Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 14, 2026

This policy explains what the Atwater app (“Atwater”, “we”, “us”) collects, why, where it goes, how long it’s kept, and how to delete it. Atwater is made by an independent developer. Questions? Email support@atwaterapp.com.

1. What we collect

Your account

• An anonymous account. When you first open Atwater, it creates an account with a random ID so your log can be saved. No name or email is needed. The sign-in token is kept on your phone.
• Your email address (optional). Only if you choose “Save your data” or “Sign in”. It’s used to email you a 6-digit sign-in code and to let you open your log on a new phone. We don’t send marketing email.
• Your plan: Free, Pro or tester, which sets your daily limits.

Your profile and body stats

Only what you enter during setup or in Settings:

• Age, sex, height, weight, activity level, and US or metric units.
• Your goal and how fast you want to reach it.
• Body fat percentage, if you add it.
• Your fitness tracker, if you add it: the device name and its average resting and active calories per day.
• Your daily calorie and protein targets, carb and fat targets if you track them, and your plan check-in settings.

Your food log

• Each entry: the food’s name, calories, protein, carbs and fat, the amount or servings, the day, and when you added it.
• Your Quick add favorites and saved meals.
• Your own corrected numbers for a food (“★ Your numbers”), so Atwater uses them next time.
• How many servings you usually have of a product you’ve scanned or photographed.

What you type, photograph or say for the smart features

• Text you type in “What did you eat?”, and your answer if the app asks a follow-up question.
• Photos of plates, nutrition labels and package fronts, and fitness tracker screenshots. Photos are shrunk on your phone, sent to our server and to Anthropic to be read, and then discarded. We never store your photos or screenshots.
• For Dine Out: the restaurant name, a location if you type one (like a city), and any custom order you type (like “Big Mac, no bun”).
• Voice: the microphone button uses your phone’s built-in speech recognition (Apple’s, on iPhone) to turn what you say into text in the box. Atwater only receives the text, and only when you choose to log it. Apple may process the audio under its own privacy policy.
• Barcode numbers you scan, to look the product up.

Usage counts

Each time you use a smart feature, we record which feature it was, when, how much computing it used and its estimated cost, plus a short technical note (for example, which steps a photo went through or which restaurant was searched). We use this to count your daily limits, keep costs under control, and fix problems.

Information that helps everyone

• When Atwater reads the nutrition numbers of a product from a label photo, or finds a packaged product online, the product’s name and nutrition numbers may be saved to a shared list so the next person gets them faster. This is information about the food, not about you.
• Restaurant menus that Atwater looks up are saved and shared the same way.
• If you correct the numbers of an estimated restaurant item, your correction is saved. When three or more people correct the same item in the same direction, the shared estimate is adjusted. Your name or email is never shown.

On your phone

Atwater stores your sign-in session and, if you tap “Not now” on the “Keep your log safe” card, the date to show it again. Your log itself is kept in your account, not on the phone. Temporary copies of photos are deleted as soon as they’ve been shrunk for sending. Photos you pick from your library stay in your library, untouched.

What we don’t collect

• No GPS or precise location. Dine Out only uses a location if you type one.
• No contacts, no Apple Health data, no advertising ID.
• No ads, no analytics or tracking tools, and we never sell or rent your information.

2. Where your data goes

We use a few service providers to run Atwater. Each gets only what it needs for its job.

Requests to Anthropic, USDA and Open Food Facts are made by our server, so those services see our server’s address, not yours. We may also share information if the law requires it.

3. How long we keep it

• Your account, profile, food log, favorites, corrections and usage counts: until you delete your account.
• Accounts that were never set up: if an account never finished setup, has nothing saved, and hasn’t been used for 7 days, it’s deleted automatically.
• Photos, screenshots and voice: not kept. They’re used for the one request and discarded.
• Shared restaurant menus and product information: kept and refreshed from time to time (menus after 30 days). They describe food, not people.
• Technical logs: our providers keep short-lived server logs for running and securing their services.
• Backups: before some maintenance work we may make a private backup copy of the database. It’s kept only as long as it’s needed to undo a mistake, then deleted.

4. Deleting your account

If you’ve added an email

Open Settings → Delete my account and confirm. Your account and everything in it are deleted right away: profile, body stats, food log, favorites, your corrected numbers, servings, restaurant corrections and usage counts. Products you helped add to the shared list stay, but they’re no longer linked to you.

If you haven’t added an email

The Delete button appears once an email is added. Go to Settings → Save your data, enter your email and the code we send, then use Settings → Delete my account. If you’d rather not do that, email support@atwaterapp.com and we’ll help.

Deleting the app from your phone doesn’t delete your account. “Sign out” only signs you out on that phone.

5. Your choices and rights

• See and change your profile, targets and food log anytime in the app.
• Delete your account as described above.
• Ask us for a copy of your data, or ask any question about it, at support@atwaterapp.com.
• Turn off camera or microphone access anytime in your phone’s Settings. You can still type what you eat.

6. Security

Data travels over encrypted connections. Our database only lets each account read and change its own data, and the keys for the AI and food services stay on our server, never in the app. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.

7. Children

Atwater isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has used Atwater, email us and we’ll delete the account.

8. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. For important changes, we’ll also let you know in the app.

9. Contact

Email support@atwaterapp.com.