Privacy Policy

Last Updated: August 30, 2026

Welcome

Welcome to InstaCheck. We built InstaCheck to help people better understand product labels, ingredients, nutrition information, and how products may relate to the preferences and considerations they choose to save in the app. In this Privacy Policy, "we," "us," and "our" refer to the InstaCheck team, and "you" refers to the person using InstaCheck.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we handle, why we use it, how shared product information works, and the choices available to you. InstaCheck provides general consumer and educational information. It is not a medical device, diagnostic tool, treatment service, or replacement for advice from a qualified doctor, pharmacist, dietitian, dermatologist, allergist, or other professional.

Information You Provide

When you create an account, sign in, or complete your profile, we collect information such as your email address, authentication method, first name, last name, age, gender, account creation details, legal acceptance status, onboarding status, and app settings. Password authentication is handled through Firebase Authentication. We do not store your plain-text password.

If you choose to use health-profile features, you may provide allergies, sensitivities, medical considerations, lifestyle preferences, and ingredients or substances you want to avoid. This information is voluntary and self-reported. We use it to personalize educational compatibility findings, warning notes, product scores, recommendations, and related app experiences. We do not verify, diagnose, confirm, or treat any allergy, sensitivity, condition, or medical concern.

You may also provide product-related information, including product names, product photos, barcode numbers, ingredient text, ingredient corrections, nutrition facts, package size details, ratings, reviews, reaction descriptions, reaction severity, follow-up notes, and optional reaction images.

Scans, Searches, and Product Use

InstaCheck may process information from barcode scans, manually entered barcodes, ingredient-label scans, nutrition-label scans, OCR output, product searches, category selections, product comparisons, favorites, scan history, product views, product updates, and recommendation activity.

Some scanning and text recognition may happen on your device through Google ML Kit. Extracted text, product identifiers, product photos, nutrition-label images, profile context, and related product data may be sent to our backend or service providers when needed to identify products, clean OCR text, analyze ingredients, score products, process nutrition labels, save records, or provide personalized findings.

Personal Account Data and Shared Product Data

InstaCheck uses both personal account data and shared product data.

Personal account data is information associated with your individual account, such as your profile, allergies, sensitivities, avoid list, scan history, favorites, notification tokens, reaction journal entries, referral activity, subscription status, and account settings.

Shared product data is product-level information contributed, corrected, generated, or enriched for the benefit of the InstaCheck community. This may include product names, brands, barcodes, product photos, categories, ingredient lists, ingredient details, nutrition information, package size information, rating summaries, reviews, correction metadata, and product scores.

Shared product data may be visible to other InstaCheck users who view the same product or search for related products. Please do not submit private, confidential, or sensitive personal information in product names, product corrections, product photos, public reviews, ingredient fields, nutrition fields, or other shared product areas.

Reviews and Reaction Journal

Ratings and reviews may be displayed to other users and may include your display name, rating, review text, edit status, helpful votes, flags, and moderation status.

Reaction Journal entries and follow-ups are intended as personal account records. They may include the product, whether it was consumed or applied, your description, severity, dates, and optional images. Current storage rules treat reaction images as account-specific rather than public product images.

Premium, Referrals, Streaks, and Promotions

If you use Premium features, we may process subscription status, plan type, expiration dates, purchase-related events, and entitlement information. RevenueCat is used in the app to support Premium purchases, restore purchases, and subscription status checks. The relevant app store, RevenueCat, and platform payment providers process purchase and billing information. We do not store full payment card details.

InstaCheck may support referrals, streaks, leaderboards, promotions, rewards, or cash-prize campaigns when those features are enabled. To operate those features, we may process referral codes, referred-user relationships, display names, streak activity, scan counts, referral counts, leaderboard opt-in status, Premium eligibility, winner records, anti-fraud signals, and related campaign records.

Notifications and Communications

If you enable notifications, we may collect and store push notification tokens and send app notifications about product updates, ingredient updates, warnings, account activity, referrals, leaderboards, promotions, tips, announcements, and service messages. You can manage notification permission through your device settings and clear certain notifications in the app.

