Man Recipe is made for home cooks and families. It is not directed at children under 13, and it does not collect information that identifies anyone, child or adult.

Your choices

• Choose how cards are read in Add a recipe, Reading & privacy. "On-device only" keeps photos on your iPhone and skips the App Attest step until you import a link. The cloud fallback stays off unless you turn it on.
• Delete a recipe, a person, a family group, a scan waiting to be read, or items on your shopping list in the app. Deleting a recipe also deletes its photos from your iPhone.
• Deleting the app deletes everything it stored on your iPhone.
• Notifications and the microphone can be turned off in your iPhone's Settings at any time.

How long information is kept

Service providers

• Apple: Private Cloud Compute reading, App Attest, the App Store and subscriptions.
• Cloudflare: runs our reading server and hosts this website.
• OpenAI: reads recipe pages when you allow the cloud fallback or choose the cloud reader, and recipe links you import.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.

Contact

The operator of Smiley Man Recipe is Daniel Praid. For privacy or support questions, contact:

Telephone: +1 347-569-5334
Email: smileymanrecipe@gmail.com