Last updated 6 September 2026
JotMeal has no accounts and no user database. We never see what you eat.
Almost everything you log stays on your phone. Here's the full picture, in plain language rather than legalese.
At a glance
Never sent anywhere
And exactly when
The first two are the only places anything about your food leaves the device, and both are things you choose to do. Search, barcode, recent foods, saved meals and typing it in yourself send nothing to an AI service — and they're enough to run the whole app.
On the device
Everything you log lives in a database on your phone. We have no copy of any of it — not a backup, not an anonymised one, none.
If you uninstall JotMeal without exporting first, it's gone. Including from our side, because it was never on our side.
Off the device
Food photos and meal descriptions. If you log using the photo or describe features, that photo or text is sent to Google's Gemini AI service through our server to work out what the food is. We do not store it — not the photo, not the description, not on our server. It is passed straight through, analysed, and discarded.
Google logs it for a limited period, solely to detect and prevent abuse of their service. Google does not use it to train or improve their products, and no human reviewer at Google reads it.
We pay for the Gemini service specifically so that this is true. On Google's free tier the terms say the opposite — submitted content is used to "provide, improve, and develop Google products and services", and "human reviewers may read, annotate, and process your API input and output".
We didn't think that was an acceptable trade for a record of what you eat, so JotMeal has never run on it. Google's Gemini API terms govern what happens on their side.
Food searches and barcodes. Search terms and scanned barcodes go to Open Food Facts, an open food database, to look up nutrition data.
Analytics and crash reports. We use Google Firebase to see which features are used and to find crashes. This includes your device model, operating system version, app interactions and crash details. It does not include your food logs, your weight, or anything you type into the app.
Barcode scanning. Scanning happens entirely on your device — the camera image and the barcode it reads are never sent anywhere. The scanner is built on Google's ML Kit, which sends Google technical measurements about how well the scanner is performing. That's performance data about the software, not about you or your food, and Google doesn't offer a way to switch it off.
Advertising. JotMeal is free and supported by ads through Google AdMob. AdMob collects your device's advertising ID, IP address, interaction data and diagnostic information to serve and measure ads. You can reset or delete your advertising ID at any time in your Android settings.
Controls
Sensitive data
Food and weight information can be sensitive. That's precisely why we keep it on your device rather than on a server — with the single exception of the AI features above, which you never have to use.
JotMeal is not a medical device. Its calorie and nutrition figures — especially AI estimates from photos — are approximations, not measurements, and nothing in the app is medical advice.
JotMeal is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.
Processors
Revisions
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top. Material changes will be flagged in the app.
Questions, or want to exercise a data right?
Email support@jotmeal.com