Analytics, Diagnostics, and Security

We use Firebase services, including Firebase Authentication, Firestore, Storage, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging, Remote Config, Analytics, and Crashlytics, to operate, secure, diagnose, and improve InstaCheck. We may collect app version, device and operating-system information, feature usage, crash reports, diagnostic logs, performance information, network status, and fraud-prevention or abuse-prevention signals.

The codebase also references backend processing and usage tracking for AI, product lookup, image lookup, and search providers such as OpenRouter, Tavily, SerpApi, and Open Facts product databases. Where those services are used, we send only the information reasonably needed for the requested feature, such as product identifiers, search terms, ingredient text, nutrition text, product images, or relevant profile context.

How We Use Information

We use information to create and maintain accounts; authenticate users; provide barcode scanning, OCR, product lookup, ingredient analysis, nutrition analysis, product scoring, compatibility findings, comparisons, recommendations, favorites, history, reaction logs, reviews, health reports, notifications, referrals, streaks, leaderboards, Premium features, and support experiences.

We also use information to maintain shared product records, process product corrections, improve data quality, detect abuse, prevent fraud, troubleshoot crashes, monitor performance, enforce our Terms and Conditions, comply with legal obligations, and protect InstaCheck, users, and the public.

When Information Is Shared

We share information with service providers when needed to run InstaCheck, including cloud hosting, authentication, analytics, crash reporting, messaging, storage, OCR, AI-assisted analysis, product lookup, search, purchase processing, and app-store services.

Shared product data may be shown to other users as described above. Reviews and rating information may also be visible to other users. Personal profile information, health-profile selections, reaction journal entries, scan history, favorites, notification tokens, and subscription status are intended for your account and operational use unless a feature clearly says otherwise or disclosure is required by law.

We may disclose information if required by law, legal process, regulatory request, security need, rights-protection need, or in connection with a business transfer such as a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets.

Data Quality and AI Limitations

Product information may come from user submissions, product packaging, OCR, public databases, web sources, AI-assisted extraction, and manual corrections. Product formulas and labels can change. AI-generated, OCR-extracted, third-party, and crowdsourced information may be incomplete, outdated, or wrong.

Always read the physical product label before buying, consuming, applying, or relying on a product. For health-related decisions, consult a qualified professional.

Data Storage and Security

We use technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including authenticated access controls, Firebase security rules, and storage rules. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Account records, profile data, shared product records, scan history, favorites, reviews, reaction records, notifications, referral records, leaderboard records, Premium events, and related app data may be stored in Firebase, Firebase Storage, Cloud Functions, or associated services. Product images may be publicly readable when stored as shared product images. Reaction images and nutrition-label scan images are stored in user-specific paths under current storage rules.

Retention and Account Deletion

We keep information for as long as needed to provide InstaCheck, maintain your account, support shared product records, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, maintain security, and operate subscriptions, referrals, promotions, and analytics.

You may delete your account in the app. Account deletion is designed to remove or delete your user profile, account-specific history, favorites, notification tokens, reaction logs, reaction images, and related user-specific records where technically and legally feasible. Some information may remain, be retained, or be anonymized, including shared product contributions, public product records, rating aggregates, anonymized reviews, referral or leaderboard records needed for integrity, security logs, backup records, legal records, and data we are required to keep.

Account deletion may be irreversible and may affect Premium access, history, referrals, leaderboard participation, reviews, reaction records, and other account-linked features.

Your Choices

You can update profile information, manage health-profile selections, remove favorites, clear history where supported, manage notifications through device settings, opt out of leaderboard participation where the app offers that setting, restore purchases, and delete your account.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or export personal information. If a privacy choice is not available in the app, contact us using the information below.

Children's Privacy

InstaCheck is not intended for children under the age required by applicable law to use an online service without appropriate consent. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children where parental consent is required. If you believe a child has provided information improperly, please contact us.

International Processing

Your information may be processed and stored in countries other than where you live, including countries where we or our service providers operate. Those countries may have privacy laws different from your own.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If changes are material, we may notify you in the app, by notification, or through another reasonable method. The updated policy will apply from the date shown above or as otherwise stated.