MyTaste Privacy Policy
Beta version. MyTaste is in private testing. This policy will be reviewed by counsel before public launch. Issued by Shower Thought Studio LLC (Texas), operator of MyTaste. Effective October 26, 2026.
Who we are and what this covers
MyTaste is a mobile app made by Shower Thought Studio LLC, a Texas company ("MyTaste", "we", "us"). You swipe on food photos; MyTaste learns what you like and recommends nearby restaurants.
This policy explains what MyTaste collects when you use the app, where it goes, who can see it, and what you can do about it. It applies to the MyTaste iOS app and to mytasteapp.com.
The short version: your swipes are private by default. We never sell your data, and no individual's data is ever shared with a restaurant or anyone else except as you choose. If we ever work with restaurants, they see only anonymous totals.
What MyTaste collects
MyTaste collects only what it needs to learn your taste and show you restaurants. Here is everything, in plain terms.
| What | Details | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your swipes | Each swipe: which photo (an anonymous fingerprint of the image, not the image itself), which restaurant (its Google place ID), whether you passed, liked, or craved, how long you looked, the meal you were choosing for, and a dish label MyTaste assigned ("ramen", "pizza"). Undo and un-crave are recorded as their own entries; nothing is deleted. | This is your taste profile. It powers your recommendations. |
| Favorites | Restaurants you heart, and when you un-heart them | To show your favorite spots and weight recommendations |
| Restaurant views and photo reveals | When you open a restaurant page, and when you tap the info button on a photo | Recommendations and, later, anonymous totals for restaurants |
| An account identifier | A random ID created the first time you open the app, before you ever sign up | So your swipes can be saved and restored |
| Email and display name | Only if you create an account. There is no password; you sign in with a code we email you. | To save your profile and restore it on a new phone |
| Approximate location | Read from your phone, with your permission, to find restaurants near you | It is used on your phone and never stored by MyTaste |
| A custom address | Only if you type one to set a dish or dining area | A setting you chose; stored so the app remembers it |
| Restaurant locations | The map coordinates of restaurants you have swiped on, kept for up to 30 days | So recommendations can be limited to your dining area |
| Usage counts | How many restaurant searches, photo requests, and lookups your account made each day | To keep MyTaste's costs under control and prevent abuse |
| Your friends (when the Friends feature is offered) | A public handle and profile photo you choose, the friend requests you send and accept, and the friends you remove or block. Friends you accept can see your taste profile as described under Who can see your data. | So you can find friends, compare tastes, and later plan meals together |
| Contacts (optional) | Only if you choose to find friends from your phone's contacts. Phone numbers and emails are scrambled (hashed) on your phone, matched against MyTaste accounts, and the scrambled list is discarded. We never store your contact list or contact anyone in it. | To show you which of your contacts already use MyTaste |
| Parties (when the Parties feature is offered) | Parties you create or join: who is invited, the meal, day, time, and area chosen, each member's quick swipes on the party's candidate restaurants, the group's ranked result, which restaurant was booked or chosen, and when the party ended. Parties are kept in your Parties history until you or the host delete them. | To find a restaurant a group will agree on, and to remember where you went |
| Dish photos you take (when the feature is offered) | Photos taken with MyTaste's in-app camera at a restaurant, the dish name you give them, the restaurant they belong to, and the fact that you were at that restaurant when you took them. Photos cannot be uploaded from your camera roll, only taken live. Your location is used once, to confirm you are at the restaurant, and is not stored with the photo or shown to anyone. | To show real, unedited dishes to other MyTaste users, and to build your craves |
| Reports and moderation records (when dish photos are offered) | Reports you make about a photo, reports others make about yours, the automated classifier's result for each photo you take, and the decision we reached (kept, removed, warning, camera disabled, account closed). | To keep MyTaste safe, act on reports, and recognize repeat problems |
What MyTaste does not collect: your contact list (unless you choose the optional contacts match above, and even then it is never stored), your photos, your precise movements, your payment details, or anything from other apps. The app does not use advertising trackers.
Photos you swipe on come from Google today, and may in future also come from other licensed sources (such as review or reservation platforms) or from restaurants themselves; each source is named in the photo's info panel. MyTaste does not store those photos or their identifiers; it keeps only the anonymous fingerprint and the dish label described above.
Where your data lives and how long it stays
Your swipes live in two places: on your phone, and in MyTaste's database, hosted by Supabase in the United States, under your account identifier. The copy on your phone works offline; the copy in our database is what lets you restore your profile on a new phone.
Your swipe history is kept for as long as you have an account. It is not deleted when you log out, so you can sign back in and get it back. Deleting your account (see Your choices) removes it everywhere.
Dish photos you take are kept until you delete them or your account. Friend connections are kept until either person removes the friendship or deletes their account. When you delete your account, you disappear from your friends' lists and your profile is no longer visible to anyone.
Moderation records (reports, classifier results, and our decisions) are kept for two years after the photo or account they concern is deleted, so that repeat problems can be recognized. A fingerprint of any removed photo (not the photo itself) is kept indefinitely so it cannot be re-posted.
A party's record is kept for every member until the host deletes the party or that member leaves it. Deleting your account removes you from every party; the party itself remains for the other members, showing you only as a departed member.
Approximate location is never stored. A custom address you type is stored on your phone as a setting until you change it. Restaurant coordinates are kept for 30 days and then cleared. Daily usage counts are kept for 90 days. Sign-in codes expire in minutes.
MyTaste's servers also keep a shared record of which photos are food and which are not, built from the app's own image classification. This record contains no information about any person and is not affected by account deletion.
