Privacy Policy
The short version: Taste Amigo helps you and your friends pick where to eat. To do that we keep your votes, your crews and the few things you choose to tell us. We use your location only while the app is open. We don't sell your personal data, we don't show ads, and we don't track you across other apps or websites. Restaurants will only ever see totals, never you.
This policy covers the Taste Amigo iPhone app, the guest vote page on the web, and this website. "Taste Amigo", "we" and "us" mean the people who run the service. Taste Amigo is in an early, private beta, and this policy describes what the service actually does today. Some screens in the beta may still show its earlier working name, Chowse.
Your account
- Anonymous by default. When you first open the app, we create an anonymous account for you. It has no name, email or phone number. It is just a random ID that lets the app keep your votes and settings.
- Optional sign-in. You can choose to sign in with Apple or with Google, for example to keep your account on a new phone. If you do, we receive the name and email address Apple or Google shares with us. Apple lets you hide your email, and if you do we only get a private relay address. We never show your email to other people.
- Your display name. The name on your account (up to 80 characters) is what other people in your votes and crews see. You can change it in the app.
Location
The app asks for your location only while you are using it, never "Always" and never in the background. We use it to show food places near you and how many minutes away they are. Your location is sent to our servers to look up nearby places; we don't keep a history of where you have been. You can say no and set a location by hand instead, and the app still works. Your choice of driving or walking is remembered on your phone only.
Votes, crews and your preferences
- Votes and picks: the votes you create or join, the places in them, your ballot (your picks, rankings or swipes), whether you are going, and the result. People in the same vote see your display name and, after voting, the standings. A vote can also be run without names.
- Crews: groups you create or join, their members, recurring weekly votes, the days of the week you are usually free, and weeks you choose to skip.
- Taste picks: the kinds of food you tell us you like, used to sort places for you. Only you see them.
- Places you follow.
- Optional age range and gender: you can choose to tell us your age range (for example 25 to 34; never your birth date) and gender, to get better recommendations. Both are optional, you can skip them, and you can change or clear them later. They are private to you. We don't ask people under 18 for an age range.
Push notifications
If you allow notifications, Apple gives the app a device token, and we store it with basic details (the app version and whether it is a test or live build) so we can tell you about a new vote, a vote closing soon, a result, a crew reminder or a nudge from the host. You can turn notifications off at any time in your iPhone's Settings. Tokens we haven't seen for 180 days are removed automatically.
Friends who vote on the web (guests)
A friend without the app can vote from a shared link in their browser. We don't ask guests for an account, an email or a phone number. A guest can type a name (or stay "Guest"), and we keep that name and their ballot as part of that vote. The page saves a random seat code in the guest's browser so they can change their vote later; we store that code only in scrambled (hashed) form. We never text, email or remind guests.
Analytics
We use PostHog to understand how the app and the guest page are used, so we can make them better. We record simple events such as "a vote was created", "a place was opened" or "a step of onboarding was skipped", with counts and settings. These events are linked to your random account ID. They do not include your name, your email, place names or anything you type. We do not record your screen or take session replays. On the guest page, PostHog keeps a small random identifier in your browser.
Abuse protection
To stop people guessing vote codes or overusing the service, our servers briefly count requests by IP address. These counts are deleted within about a week.
Restaurant and place information
Place listings come from open map data (Overture Maps Foundation and OpenStreetMap contributors) and from Google Maps. When you look at a place, our servers may ask Google for its hours, rating, photos and reviews. We don't send Google your name or account details with those requests. Photos and reviews shown in the app are credited to their source.
What restaurants will see
Restaurants cannot see anything about you today. Later, we plan to let restaurants see totals only, such as how many people added them to a vote or how a dish was rated, and summaries by age range or gender only when a group has at least 25 people in it. A restaurant will never see who you are, your votes or your profile.
How we use your information
- To run the service: find places, run votes, show results and send the notifications you asked for.
- To recommend places you are more likely to enjoy.
- To fix bugs, prevent abuse and improve the app.
We do not sell your personal data. We don't use it for advertising, we don't share it with advertisers or data brokers, and we don't track you across other companies' apps or websites.
Who helps us run the service
We use a small number of providers who process data for us, under their own security and privacy terms:
- Supabase: our database, sign-in and file storage, hosted in the United States.
- PostHog: product analytics, as described above.
- Apple: Sign in with Apple and push notifications.
- Google: Sign in with Google, and place details from Google Maps.
- Cloudflare: hosting for our websites.
We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect people's safety or the service from abuse.
How long we keep it
We keep your account information for as long as you have an account. When you delete your account, the data tied to it is deleted.
Seeing, exporting and deleting your data
- In the app: go to Profile and open the page that shows what we know about you. There you can see your data, tap Export my data to save a copy, or tap Delete account.
- Deleting your account removes your profile, sign-in details, preferences, follows and device tokens, the votes and crews you created, and your place in other people's crews. In votes other people created, your past ballot stays so their results still add up, but your name is replaced with "Someone".
- By email: you can also write to hello@tasteamigo.com to ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion of your account and the analytics events linked to it. A guest can ask us to remove their name from a vote the same way.
Security
Access to data is locked down per person in our database, connections are encrypted, and guest seat codes are stored hashed. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information.
Children
Taste Amigo is for people aged 13 and up. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has used the service, contact us and we will delete their information.
Changes to this policy
As the app grows, this policy will change. When it does, we'll update the date at the top of this page, and for important changes we'll tell you in the app before they take effect.
Contact
Questions or requests about your privacy: hello@tasteamigo.com.