Privacy policy

Who we are

Countbites (countbites.com) is a food and calorie tracker run by Sachin R., an individual, not a company. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean Sachin R.. Questions or requests go to hello@countbites.com.

What we collect

When you use Countbites, we store:

• Your account: your email address and your password. Passwords are stored as a one-way hash, so nobody (us included) can read them. If you sign in with an email code, there's no password at all.
• Your settings: your name (optional), daily calorie goal, macro split, units (kcal or kJ, metric or imperial), theme and meal preferences.
• Your food log: each food you add, with its date, meal, portion, calories, protein, carbs and fat, and whether it came from the USDA database or you typed it in.
• Basic technical data: like nearly every website, our hosting and sign-in providers automatically record things like IP addresses, browser type and the time of each request, to keep the service running and secure. We don't use this to profile you.

A food log can say something about your health. We treat it as sensitive: we use it only to show it back to you, and nothing else.

We don't collect your location, contacts, photos, or data from other apps.

How we use it

• To run the app: save your log, show your totals and trends, and keep you signed in.
• To send account emails: sign-in codes, confirmation links and password resets. No newsletters or marketing.
• To keep things secure and fix problems.

We don't use your data for advertising, we don't build profiles about you, and we don't use it to train AI models.

Food search

When you search for a food, the search goes to our server, which asks USDA FoodData Central (a free US government food database) for matches. USDA sees the search words but never who searched. We don't log or store your searches. Results are briefly cached by search words alone, never linked to you.

Who helps run Countbites

We use a few service providers. They handle data only to provide their service to us:

• Supabase: stores your account and food log, handles sign-in, and sends account emails.
• Vercel: hosts the website.
• USDA FoodData Central: receives food search words (not who you are), as described above.

Our fonts are served from our own site, so your browser doesn't contact Google or other font services. These providers may process data in the United States or other countries.

We never sell your personal information, and we never share it for advertising. We would only disclose it if the law truly required it, for example a valid court order.

Cookies and browser storage

Countbites doesn't use tracking or advertising cookies. Your browser stores a sign-in token so you stay signed in, plus your theme and unit preferences so pages load the way you like. That's it. Signing out removes the sign-in token.

Since we don't track you across sites, “Do Not Track” and Global Privacy Control signals don't change anything here: you get the no-tracking experience either way.

Who can see your log

Only you. Every row in our database is locked to your account, so even other signed-in users can't read it. Data travels over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). We don't look at individual food logs, except if you ask us to help with a problem or we need to keep the service secure.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your data, we'll tell you as the law requires.

Your choices and rights

You can do these yourself, any time, in the app:

• See and fix your data: edit your log, settings and email in the app.
• Download a copy: Settings, then Download your data (JSON or CSV).
• Delete your food log: Settings, then Clear food log. Your account stays.
• Delete your account: Account, then Delete account. This permanently removes your account, settings and food log.

Or email hello@countbites.com and we'll help, usually within a few days and always within 45 days.

If you live in California

California law (including the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA) gives you rights over your personal information. We honor them for everyone in California, and we're happy to extend them to everyone else too:

• Right to know what we collect, why, and who we share it with. This policy covers it, and you can ask us for specifics.
• Right to delete your personal information.
• Right to correct information that's wrong.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing. We don't sell or share personal information, including for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there's nothing to opt out of.
• Right to limit use of sensitive information. We use your food log and account login only to provide the app, which is already the limit.
• No discrimination for using any of these rights.

To make a request, email hello@countbites.com from the email on your account (that's how we verify it's you). You can also have an authorized agent ask for you; we may need to confirm they have your permission.

The categories we collect, from the list in the law, are: identifiers (email address, IP address), internet activity (basic request logs), and sensitive personal information (account login, and food and nutrition data that may relate to health). We collect them from you and your device, for the purposes in “How we use it”, and keep them as described below. We don't share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing (California's “Shine the Light” law).

How long we keep it

We keep your data while you have an account. When you delete something, it's removed from our database right away. Copies can stay in our providers' backups and technical logs for a limited time before they're cleared automatically. Emails we sent you stay in your inbox, of course.

Children

Countbites isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you think a child under 13 has an account, email hello@countbites.com and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change matters, like collecting something new, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Sachin R., Countbites. Email hello@countbites.com. See also our Terms.