How we collect, use, and protect your data.

Capseta ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your personal information.

By using Capseta, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use our service.

What information we collect

Account information

When you create an account, we collect your name and email address. Email is used for authentication, account recovery, and service notifications (like shared recipes or security alerts). We never sell your email to third parties.

Recipe data

Your recipes, meal plans, shopping lists, tags, and notes are stored in our database. This content belongs to you. We use it only to provide the service. We never sell or share your recipes, or any information that identifies you, with third parties.

Recipes you share with a link. When you share a recipe with a link, anyone with that link sees a preview: the recipe title, its category and timings, the first few ingredients, the description (only for recipes you wrote yourself), your first name, any photo you took of the dish yourself, and any personal notes you choose to include. The method, the rest of the ingredients, and the recipe's own notes open only after the recipient signs in to Capseta and saves the recipe. Link previews in messaging apps show the title, your first name, and that photo (or our own drawing). Shared links are not indexed by search engines, expire after 30 days, and can be revoked.

Aggregate statistics. We may in the future publish or license aggregate, anonymized statistics about how Capseta is used — for example, which cuisines are saved most often in a given season. Data of this kind contains no recipe content and no account information, and cannot be traced back to any individual. We would only do this at a scale large enough that no individual can be identified from it. If we ever do, this policy will say so before it begins: we will not apply a future change retroactively to data already collected under this one.

Usage data

We collect basic usage statistics through Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused, cookieless analytics service. This includes page views, referral sources, and device types — but no personal information. Plausible doesn't track you across websites and complies with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations without requiring cookie consent.

Image uploads

Recipe photos you upload are stored on Cloudinary, a third-party image hosting service. Your photos are stored with unguessable addresses that we never publish, index, or share. Nothing links them to your name or account, and we strip location and camera data from every image before it is stored. They are not listed anywhere and cannot be found by searching or guessing. Cloudinary's privacy policy is available at cloudinary.com/privacy.

AI processing during recipe import and nutrition estimates

When you import a recipe — from a URL, a photo, a PDF, or pasted text — the source content is sent to a third-party AI service to extract the recipe structure (title, ingredients, instructions, timing). This is what allows Capseta to turn a cluttered webpage or a photograph of handwritten notes into a clean, editable recipe.

We use the same service, in the same way, to read the ingredient lines of recipes you add, import, or edit into quantities and foods for nutrition estimates, and to match ingredient names to records in USDA FoodData Central. For matching, we send only the ingredient name (for example, “ancho chili paste”) and the candidate USDA records, both when a recipe is saved and in an automated pass that runs nightly. All of these requests go to the same provider, under the same terms, as recipe import.

We use one AI service for this:

• Anthropic (Claude). The content we send is processed under Anthropic's API terms, which prohibit using API inputs to train their models. Anthropic deletes it automatically within 30 days. It keeps it longer only if it is flagged for a safety (Usage Policy) review, for up to two years, or where the law requires. Privacy policy: anthropic.com/privacy.

What this means for your data:

• AI only processes what it needs. It receives the content you import and the ingredient lines of recipes you add, import, or edit. Your meal plans, notes, and shopping lists are never sent to an AI service.
• Not used for training. We use these services under agreements that prohibit using your content to train their models.
• We don't identify you. Requests carry no name, email, account, or user identifier, only the text being processed.
• Deleted automatically. Anthropic deletes it automatically within 30 days, unless it is flagged for a safety (Usage Policy) review, in which case it may be kept for up to two years, or where the law requires longer retention.
• You review the result. The AI produces a draft. You see it before anything is saved. Everything is editable.

How we use your information

We use your information to:

• Provide the service. Store and sync your recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists across devices.
• Authenticate you. Verify your identity when you sign in via magic links or passkeys.
• Communicate. Send account notifications, shared recipe alerts, and service updates.
• Improve the service. Analyze aggregated usage data to fix bugs and add features.
• Prevent abuse. Detect and prevent spam, copyright violations, and terms of service violations.

We do not: Sell your recipes or your personal data, track you across the web, use your recipes to train AI models, or share your personal information with data brokers.

Cookie policy

Strictly necessary cookies

We use minimal, strictly necessary cookies for authentication. These cookies keep you logged in and cannot be disabled without breaking core functionality. They don't track you or share data with third parties.

No tracking cookies

We don't use tracking cookies, marketing cookies, or third-party cookies beyond the ones mentioned above. Our analytics (Plausible) is completely cookieless. You won't see intrusive cookie consent banners because we don't need them.

Third-party services

For AI recipe extraction and for reading ingredient lines for nutrition estimates, we use Anthropic. See the AI processing section above for full details on what data is sent and how it is handled.

