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Sous Chef.

Privacy Policy

Effective September 24, 2026

The short version: Sous Chef has no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking, and we never sell or share your personal data. Your kitchen stays on your device, in your own iCloud, or on a server you choose. The only data we hold is for the optional recipe community: if you sign in with Apple to publish recipes, we keep your display name, an account identifier, and the recipes you publish, until you delete your community account in the app.

Who this policy covers

This policy covers the Sous Chef apps: the iOS app Sous Chef: Kitchen Assistant and the open-source, self-hosted Sous Chef web app (github.com/gamerg21/sous-chef). Sous Chef is developed by George Vina (“we”, “us”). You can reach us at community-souschef@georgevina.com.

What we collect

Your kitchen (pantry, recipes, shopping lists, and photos) is never sent to us. You don’t need an account to use Sous Chef, including to browse community recipes. The apps contain no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party analytics or advertising SDKs.

If you choose to create a community account to publish recipes, we collect only what the community needs to work:

  • Your display name, shared by Apple when you first sign in (or changed by you in Settings). It appears with recipes you publish.
  • Account identifiers: the identifier Sign in with Apple gives us for your account, and a token Apple issues so we can disconnect Sign in with Apple when you delete your account. We don’t request or receive your email address.
  • Recipes you publish, including any photo you attach.

We use this data only to run the community: to show recipes, credit their cooks, and enforce the community guidelines. We don’t use it for tracking or advertising, and we don’t sell or share it.

Where your data lives

On your device and in your iCloud

In the iOS app, your pantry items, recipes, shopping lists, and photos are stored on your device. If iCloud is enabled for your Apple Account, this data syncs through your own private iCloud storage (the CloudKit private database), under Apple’s Privacy Policy. We cannot access it.

On your own Sous Chef server (optional)

If you connect the iOS app to a self-hosted Sous Chef server, your data syncs between the app and that server. The server is controlled by you, or by whoever runs it, not by us. The session token for the connection is stored in the iOS Keychain. The self-hosted web app stores its data on the server where it is installed.

Apple Intelligence

Recipe ideas, reading recipes from text and photos, reading package labels, and sorting your shopping list by aisle use Apple’s Foundation Models. These requests are processed on your device, or with Apple’s Private Cloud Compute where available, which processes requests without retaining them.

If Apple Intelligence is not available and you have connected your own Sous Chef server, these requests are sent to that server and on to the AI provider configured on it by its operator. That provider’s own privacy terms apply.

Camera and photos

The camera and photo access are used only to scan barcodes, read food labels, and scan recipe pages or photos. Text is recognized on your device. Photos are stored only if you attach them to a recipe.

Barcode lookups

When you scan a barcode, only the barcode number is sent to Open Food Facts, a product database run by the Open Food Facts association, to look up product information. You can turn barcode lookups off in Settings. Open Food Facts data is available under the Open Database License.

Importing recipes from a link

When you import a recipe from a web address, the app fetches that page directly from the website you entered.

Community recipes (optional)

Browsing community recipes doesn’t need an account. The iOS app reads public recipes from the Sous Chef community service, hosted on Convex in the United States, or from a community your own server connects to.

To publish, you sign in with Apple. Recipes you publish, with your display name, are visible to everyone (or, if you choose Unlisted, to anyone with the link), and other people can save copies. Removing a recipe from the community hides it but can’t recall copies already saved.

If a recipe breaks the community guidelines, we may remove it or suspend the account that posted it. For a suspended account, we keep its Sign in with Apple identifier so the account can’t simply rejoin.

When you report a community recipe, your email app sends the report (the recipe details, the reason, and your note) from your email address to community-souschef@georgevina.com. It is used only to review the report.

Your choices and deleting your data

  • Deleting items, or deleting the app, removes the data stored on your device.
  • You can turn iCloud sync off, or remove your kitchen from iCloud, in the app’s Settings. You can also manage iCloud data in iOS Settings > [your name] > iCloud.
  • Deleting your community account in the app’s Settings deletes your account, your display name, and every recipe you’ve published, and disconnects Sous Chef from your Apple Account. You can also stop using Sign in with Apple with Sous Chef in iOS Settings, or email us to delete your community data.
  • Data on a Sous Chef server is controlled by that server’s operator.
  • You can export and import your recipes in Settings.

Children

Sous Chef is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child has created a community account, contact us and we’ll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we will post the update on this page with a new effective date.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email George Vina at community-souschef@georgevina.com.