Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

• Account Information: When you create an account, we collect your email address and password (securely managed by Supabase Authentication). You may also sign in via Google or via Apple (Sign in with Apple, available on iOS devices), in which case we receive your name and email from the identity provider. With Sign in with Apple you can choose to hide your email address, in which case we receive an Apple relay address instead of your personal email. You will also be asked to provide a username, bio (optional), and profile picture (optional).
• User Content: Reviews and visits you create (including titles, names, ratings, text, and photos), community photos you upload, and messages you send in the group chat - including the message content, sender identity, and send time (metadata). Group chat messages are visible to group members only, are stored and processed on Supabase infrastructure (see section 3), and can be deleted by you at any time (long-press the message > Delete for everyone).
• Social Data: Follower/following relationships, likes on reviews and meals, comments on meals, saved reviews, restaurants and dishes, follow requests, and block lists.
• Inviting Friends: When you join through an invite link, we record who invited you and through which channel. On joining, the new account starts following the person who invited it (you can unfollow at any time), and that person is notified that you joined.
• Tagging Meal Companions: You can mark which users ate with you at a meal. The tagged user is notified and can accept or decline the tag. Until they accept, the tag is visible only to the two of you. Once accepted, the tag is shown on the meal, and the tagged user can rate the same meal and use the dish photos you took at it.
• Timezone: We automatically detect your timezone from device settings (via the Intl API) to send Push notifications at appropriate local times. No GPS data is collected for notification scheduling. However, when you use location-based search features, the app will request access to your device location (GPS) with your consent, and transmit the coordinates to the server to enable nearby dish and restaurant search.
• Notification Identifiers (Push Tokens): When you enable notifications, we store your device's Push identifier to deliver them. The identifier is deleted upon account logout or deletion.
• Automatically Collected Information: We collect device type, OS version, and app version to improve performance and stability. In production, crash reports and error data are collected via Sentry (see section 3).
• App Usage Records: We record, linked to your account, app opens (time, platform and version), views of dish and restaurant pages and taps on sharing a meal with someone not yet on the app, to measure usage, improve the service and produce aggregate statistics, including for restaurants. When you delete your account, these records are unlinked from it and kept as non-identifying statistics.
• Analytics Data: We use Firebase Analytics to understand how the app is used, including screen views, user engagement, and events (e.g., creating visits and reviews, search queries). This data is anonymous and aggregated. On iOS, we request your permission to track activity across other companies' apps and websites via Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework. You can change tracking preferences at any time in Device Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking.
• Outbound Link Clicks: When you tap a button in the app that redirects to an external food-delivery or table-reservation platform (such as Wolt, Mishloha, Tabit, or Ontopo), we record the click event - the platform chosen, the restaurant, the screen the tap came from, the time of the tap, and your user ID (if you are signed in) - before redirecting you to the external service. We do not receive or collect any information about actions you take within the external service itself (such as orders, reservations, or payments).

2. How We Use Your Information

• To create and manage your account.
• To enable social features (following, messaging, sharing reviews and visits).
• To display your public profile to other users.
• To improve app functionality and fix bugs.
• To send Push notifications (follow requests, likes, messages, streak reminders, review suggestions, and marketing/promotional content).
• To enforce content moderation and community guidelines.
• To manage user blocks and content filtering.
• To display ads and measure ad performance (using device advertising identifiers, with your consent on iOS).
• To measure usage of and interest in links to external delivery and reservation platforms, and to produce aggregate statistics for operational and commercial purposes.

3. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may collect data:

• Supabase: Authentication, database storage, file storage, cloud functions, and analytics.
• Firebase Analytics: App usage analysis. Collects anonymous usage data and device identifiers.
• Sentry: Error and crash reporting in production only. No personal content (reviews, messages, etc.) is collected.
• Expo: Push notification delivery. Expo is used to register the device for a Push Token. Notifications are sent directly via Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM).
• Google Maps Platform (Places API, including Places API New, and Geocoding): Restaurant and business search, address autocomplete, fetching place details (name, address, Google rating, and photos), and converting addresses to coordinates (Geocoding). Requests are made through our server, so the search text you type, place IDs, and addresses are sent to Google; your GPS location is not sent to Google.
• Google Cloud Vision API: Automated content moderation of images you upload (review/dish photos and profile picture). Before an image is saved, it may be sent to Google Cloud Vision to detect inappropriate content (such as nudity or violence). Google processes the image solely for this analysis.
• Google Maps SDK: Displaying interactive maps (the Flavor Map) on Android devices. When the map is displayed, Google may collect usage and device data in accordance with Google's privacy policy. On iOS devices, Apple Maps is used.
• Resend: Email delivery service. Used to send OTP codes for user identity verification during registration. Resend receives your email address solely for the purpose of delivering the code.
• Vercel and Cloudflare: Website infrastructure, content delivery, security and measurement providers. They receive technical information through network requests, including IP addresses and browser data, and may process logs for operations and security. Measurement tools and browser storage are described separately in section 8. Provider processing may take place outside Israel, subject to applicable law.