We also use third-party providers for database hosting, image storage, email delivery, web hosting, and analytics. These providers process data only as necessary to deliver the service and are contractually prohibited from using it for their own purposes. We also use an error tracking service, which receives a technical stack trace when something breaks. It does not receive your recipes, your email address, or the contents of anything you were doing.

Nutrition data (USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts)

Nutrition estimates are calculated on our servers from a copy of USDA FoodData Central data. When you scan or enter a product barcode, we look the number up in USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts. When you search for a branded product, we send your search words to USDA FoodData Central. These lookups run from our servers and contain no personal data: the providers never receive your IP address, your account, your name, or your email. When you scan a barcode with your camera, the image is processed on your device and is never sent to us; only the barcode number is. The camera turns off when you close the scanner. If you start a lookup on a computer and scan the barcode with your phone, the phone sends us only the barcode number, which we hold for no more than 10 minutes so your computer can collect it.

Cookbook attribution (Google Books)

When you save a recipe from a cookbook, you can ask Capseta to identify the book so its author can be credited on the recipe. To do this we look the book up with the Google Books API. This lookup is server-side and anonymous: it runs from our servers using our own key, so Google never receives your IP address, your account, your name, or your email, and cannot connect the lookup to you. Once you confirm a book, we copy its cover to our own image host, so your browser never loads images from Google.

Questions about specific providers? Email us at Privacy@Capseta.app.

Data protection

Recipe privacy

Your recipes are private by default. We actively block search engine crawlers (Google, Bing, etc.) and AI web scrapers (GPTBot, Claude-Web, etc.) from indexing your content. Recipe URLs require authentication and aren't publicly accessible.

Security measures

We use industry-standard security practices: HTTPS encryption for all connections, secure authentication tokens, restricted database access, and automatic security updates. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. While no system is 100% secure, we take security seriously and review it regularly.

Staff access

Authorized Capseta staff review some data to keep nutrition estimates accurate. When reviewing how an ingredient name is matched to a food record, staff may see a few example ingredient lines and recipe titles that use that name, shown without the name or account of the person who saved them. Staff read the reports you send about a nutrition figure; a report is stored with your account and deleted with it. Staff see your answers to nutrition questions only as totals (how many people gave each answer), not by person.

Data breaches

In the unlikely event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we'll notify you via email within 72 hours and explain what information was compromised and what steps we're taking to address it.

Your rights

Most of these you can do yourself in Settings — no need to contact us:

• Access your data. Your recipes, plans, and lists are always visible in the app.
• Export your data. Settings → Export.
• Delete your account and all data. Settings → Delete Account.
• Correct your account information. Settings → Profile.

For anything not covered in Settings — objecting to data processing, questions about what we hold, or GDPR/CCPA requests — email Privacy@Capseta.app. We'll respond within 30 days.

California users: we don't sell personal data, so CCPA opt-out doesn't apply. EU users: all standard GDPR rights apply.

Data retention and deletion

We keep your account data and recipes for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account (Settings → Delete Account), we permanently delete:

• All recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists.
• Your name and email address.
• Authentication tokens and session data.
• Recipe photos from Cloudinary (unless you have shared the images with other users).

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Export any recipes you want to keep before deleting your account.

Encrypted backups and deletion

When you request account deletion, your data is immediately removed from our production systems. For a limited time afterward it may persist in the encrypted, off-site backups we keep for disaster recovery: database backups roll off on a rolling 30-day window, and backed-up copies of your images are pruned within about a week. In all cases, no copy of your deleted data remains in our infrastructure after 30 days.

In the rare event we restore the database from a backup snapshot, we re-apply any account deletions that occurred between the backup point and the restore so that deleted data does not come back online.

We may retain anonymized usage statistics (from Plausible Analytics) after account deletion, but these cannot be linked back to you.

We also keep our own log of how features are used, for example that a barcode was used to identify an ingredient, with the ingredient name and the product number. These events do not record your name, email, or account. Some include the internal number of the recipe involved.

Shared ingredient data

To avoid processing the same text twice and to improve nutrition matching, we keep a shared record of how individual ingredient lines were read (for example, “2 cups flour” with its quantity, unit, and food) and a shared list of ingredient names. These records contain no link to any account or recipe. Because they cannot be connected to you, they are not deleted when you delete your account.

Children's privacy

Cooking is a family affair. Parents are welcome to create an account and share it with their children as part of a household — the account belongs to the parent.

Capseta does not knowingly allow children under 13 to create their own independent accounts. If we discover that a child under 13 has registered independently, we'll delete the account immediately. If you're a parent and believe this has happened, email Privacy@Capseta.app.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we'll notify you via email and post the updated policy with a new effective date at the top.

Your continued use of Capseta after policy changes means you accept the updated policy.

Contact us

Questions about this Privacy Policy, how we handle your data, or want to exercise your privacy rights:

Email: Privacy@Capseta.app

Data Controller: Schick Creative LLC

Last updated October 21, 2026