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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 25 October 2026

YOUR PRIVACY IN 30 SECONDS

• Your stuff stays on your iPhone. We never get it.
• Allergies and the ingredients you block are saved only if you agree, and the app never syncs them or sends them anywhere.
• Location is used only for Eat Out, Order In and finding places near you — never for Cook.
• Delete anything, any time, in the app.
What2Eat has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. The rest of this policy explains the detail, including the few moments when your device talks to someone else's server.

WHO WE ARE

What2Eat is published by Vincent Whistler Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17213403 ("we", "us", "our"). We are the data controller for the processing described in this policy.
Registered office: Prama House, Banbury Road, Oxford, England, OX2 7HT
Email: vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk
We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer and have not done so.

WHAT THE APP DOES NOT DO

WHAT IS STORED, AND WHERE

Everything below is stored on your iPhone, in this app's private storage, and is never uploaded to us. Some of it can also be kept in step across your own devices through your iCloud account — see SYNCING WITH ICLOUD below:
• The display name and avatar you choose in Profile, if you choose to set them. You can leave them blank and the app works exactly the same.
• Your favourites, saved places, meal plan and cooking history (up to 500 entries).
• The foods you don't eat, if you list any in Profile → Foods I don't eat. This is a taste preference: the app leaves recipes that contain them out of its suggestions. Like your favourites, it is kept on this iPhone and synced through your own iCloud when iCloud sync is on. If you avoid a food because of an allergy or your health, use the dietary profile instead, which never leaves this iPhone.
• Your spin history (the last 200 spins): what the wheel landed on, when, and for a place its name, address and map position. It does not record where you were.
• Your dietary profile — the allergens and ingredients you avoid. This can say something about your health, so it is kept only if you agree on the consent screen that appears the first time you save one, it stays on this iPhone (the app never syncs it to iCloud; only your iPhone's own backup, if you use one, includes it), and it is never included in a recipe you share. Diet filters and a calorie limit you leave switched on, such as vegan, gluten-free or "up to 500 kcal", are remembered between visits only under that same consent; otherwise they last until you close the app. Your dietary profile is optional: without it, recipes are simply not filtered.
• Recipes you create, including any photo you take for them. These stay on this iPhone and are not synced to iCloud (if you use What2Eat on Apple Watch, see APPLE WATCH below).
• Photos you take of dishes you cooked. They stay on this iPhone, are not synced, and "Use the original" deletes them.
• Clearer cooking steps written by your iPhone's on-device model (see ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE), kept on this iPhone only, left out of backups, and deleted with your own recipe.
• Badges you've earned. They are worked out on your iPhone from your own history; nothing about them leaves the device.
• Your settings: units, filters, and whether the reminders are on and when.
• The names of places you have told us were shut, with the hour you told us, kept for 30 days so the wheel stops sending you there at that time of night. Those are place names, not your position; they stay on this iPhone, are forgotten automatically after 30 days, and you can erase them at any time in Profile → Forget places I marked shut.
We cannot see any of it, wherever it is kept. It is included in your iPhone's normal encrypted backups if you have those switched on, which are governed by Apple's terms, not ours.

WHEN INFORMATION LEAVES YOUR DEVICE

Six things involve the internet. Recipe photos come from our own website, delivered for us by Cloudflare (item 1). Everything else goes to a third party — never to us. Each of them receives only the minimum described here, acts as an independent controller under its own privacy policy, and is responsible under data protection law for protecting it.

5. DELIVERY, TAXI AND MAP LINKS. Buttons like Directions, Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber, Bolt, FreeNow, Gett, Veezu, Lyft, Google Maps and the phone dialler open a different app or website, and each link carries only what that service needs to open on the right place:
• Directions, map and taxi links carry the name and position of the place you picked — the destination. They do not include your location; a taxi app works out where to pick you up itself.
• An Uber Eats link carries your approximate location, rounded to about 110 metres, so Uber Eats can open that chain's nearest branch.
• "Order on Just Eat" opens the branch Just Eat said delivers to you. The link names that branch and carries no location.
• Deliveroo and Just Eat links to a chain's page carry no location at all.
• The "See everything that delivers to you" link carries your postcode to Just Eat.
• Outside the UK, Order In's delivery buttons and the Taxi button open the apps that work in your country with the name of the place (and, for Uber Eats, your approximate location as above), and "See on Google Maps" opens Google Maps with the place's name and address: Google sees your device's IP address and that search, under Google's own privacy policy, and nothing reaches us. Which country you are in is worked out from your location on the device, by the same Apple lookup as your postcode, and is never sent to us.
• When you open the app it asks Apple's App Store which version of What2Eat is the latest, so it can ask you to update: Apple sees that request and your device's IP address, and nothing reaches us.
• In the UK, "Recommended utensils" on a recipe page open that product's page on amazon.co.uk through our Amazon Associates affiliate link, which carries only the product code and our affiliate tag — nothing about you — so that, as an Amazon Associate, we may earn a commission on qualifying purchases; like any website, Amazon sees your device's IP address and handles it under its own privacy policy, and nothing about the visit reaches us. Outside the UK the app shows no utensil links.
That information goes only to the service you chose, and only when you tap. From that point you are on their service, under their privacy policy, and we have no visibility of or control over what happens there. The app sends nothing to us.

LOCATION

If you allow it, your location is used only when you use Eat Out, Order In, Discover's nearby places or the grocery finder — never at launch and never for Cook. Your own position is held in memory while you use those features only — it is never written to disk, never sent to us, and never sold. Apart from the requests to Apple described above, the only times any form of it leaves your device are: as your postcode, to Just Eat's restaurant search while you use Order In, if you have allowed it (see 3 above); inside an Uber Eats link you tap (rounded to about 110 metres); and inside a Just Eat link to your postcode's page, such as "See everything that delivers to you" — each time only to the service named.

