Last updated: September 4, 2026
This Privacy Notice for Vanoa ("we," "us," or "our"), describes how and why we might access, collect, store, use, and/or share ("process") your personal information when you use our services ("Services"), including when you:
Questions or concerns? Reading this Privacy Notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. We are responsible for making decisions about how your personal information is processed. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at support@vanoa.app.
This summary provides key points from our Privacy Notice, but you can find out more details about any of these topics by using the table of contents below to find the section you are looking for.
What personal information do we process? When you visit, use, or navigate our Services, we may process personal information depending on how you interact with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use.
Do we process community food contributions or search quality telemetry? Yes, but strictly on an optional, opt-in basis. If you choose to contribute foods, we collect food information (name, portions, nutrition values) linked to your account, which is de-identified before review. Separately, if you opt in to search telemetry, we collect unmatched search queries and counts to find catalogue gaps. Both are separate scopes, switched off by default, and never required to use Vanoa.
Do we process any sensitive personal information? Some of the information we process — such as your health and fitness data — may be considered sensitive in certain jurisdictions. We process sensitive personal information when necessary with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law.
Do we collect any information from third parties? We do not collect any information from third parties.
How do we process your information? We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We may also process your information for other purposes with your consent. We process your information only when we have a valid legal reason to do so.
In what situations and with which parties do we share personal information? We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties, described in the "When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?" section below.
How do we keep your information safe? We have adequate organisational and technical processes and procedures in place to protect your personal information. However, no electronic transmission over the internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorised third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information.
What are your rights? Depending on where you are located geographically, applicable privacy law may mean you have certain rights regarding your personal information.
How do you exercise your rights? The easiest way to exercise your rights is by contacting us at support@vanoa.app. We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.
We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register on the Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.
Personal Information Provided by You. The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect may include the following:
Sensitive Information. When necessary, with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law, we process the following categories of sensitive information:
Payment Data. Vanoa does not currently offer purchases, subscriptions, or paid features. If purchases are introduced in the future, we may collect data necessary to process your payment if you choose to make purchases, such as your payment instrument number and the security code associated with your payment instrument. Any payment data would be handled and stored by Apple App Store (In-App Purchase), Google Play Billing, and RevenueCat. You may find their privacy notice link(s) here: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/, https://policies.google.com/privacy, and https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy.
Application Data. If you use our application(s), we also may collect the following information if you choose to provide us with access or permission:
This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our application(s), for troubleshooting, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.
All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete, and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.
What contribution collects, and on what basis (Clause P1). If you turn on catalogue contributions, the food information you create — its name, portion sizes and nutrition values — is stored and linked to your account so that you can withdraw it and so that it is deleted if you delete your account. The lawful basis is your consent, which you may withdraw at any time.
De-identification before review (Clause P2). Before a contribution is reviewed, it is separated from you. The version a reviewer sees contains the food information only — no account identifier, no name or email, no personal notes, and no date more precise than the month. A reviewer never sees who submitted anything.
Telemetry, as a separate choice (Clause P3). Separately from contributions, you may allow Vanoa to collect the food searches that returned no results, so we can find and fill gaps in the catalogue. This is a separate setting, switched off unless you turn it on, and it is not required in order to contribute foods. What is collected is the search term itself, in a simplified form, together with how many times it occurred. No date, no time, no order and nothing about your account is collected with it, so these records cannot be used to reconstruct what you ate or when you used the app.
Safeguards for search terms (Clause P4). A search term is only stored in readable form once enough separate users have searched for the same thing, so an unusual search made by one person is never stored as text. Below that point we keep a scrambled fingerprint of the term along with a count. That fingerprint protects the term if our database were ever copied by someone outside Vanoa, but it is not anonymous: Vanoa can read it. We describe it this way rather than calling it anonymous because it would not withstand a determined attempt by someone with access to our systems.
In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law. We process the personal information for the purposes listed below. We may also process your information for other purposes only with your prior explicit consent.
We process your personal information for a variety of reasons, depending on how you interact with our Services, including:
In Short: We only process your personal information when we believe it is necessary and we have a valid legal reason (i.e. legal basis) to do so under applicable law, like with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services to enter into or fulfil our contractual obligations, to protect your rights, or to fulfil our legitimate business interests.
If you are located in the EU or UK, this section applies to you.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR require us to explain the valid legal bases we rely on in order to process your personal information. As such, we may rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information:
Separate Consent Scopes for Contributions and Telemetry: In accordance with our privacy-by-design requirements (R42), community food catalogue contributions and search quality telemetry are maintained as two completely separate, independent consent scopes:
Both scopes are switched off by default. Neither is a condition of using Vanoa. A user who wants to improve the catalogue is not required to accept telemetry as the price. You may grant, decline, or withdraw consent for either feature independently in Settings at any time.
If you are located in Canada, this section applies to you.
We may process your information if you have given us specific permission (i.e. express consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose, or in situations where your permission can be inferred (i.e. implied consent). You can withdraw your consent at any time.
In some exceptional cases, we may be legally permitted under applicable law to process your information without your consent, including, for example:
In Short: We may share information in specific situations described in this section and/or with the following third parties.