4. Data Storage and Security

Your data is stored securely using Supabase. We use authentication tokens to protect API requests, security rules to restrict database access, and encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS) for all data transfers. Passwords are never stored in plain text.

5. Data Sharing

We do not sell personally identifying information about you to third parties. Information may be shared in the following cases:

• Public Profile: Your username, avatar, bio, reviews, and photos are visible to other users.
• Ratings and Recommendations Among Friends: Your answer to whether you would order a dish again, and what you wrote about it, may be shown under your name to users who follow you, on the dish and restaurant pages. When a user who follows you orders a dish you recommended, you may be notified, including their name. Rankings we compute from your comparisons are shown to others only in aggregate (for example, how many diners would order a dish again).
• Restaurants' Digital Menus: Restaurant menus on maochlim.com may show aggregate data from the app for each dish (such as its rating and number of raters). If a restaurant has no photo of its own for a dish, a photo you uploaded of that dish in the app may be shown instead, without your name.
• Chat Messages: Messages are visible only to conversation participants.
• Service Providers: Third-party services listed above that help operate the app.
• Sharing you initiate to external apps: The app lets you share content you created (e.g., a designed review card including your photos, ratings, and dish/restaurant names) to external apps such as Instagram or WhatsApp. Sharing happens only upon your explicit action, directly from your device to the app you chose - we do not send content or personal information to these platforms in the background. From the moment of sharing, the content is subject to the receiving platform's privacy policy and terms (e.g., Meta's Privacy Policy). When sharing to Instagram, our app identifier is also passed for content attribution. The app is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or in official partnership with Meta.
• Dish Feedback: Your answer to what you would improve in a dish (the tags you chose and the text you wrote) is passed to the restaurant it concerns, as written, together with the dish name and the date and without your name or identifying details, so it can improve its dishes and service. Feedback is passed only to restaurants that receive a menu management service from us, as described in section 15. Please avoid including identifying details about yourself or others in the text.
• Aggregate Data: We may share with or make available to third parties - including restaurants, business partners and research and market-analysis firms - aggregated, de-identified statistics derived from reviews, ratings and feedback in the app, including for consideration. For example: the number of taps on outbound links, or trends in dish ratings by area. This data cannot be used to personally identify you.
• Legal Requirements: If required by law, regulation, or legal process.

6. International Data Transfers

Your data is stored on Supabase servers located in Frankfurt, Germany. Users from the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA) agree that information is transferred to the US under Google's data processing terms and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs).

7. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access your data through the app.
• Update your information at any time in Settings.
• Permanently delete your account (Settings > Delete Account). This will remove all data including visits, reviews, photos, and social connections.
• For EU residents (GDPR) and California residents (CCPA): Additional rights exist such as data portability, processing restriction, and filing a complaint. To exercise these rights, contact us at: [email protected].

8. Local Storage and Cookies

The app uses on-device storage (AsyncStorage) to cache visits for offline use. This is distinct from cookies and measurement tools on the website.

