# Curate Privacy Policy

_Last updated: May 2026_

Curate is a personal restaurant journal. This document explains what data we collect, where we store it, and what your rights are.

## Who runs Curate

Curate is an independent app maintained by Ethan Foster. Contact: **ethanldfoster@gmail.com**.

## What we collect

We only collect data you give us:

- **Account identity** — your email address (or, if you use Sign in with Apple, the relay address Apple provides). We use Firebase Authentication to store this.
- **Restaurant entries** — the restaurants, visits, ratings, notes, dishes, and photos that you choose to add. These are private to your account.
- **Photos you attach** — stored in Firebase Storage under a path scoped to your user ID. Other users cannot read your photos.
- **Approximate device location** — only when you explicitly enable the "Nearby" sort on a list, or grant location permission so the autocomplete can favour places near you. Location is used in-memory and never stored.

We **do not** collect analytics, device identifiers, advertising IDs, contacts, or third-party tracking data. We **do not** sell or share your data.

## Where data is stored

All data lives in Google Firebase under the project `plates-ea029`:

- **Firestore** stores your restaurants, visits, dishes, and metadata.
- **Firebase Authentication** stores your email and password hash (or Apple/Google identity reference).
- **Firebase Storage** stores any photos you attach.

Firebase data is hosted on Google Cloud. See [Google’s privacy policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) for details on how Google processes it.

## When data leaves Firebase

Two integrations contact third-party services:

1. **Restaurant search (Google Places)** — when you type in the add-restaurant form or share a Maps link, we send your typed query and your approximate location to Google Places via a secure Cloud Function. Google may log these requests under their standard terms.
2. **Screenshot-to-restaurant (Anthropic Claude)** — when you share a screenshot to Curate, the image bytes are sent to Anthropic’s Claude API via a secure Cloud Function so we can extract the restaurant name. Anthropic does not retain the image for training; see [Anthropic’s privacy policy](https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy).

In both cases, the request is proxied through a Cloud Function that runs under your authenticated session — the third-party services never see your account identity directly.

## Your rights

- **Read your data** — everything you’ve added is visible in the app.
- **Edit or delete entries** — tap a restaurant to edit or remove it.
- **Delete your account** — Account tab → Delete Account. This permanently removes your restaurants, visits, photos, and authentication record from Firebase. The operation is not reversible.

## Children

Curate is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them.

## Changes to this policy

If we materially change what we collect or where it goes, we’ll update this document and bump the date at the top.

## Contact

Questions or concerns: **ethanldfoster@gmail.com**.