Vendors, Consultants, and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents ("third parties") who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. The third parties we may share personal information with include our backend infrastructure provider (Supabase), our AI service provider (OpenRouter), our push notification delivery provider (Expo), and — if purchases are introduced in the future — our payment processors (Apple App Store In-App Purchase, Google Play Billing, and RevenueCat).
We also may need to share your personal information in the following situation:
Who Has Access to Food Contributions and Telemetry (Clause P6). Contributions are reviewed internally by Vanoa. They are not sold, shared with advertisers, or given to third parties. Reviewers work only with the de-identified version described above (food information only — no account identifier, no name or email, no personal notes, and no date more precise than the month). Search quality telemetry records are retained internally by Vanoa solely to find and fill catalogue gaps, and are never sold or shared with advertisers or third parties.
In Short: We offer products, features, or tools powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, or similar technologies.
As part of our Services, we offer products, features, or tools powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, or similar technologies (collectively, "AI Products"). These tools are designed to enhance your experience and provide you with innovative solutions. The terms in this Privacy Notice govern your use of the AI Products within our Services.
Use of AI Technologies
We provide the AI Products through a third-party service provider ("AI Service Provider"), OpenRouter. Your input, output, and personal information will be shared with and processed by this AI Service Provider to enable your use of our AI Products for the purposes outlined in "What Legal Bases Do We Rely On to Process Your Personal Information?" above. You must not use the AI Products in any way that violates the terms or policies of any AI Service Provider.
Our AI Products
Our AI Products are designed for the following functions:
How We Process Your Data Using AI
All personal information processed using our AI Products is handled in line with our Privacy Notice and our agreement with third parties. This ensures high security and safeguards your personal information throughout the process, giving you peace of mind about your data's safety.
How to Opt Out
We believe in giving you the power to decide how your data is used. To opt out, you can log in to your account settings and update your user account.
In Short: We may transfer, store, and process your information in countries other than your own.
Our servers are located in India. Regardless of your location, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored by, and processed by us in our facilities and in the facilities of the third parties with whom we may share your personal information (see "When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?" above), including facilities in the United States and other countries.
If you are a resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), or Switzerland, then these countries may not necessarily have data protection laws or other similar laws as comprehensive as those in your country. However, we will take all necessary measures to protect your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Notice and applicable law.
European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses: We have implemented measures to protect your personal information, including by using the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers of personal information between our group companies and between us and our third-party providers. These clauses require all recipients to protect all personal information that they process originating from the EEA or UK in accordance with European data protection laws and regulations. Our Standard Contractual Clauses can be provided upon request. We have implemented similar appropriate safeguards with our third-party service providers and partners, and further details can be provided upon request.
In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting, or other legal requirements). No purpose in this notice will require us keeping your personal information for longer than the period of time in which users have an account with us.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
Retention of Contributions and Search Telemetry (Clause P5). Contributions that are not adopted into the catalogue are deleted after 180 days. Search-gap records are kept as running totals only and are not tied to any individual, so there is nothing individual to delete.
Surviving Account Deletion: If you delete your account, everything belonging to you is deleted, including any contributions you have submitted and any information linking you to them. Catalogue entries that were created or improved using contributions from several users remain in the catalogue — those entries are Vanoa's own records and contain no information that identifies you or can be traced back to you. Where a catalogue entry drew on your contribution, it is recalculated without it.
In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organisational and technical security measures.
We have implemented appropriate and reasonable technical and organisational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorised third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk. You should only access the Services within a secure environment.
In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age or the equivalent age as specified by law in your jurisdiction.
We do not knowingly collect, solicit data from, or market to children under 18 years of age or the equivalent age as specified by law in your jurisdiction, nor do we knowingly sell such personal information. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or the equivalent age as specified by law in your jurisdiction, or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent's use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we may have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at support@vanoa.app.
In Short: Depending on your state of residence in the US or in some regions, such as the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), Switzerland, and Canada, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information. You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time, depending on your country, province, or state of residence.
In some regions (like the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right (i) to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, (ii) to request rectification or erasure; (iii) to restrict the processing of your personal information; (iv) if applicable, to data portability; and (v) not to be subject to automated decision-making. If a decision that produces legal or similarly significant effects is made solely by automated means, we will inform you, explain the main factors, and offer a simple way to request human review. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to object to the processing of your personal information. You can make such a request by contacting us using the contact details provided in "How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?" below.
We will consider and act upon any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
If you are located in the EEA or UK and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your Member State data protection authority or UK data protection authority.
If you are located in Switzerland, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.
Withdrawing your consent: If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, which may be express and/or implied consent depending on the applicable law, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided in "How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?" below.
Withdrawing Consent for Contributions or Telemetry: You can withdraw your consent for food catalogue contributions and/or search quality telemetry at any time by toggling them off in the app under Settings (Profile → Privacy and Data). Turning off contributions stops future contributions and deletes any submission not yet adopted into the catalogue (see Terms of Service, clause T6). Turning off search telemetry immediately stops the collection of unmatched search queries from your device.