• The current public website has no account login and does not store login credentials in localStorage. Demo ratings and saved selections remain in page memory and reset on refresh. Form autofill is managed by your browser, not by a form cookie set by us.
• Light or dark appearance follows the device preference as reported by the browser. The website does not save an appearance choice. Any preference previously stored under maochlim-theme is removed on page load when browser storage access is available.
• The website uses Vercel Web Analytics for page-view statistics and Vercel Speed Insights for performance measurement. Data may include page URLs, referrers, visit times, browser and device types, approximate geographic regions and loading times. According to Vercel, Web Analytics uses an identifier derived from the request instead of third-party cookies; the visitor identifier is discarded within 24 hours. This does not mean that no technical data is transmitted to the provider.
• The website passes through Cloudflare for content delivery and security, and also loads Cloudflare performance measurement. According to the provider, Web Analytics does not use cookies or localStorage. Separately, Cloudflare security features may set technical cookies when needed, such as to verify that a visitor is human rather than automated, depending on the enabled protections and their activation.
• Usage measurement on restaurants' digital menus (/menu pages): we count menu opens, dish opens and saves, searches within the menu (the normalized text and the number of results), use of the vegan or vegetarian filter, taps through to the app, as well as the menu language, the device type (mobile or desktop) and whether the visit came from a QR code, a search engine, social media or directly. No IP address, browser string or persistent identifier is stored, and nothing is written to your device (no cookies, no localStorage). To count distinct visitors on the same day, the server derives a short code from the IP address and browser together with a random value that is replaced and deleted every day, so the address cannot be recovered from it and days cannot be linked. Events are deleted after 90 days, and the restaurant receives aggregate summaries only.
• Measurement of meal links shared from the app (/visit pages): we count page opens and taps on the App Store, Google Play and open-in-the-app buttons, and whether the visit came from social media or directly, to learn whether sharing a meal brings new people. The method is the same as for menus: no IP address, browser string or persistent identifier is stored, nothing is written to your device, and the short code that lets us count distinct visitors is replaced and deleted every day. Events are deleted after 180 days and are used for aggregate summaries only.
• The current website does not embed personalized advertising or remarketing pixels. If we introduce such tracking tools, we will update the information provided and seek consent before activation where required by applicable law. Browsing alone will not replace separate consent where required.
• You can block or delete cookies and site data in your browser settings. Blocking may affect security mechanisms or features that depend on storage. Deleting cookies does not erase data already transmitted to providers and does not necessarily stop cookieless measurement. For questions and requests to access or correct information under Israel's Protection of Privacy Law, contact [email protected].

9. Children's Privacy

The app is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under this age.

10. Data Retention and Deletion

We retain information as long as the account is active.

• Deleting an individual visit or review: You can delete a visit or review you published at any time directly from the app, without deleting your entire account. Deletion is permanent and removes all data associated with that visit/review, including descriptions, ratings, and photos.
• Full account deletion: When you delete your account (Settings > Delete Account), we will permanently remove: profile, reviews, visits, photos, social connections, chat messages, and notifications. This deletion is irreversible.

Note that content already incorporated into published marketing materials may be retained as described in the license in the Terms of Service.

11. Data Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify users via email and/or in-app notification without undue delay, and no later than 72 hours after becoming aware, as required by law.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes through the app. Continued use constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Us

For privacy questions, please contact us at: [email protected].

14. Website and Business Inquiries

• This policy also covers maochlim.com, demo menus and restaurant service inquiries. The controller of inquiry data is MaOchlim Technologies Ltd., company number 517328597. Privacy contact: [email protected].
• The quote form requests a restaurant name, contact name and telephone number. Email, menu links, interests and comments are optional. Providing information is voluntary and not legally required. Required fields are needed to complete the form and handle the inquiry. You may also contact us directly by email.
• Clicking Send transfers the inquiry to the website server and our inquiry system in Supabase. A team notification is sent through Resend to the Company email inbox. Typing without submitting does not save an inquiry in our system. Autofill is handled by your browser settings. Technical request data is also used to limit submissions and prevent abuse.
• Received inquiries are used to respond, understand requirements, prepare proposals and coordinate services. Inquiries are retained in Supabase and the Company Gmail mailbox provided by Google and accessible to authorized personnel and providers as needed to handle it. Providers may process and store information outside Israel, subject to law. Inquiries do not automatically subscribe you to marketing communications.
• We retain inquiries while needed to handle the request, administer a resulting engagement or meet a justified legal need. We review continued retention and delete unneeded information, subject to legal duties. You may request access and correction, and request deletion subject to law and justified retention needs, at the email address above. Inquiry retention does not depend on having an app account.
• Demo ratings and saved selections remain in page memory, reset on refresh and are not published or sent to our review database. Website analytics and performance tools still operate as described in this policy. Some demo images load from Unsplash servers, which receive technical request data such as an IP address to deliver the image.

15. Data and Feedback in Restaurant Services

• A restaurant receiving a menu management service from us can manage its menu and view data only through user accounts we approve for it ("restaurant accounts"). Access is limited to the restaurant the account was approved for.
• What the restaurant receives: (1) diners' answers to what they would improve in a dish - the tags, the text as written, the dish name and the date, without the writer's name or identifying details; (2) aggregate statistics on the use of its digital menu on the website, as described in section 8; (3) aggregate data on how its dishes are rated in the app.
• The text is passed on as written and we do not edit it. Diners are asked to write it as feedback for the kitchen, and should avoid contact details, sensitive information or personal information about others. The restaurant undertakes not to try to identify feedback writers or contact them based on the feedback.
• Aggregate data is shared in a manner intended to prevent diner identification. Further permissions, reports and data-processing responsibilities will be defined in the agreement with the restaurant.