MealMatrix — Privacy Policy

The short version

Your recipes, your weekly plan, your pantry and your shopping list stay on your phone. There is no account and no server of ours. From version 1.1.0 MealMatrix is free and supported by a single banner ad served by Google AdMob; to request it the app needs internet access and uses your device's advertising ID. That ad request is the only thing that ever leaves your phone, and this policy explains exactly what it involves. Earlier versions carried no ads and made no network requests at all.

What the app stores, and where it goes

• Your recipes. Titles, ingredients, quantities, cooking notes, prep time and calories — the twelve that ship with the app and any you write yourself.
• Your meal plan. Which recipe you assigned to which day and meal, and how many servings you intend to cook.
• Your pantry and grocery list. The staples you have marked as in stock, the generated shopping list, and anything you typed onto it yourself.

All of it is written to a database inside MealMatrix's own private storage area on the device. None of it is sent to Google, to an advertiser, or to anyone else — the ad request described below carries no recipe, plan or list. Uninstalling MealMatrix deletes every bit of it, and there is no copy anywhere else to recover from.

Advertising

From version 1.1.0, MealMatrix is free and supported by ads. It displays a single banner ad served by Google AdMob at the bottom of the Planner tab. There is no full-screen ad, no ad on launch, and no ad on the Groceries tab.

To request an ad, the Google Mobile Ads SDK inside the app sends the following to Google and its advertising partners:

• Your device's advertising ID (a resettable identifier Android provides for advertising) and app-set ID.
• Your IP address, from which Google derives an approximate location. MealMatrix never asks for location permission.
• Coarse device and app information — device model, OS version, app version, and interaction with the ad itself.
• Diagnostics about the ad request, such as whether it loaded.

This data is collected by Google and shared with Google as an advertising partner. It is used for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention. Google's handling of it is described in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and the AdMob partner policies.

Consent in Europe. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, MealMatrix shows a Google-certified consent form the first time it runs and records your choice. If you do not consent to personalised advertising, the app requests non-personalised ads instead. You can reset your advertising ID or opt out of ad personalisation at any time in Android Settings → Privacy → Ads.

Ad content is limited to Google's "G" (general audience) rating.

Sharing is something you do, not something the app does

• Share a grocery list. Tapping the share icon hands a plain-text copy of your list to Android's share sheet, and you choose where it goes. MealMatrix does not pick a destination and does not keep a copy of what you sent.
• Export a backup. Export writes a readable .json file of your data and hands it to the same share sheet. Where that file ends up is entirely your choice. Import reads a file you select and replaces your current data with it.
• Contact us. The Contact screen composes a message and opens it in WhatsApp or your email app, with the app version and device model attached so a bug report is useful. Nothing is sent until you press send in that app.

Backups

Android can normally copy an app's data to a user's Google Drive automatically. MealMatrix turns this off (allowBackup=false), so your recipes and plan are not included in a device backup. The Export button above is the deliberate alternative: a copy you make on purpose, and control.

Permissions, and why each one exists

• Internet — used solely to request ads. Your recipes, plan, pantry and list are never sent over it.
• Advertising ID — used by Google AdMob to serve ads, as described above.

MealMatrix requests no runtime permissions. It does not ask for camera, microphone, location, contacts, storage, notifications or your photo library.

Deleting your data

Because your data lives on your device only, there is no server-side account to close and nothing for us to delete on your behalf. You can erase your data at any time, yourself:

• Inside the app — Settings → Reset to factory presets wipes every recipe you wrote, your plan, your pantry and your grocery list.
• From Android — Settings → Apps → MealMatrix → Storage → Clear data, or simply uninstall the app.

Either action is immediate and permanent. Export a backup first if you might want any of it back. Advertising data is held by Google, not by us — use the Android ad settings above to reset or opt out.

Children

MealMatrix is intended for users aged 13 and over and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Third parties

Google AdMob, for the banner ad described above, is the only third party. There is no analytics, no crash reporting, no in-app purchase and no third-party account.

Changes

If this policy changes, the updated policy will be posted here with a new date, and the app's Play Data safety section will be updated to match before that version ships.

Contact

Questions about this policy: segmentbi@gmail.com