However, please note that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
Opting out of marketing and promotional communications: You can unsubscribe from our marketing and promotional communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails that we send, or by contacting us using the details provided in "How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?" below. You will then be removed from the marketing lists. However, we may still communicate with you — for example, to send you service-related messages that are necessary for the administration and use of your account, to respond to service requests, or for other non-marketing purposes.
If you would at any time like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can:
You can also request deletion of your account and data at vanoa.app/delete-account.html.
Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. However, we may retain some information in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our legal terms, and/or comply with applicable legal requirements.
If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at support@vanoa.app.
Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognising and implementing DNT signals has been finalised. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this Privacy Notice.
California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser DNT signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognising or honouring DNT signals, we do not respond to them at this time.
In Short: If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, or Virginia, you may have the right to request access to and receive details about the personal information we maintain about you and how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, get a copy of, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. More information is provided below.
The table below shows the categories of personal information we have collected in the past twelve (12) months. The table includes illustrative examples of each category and does not reflect the personal information we collect from you. For a comprehensive inventory of all personal information we process, please refer to "What Information Do We Collect?" above.
| Category | Examples | Collected |
|---|---|---|
| A. Identifiers | Contact details, such as real name, alias, postal address, telephone or mobile contact number, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, and account name | YES |
| B. Personal information as defined in the California Customer Records statute | Name, contact information, education, employment, employment history, and financial information | YES |
| C. Protected classification characteristics under state or federal law | Gender, age, date of birth, race and ethnicity, national origin, marital status, and other demographic data | YES |
| D. Commercial information | Transaction information, purchase history, financial details, and payment information | NO |
| E. Biometric information | Fingerprints and voiceprints | NO |
| F. Internet or other similar network activity | Browsing history, search history, online behaviour, interest data, and interactions with our and other websites, applications, systems, and advertisements | NO |
| G. Geolocation data | Device location | NO |
| H. Audio, electronic, sensory, or similar information | Images and audio, video, or call recordings created in connection with our business activities | YES |
| I. Professional or employment-related information | Business contact details in order to provide you our Services at a business level, or job title, work history, and professional qualifications if you apply for a job with us | NO |
| J. Education Information | Student records and directory information | NO |
| K. Inferences drawn from collected personal information | Inferences drawn from any of the collected personal information listed above to create a profile or summary about, for example, an individual's preferences and characteristics | YES |
| L. Sensitive personal information | Account login information, financial information including account access details, and health data | YES |
We only collect sensitive personal information, as defined by applicable privacy laws or the purposes allowed by law or with your consent. Sensitive personal information may be used, or disclosed to a service provider or contractor, for additional, specified purposes. You may have the right to limit the use or disclosure of your sensitive personal information.
We may also collect other personal information outside of these categories through instances where you interact with us in person, online, or by phone or mail in the context of:
We will use and retain the collected personal information as needed to provide the Services or as long as the user has an account with us, for all categories listed above.
Learn more about the sources of personal information we collect in "What Information Do We Collect?" above.
Learn more about how we use your personal information in "How Do We Process Your Information?" above.
Will your information be shared with anyone else? We may disclose your personal information with our service providers pursuant to a written contract between us and each service provider. Learn more in "When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?" above.
We may use your personal information for our own business purposes, such as for undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration. This is not considered to be "selling" of your personal information.
We have not sold or shared any personal information to third parties for a business or commercial purpose in the preceding twelve (12) months. We have disclosed the following categories of personal information to third parties for a business or commercial purpose in the preceding twelve (12) months:
The categories of third parties to whom we disclosed personal information for a business or commercial purpose can be found under "When and With Whom Do We Share Your Personal Information?" above.
You have rights under certain US state data protection laws. However, these rights are not absolute, and in certain cases, we may decline your request as permitted by law. These rights include:
Depending upon the state where you live, you may also have the following rights:
To exercise these rights, you can contact us by emailing us at support@vanoa.app, or by referring to the contact details at the bottom of this document.
Under certain US state data protection laws, you can designate an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf. We may deny a request from an authorised agent that does not submit proof that they have been validly authorised to act on your behalf in accordance with applicable laws.
Upon receiving your request, we will need to verify your identity to determine you are the same person about whom we have the information in our system. We will only use personal information provided in your request to verify your identity or authority to make the request. However, if we cannot verify your identity from the information already maintained by us, we may request that you provide additional information for the purposes of verifying your identity and for security or fraud-prevention purposes.
If you submit the request through an authorised agent, we may need to collect additional information to verify your identity before processing your request, and the agent will need to provide a written and signed permission from you to submit such request on your behalf.
Under certain US state data protection laws, if we decline to take action regarding your request, you may appeal our decision by emailing us at support@vanoa.app. We will inform you in writing of any action taken or not taken in response to the appeal, including a written explanation of the reasons for the decisions. If your appeal is denied, you may submit a complaint to your state attorney general.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the "Shine The Light" law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact details provided in "How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?" below.
In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Revised" date at the top of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at support@vanoa.app or contact us by post at:
Vanoa
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Based on the applicable laws of your country or state of residence in the US, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, details about how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. You may also have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information. These rights may be limited in some circumstances by applicable law. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please email us at support@vanoa.app.