Privacy Policy

1. Summary (the short version)

• We collect what we need to run a plate-rating service: your account details, the reviews and content you create, and how you use the app.
• Some information is optional, including your birth year, your general home location, and your favorite cuisines. You can use PlateRanks fully without providing any of it.
• We use your favorite cuisines to give you better recommendations from day one.
• Only if you opt in, we may include your information in anonymized, aggregate trends we show to restaurants about their customers. Restaurants never see your individual birth year, location, or identity, and we never show a trend unless at least 25 different people are represented in it.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third-party data brokers.
• You can view, edit, or delete your optional information, and withdraw your consent, at any time in your profile settings.

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information you provide when you create an account

• Your name and email address.
• Your password (if you register with email and password) — stored only as a secure hash, never in plain text.
• Your Google account identifier (if you sign in with Google). We receive your Google-verified email, name, and a user identifier — never your Google password.

2.2 Optional information you may choose to provide

All of the following are optional. The Service works fully whether or not you provide them, and we do not withhold features if you decline.

• Birth year — only the year, not your full date of birth. We use it to estimate an age range; we never display or share your exact birth year.
• General home location — from your device location or a city/state/postal code you enter — to power nearby-dish discovery and estimate how far you typically travel.
• Favorite cuisines — up to five cuisines you prefer.

Whether this optional information may be used to produce anonymized trends shown to restaurants is governed by a separate, explicit consent (Sections 3.2 and 5.1). Providing the information is not the same as consenting to that use.

2.3 Content you create

• Reviews and ratings of dishes and restaurants, including scores and written text.
• Photos you attach to reviews.
• Your “Want to Try” dishes, “Want to Visit” restaurants, the users you follow, and any dashboard links you generate to share your activity.

2.4 Information collected automatically when you use the Service

• Usage and interaction data — searches you run and items you view, tap, or open — associated with a randomly generated device/session identifier, a source label (web, Android, or iOS), and your account when you are signed in.
• Approximate location for search — used only at the moment you run “near me” discovery. Granting location permission is optional and revocable in your device settings.
• Basic technical data needed to deliver and secure the Service, such as your device’s network address when it contacts our servers.

We deliberately avoid capturing sensitive fields in our usage-analytics records and filter out things like full web addresses and authentication tokens.

3. How we use information

3.1 To provide and personalize the Service

To run your account, power search and social features, compute community ratings, and personalize recommendations. Your selected favorite cuisines help us personalize recommendations for you from the start, before you have written any reviews. This personalization is core functionality and does not depend on the separate consent below.

3.2 To produce anonymized, aggregate insights for restaurants — only with your consent

If, and only if, you opt in (Section 5.1), we may include your information in aggregate trends we provide to restaurants about the people who review them — such as typical age ranges, how far reviewers travel, when they tend to visit, or how their stated cuisine preferences relate to how they rated the restaurant. To protect you:

• They are always aggregated across many people. A restaurant never sees your name, exact birth year, exact location, or anything tied to you as an individual.
• We never show a trend unless at least 25 different people are represented in it. Below that, the restaurant sees “not enough data,” never a smaller number.

3.3 To keep the Service safe and improve it

To prevent fraud and abuse, respond to security incidents, analyze usage to improve features, and comply with legal obligations.

4. How we share information

4.1 With restaurants — aggregate and anonymized only

Only with your consent, and only as anonymized, aggregate trends (Section 3.2). We do not provide restaurants with individual-level data.

4.2 With other users

Content you create — reviews, your public profile, and any dashboard you share — is visible to others as part of how the Service works.

4.3 With service providers who operate the Service on our behalf

Trusted providers that process information only to provide services to us, including cloud hosting and photo storage (Google Cloud), mapping and places data (Google Places, Geoapify), and AI review-summarization (Google).

4.4 For legal reasons, safety, and business transfers

Where required by law or to protect rights and safety, and as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets (subject to this policy).

4.5 What we do not do

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third-party data brokers or advertising networks. If this ever changes, we will update this policy, notify you, and — where required — obtain your consent and provide the opt-out choices the law requires first.

5. Your choices and rights

5.1 Consent for aggregate restaurant insights

This use is off by default and happens only if you explicitly opt in. You can turn it on or off anytime in your profile. If you turn it off, your information stops being included in any future insights; insights already generated before then are not retroactively changed. We keep an internal record of when you grant or withdraw consent, and under which policy version, so we can honor your choice.

5.2 Access, correct, and delete your optional information

You can view, edit, or delete your birth year, home location, and cuisine preferences anytime from your profile.

5.3 Location, account, and regional rights

Location access is optional and controlled by your device. You can edit or delete your reviews, and permanently delete your account and all associated data at any time from Settings in the app (or by contacting us at support@plateranks.com). Contact us at that address to exercise any regional privacy rights that apply to you. (This section to be finalized by counsel.)

6. Retention, security, and children

We keep your information while your account is active and as needed to provide the Service and meet legal obligations. Raw usage and interaction records (the analytics events in Section 2.4) are retained for up to 90 days, after which they are automatically deleted; anonymized, aggregate information may be kept without those limits. We encrypt data in transit (with certificate pinning in our mobile apps), store passwords only as hashes, and store authentication tokens in protected device storage. No system is perfectly secure. PlateRanks is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information.

7. Where information is processed & changes to this policy

We operate using cloud infrastructure that may process and store information in the United States. When we make material changes to this policy — for example, collecting a new category of information — we will update the version and effective date, and where the change affects how your optional information may be used, ask you to review and re-confirm your consent before the new use takes effect.

8. Contact us

PlateRanks
support@plateranks.com

This policy is governed by the laws of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.