Who can see your data
Nobody sees your individual swipes unless you choose to show them. Here is the complete list of who has access and why.
You. Your taste profile, favorites, and craves, in the app.
Friends you accept (when the Friends feature is offered). Nobody is your friend in MyTaste unless you send or accept a request. A friend can see your handle, profile photo, taste title, how closely your tastes match, the kinds of dishes you like, your favorite spots, and restaurants you have both liked. A friend never sees your individual swipes, how long you looked at a photo, your location, or your email. People who are not your friends can find you only by your handle or your taste code (a QR code you show them); they see your handle and photo, nothing else. You can remove or block anyone at any time, and blocking hides you from them completely.
Members of a party you join (when the Parties feature is offered). Only friends can invite you to a party, and you are a member only if you accept. Members see who else is in the party, who has finished swiping, the group's combined ranking of restaurants, and the restaurant the group chose. Members do not see how you swiped on any individual restaurant in the party, and nothing from a party is shared outside the group.
Other MyTaste users, for dish photos you take (when the feature is offered). A dish photo you take may be shown to any MyTaste user as a swipe card or on that restaurant's page, labeled "taken by a MyTaste user at the table." It carries the dish name and the restaurant, never your name, handle, or location. Before a photo is shown to anyone, MyTaste removes the hidden data your camera embeds in it (location, device, time) and sends the image to an automated classifier (Google Cloud Vision) that confirms it shows food and screens it for adult, violent, or otherwise unsafe content; photos that fail are rejected and not stored. Some photos are also held until a member of our team has looked at them. Other users can report a photo, and we review reports; a photo that is reported more than once is hidden until we do. You can delete any photo you took at any time, which removes it from the app for everyone.
MyTaste, as operator. Our team can see the data in our database, including individual records, in order to run and improve the service. By practice we look at anonymous totals — how many people liked a kind of dish, not who. We do not read individual histories except to fix a problem you report or as the law requires.
Service providers who process data for us. Each one sees only what its job needs, and none may use it for its own purposes:
| Provider | What it handles | Their policy |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Hosts our database and sign-in (account ID, email, swipe records) | supabase.com/privacy |
| Google (Places and Cloud Vision) | Finds restaurants and photos near you, classifies photos as food, and screens dish photos users take for unsafe content before they are shown to anyone. MyTaste's server makes these requests on your behalf; Google receives the search area and the photos, not your identity. | policies.google.com/privacy |
| Resend | Delivers sign-in code emails (your email address) | resend.com/legal/privacy-policy |
| Apple | App distribution and, in a future version, Sign in with Apple | apple.com/legal/privacy |
Restaurant information and photos shown in MyTaste come from Google Maps today. Google's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply to that content. If we add another licensed source, we will list it here with a link to its policy before its content appears in the app.
Restaurants and partners. Today, none. If MyTaste ever offers restaurants insight into how their dishes perform, they will see only anonymous totals across many users, never any individual's activity. We do not sell personal data, and we will not share individual data with any partner unless you take an action in the app that does so (such as accepting a friend), and you will always be able to undo it.
Legal requirements. We may disclose data if required by law, or to protect the rights and safety of MyTaste and its users.
If MyTaste is sold. If the company or the app is acquired, your data may transfer to the new owner under this same policy, and you will be told.
Your choices and rights
You control your data from inside the app, without asking us.
- Use MyTaste without an account. Swiping and recommendations work before you ever sign up. Your swipes stay on your phone and in our database under a random ID with no name or email attached.
- Location. You can decline location access or turn it off in your phone's Settings. MyTaste will show restaurants around a default area instead.
- Log out. Clears your profile from the phone; your account and history stay in our database so you can sign back in.
- Delete your account. Profile → Settings → Delete account. This permanently removes your account, your email, and every swipe, favorite, and crave from our database, and clears the app on your phone. It cannot be undone.
- Get a copy of your data. Email privacy@mytasteapp.com from the address on your account and we will send your records within 30 days.
- Correct your name or email. In Profile → Settings.
- Friends. You decide who sees your taste. Ignore or decline any request; remove a friend from their profile; block a person so they cannot find or request you again; and report a handle or photo that breaks our rules. Contacts matching is off unless you turn it on, and it uses your phone's permission system, so you can revoke it in Settings at any time.
- Parties. Decline any invitation, leave a party at any time, hide a party from your history, and, if you created it, end or delete it for everyone.
- Dish photos. Taking photos is always optional. Delete any photo you took from your craves or the restaurant page; it disappears for everyone within a day. Deleting your account removes all your photos.
Texas and California residents. Texas law (the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act) and California law (the CCPA/CPRA) give you the right to know what personal data we hold about you, to get a copy, to correct it, to delete it, and to opt out of its sale or sharing for targeted advertising. MyTaste does not sell personal data or share it for targeted advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. To exercise any other right, use the in-app controls above or email privacy@mytasteapp.com. We will not treat you differently for exercising a right. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our response.
Residents elsewhere. Wherever you live, the same controls and the same email address apply.
Children
MyTaste is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. Some features, such as Friends or connecting your taste profile to another app, may carry a higher minimum age; we will say so where they are offered. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, email privacy@mytasteapp.com and we will delete it.
Security
Your data travels encrypted between the app and our servers. Our database is protected so that each account can read only its own records. Sign-in uses one-time codes sent to your email; MyTaste never stores a password. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise that unauthorized access will never happen; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you as the law requires.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will show a notice in the app before the change takes effect and update the date at the top. Continuing to use MyTaste after that date means you accept the updated policy.
Contact
Shower Thought Studio LLC · Dallas, Texas · privacy@mytasteapp.com