Two things are saved on your device so that your history and favourites work: the map position of places the wheel has landed on (in spin history) and of places you have favourited. Those are the locations of restaurants and shops, not of you, but together they can suggest the area you spend time in — so they are worth knowing about. Deleting a spin or a favourite deletes them. They never leave your device, except that your favourites travel with your own iCloud sync if you use it.

You can refuse or withdraw location permission at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services. Cook works fully without it.

CAMERA

If you allow it, the camera is used only when you choose to photograph one of your own recipes, or to show how a recipe you cooked turned out. The photo is saved on your device with that recipe; a photo of a dish you cooked replaces the recipe's picture on this iPhone only. It is not uploaded anywhere. To keep the app family-friendly, every photo you add (from the camera or your library) is first checked on your iPhone, using Apple's built-in image recognition, to make sure it shows food; the check happens on the device and the photo is not sent to us or anyone else.

SYNCING WITH ICLOUD

iCloud sync is on unless you switch it off in Profile. If you are signed in to iCloud, the app keeps these in step across your own Apple devices using Apple's iCloud key-value storage, in your iCloud account: your display name and avatar, your favourite recipes and places, the foods you don't eat, your meal plan, My week (the meals you've planned, which ones you've marked as cooked, and whether My week is switched on), your pantry list, your shopping list's ticks and the items you added to it, your cooking history (without the names of your own recipes) and your choice of metric or US units. Your dietary profile is never synced. Recipes you create and their photos are not synced — they stay on the device they were made on — and neither is anything else not listed here.

That data is stored by Apple in your iCloud account, under your agreement with Apple and Apple's privacy policy. It is tied to your Apple Account, not to us: we cannot see it, access it or retrieve it, and we receive nothing when it syncs.

Deleting an item while sync is on deletes it from your other devices and from iCloud as well. When you switch sync off, the app asks whether to remove your What2Eat data from iCloud too; syncing stops either way. If a different Apple Account signs in on this iPhone, the app only downloads that account's data — it never uploads this iPhone's data into it.

APPLE WATCH

If you install What2Eat on your Apple Watch, your iPhone sends recipes to it directly, using Apple's WatchConnectivity between your own paired devices: recipes for the wheel that already match your filters and allergies, your meal plan, up to 20 favourites, and any recipe you send with "Cook on Apple Watch". Recipes you created can be among them, without their photos. Your allergies, diet settings and other preferences are never sent to the watch. The recipes are kept in the watch app's own storage and replaced by each new set; deleting the watch app deletes them. Nothing passes through us.

NOTIFICATIONS

If you allow notifications, the app uses three kinds, all scheduled and delivered by iOS on your iPhone:
• Cooking-timer alerts, when a timer you started finishes. They are marked Time Sensitive so they can reach you during a Focus, and a running timer can also show on your Lock Screen.
• A daily meal idea at 11:00 unless you change the time or switch it off in Profile → Daily reminder.
• A weekly reminder on Sunday late morning. Profile → Notifications switches off both reminders.
On Apple Watch, a step timer you start on the watch alerts you there when it ends, if you allow the watch app's notifications.
They are local notifications — nothing is sent over the internet and we receive no signal that one fired. The app asks for permission at the end of setup, or when you first switch a reminder on or start a cooking timer, and you can turn any of them off in iOS Settings → Notifications → What2Eat.

APPLE REMINDERS

If you choose "Send to Apple Reminders" on your shopping list, the app asks iOS for access to Reminders — Apple offers no narrower, write-only permission for reminders — and makes a list of its own there, "What2Eat shopping", with one reminder for each thing still to buy. Sending again brings that list into line with the one on screen. The app only ever creates, renames or removes the reminders it made in that list: it does not read, change or copy your other reminders or lists, and the only thing it keeps is the identifiers of its own reminders, on this iPhone only, so a second send updates them rather than adding them again. Your reminders stay in Apple's Reminders app, under your Apple Account; nothing is sent to us. We do this because you asked for it (our legitimate interest in providing the feature you chose), and you can withdraw the permission at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Reminders.

ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE

On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, the app can use Apple's on-device language model to make a recipe's cooking steps clearer. This runs entirely on your iPhone using a model built into iOS. The recipe text is not sent to us, to Apple, or to any other server, and nothing you type is used to train any model. The rewritten steps are kept on this iPhone only, and they are labelled as written by Apple Intelligence wherever they appear. It works in English; in other languages the app shows the recipe's own steps. Because it is generated text, it can occasionally be wrong: the app discards any rewrite that changes a number from the recipe, the original steps are always one tap away, and you should follow those if the two disagree.

WHY WE ARE ALLOWED TO DO THIS (LAWFUL BASES)

• Running the app you installed — favourites, the foods you don't eat, history, saved places, your own recipes, settings, the camera and notifications you choose to use, and finding places near you when you use a feature that needs your location: our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)) in providing the app and the feature you chose. iOS asks your permission before the app can use your location, camera or notifications, and that permission is how you control them.
• Your dietary profile, and remembering your diet filters and calorie limit: your explicit consent (Articles 6(1)(a) and 9(2)(a)), given on the consent screen before the first allergy or avoided food is saved. We keep a record on your iPhone of which wording you agreed to and when. Withdraw it at any time with Profile → Dietary profile → Remove all and withdraw consent.
• iCloud sync of the items listed under SYNCING WITH ICLOUD: our legitimate interests in letting you use the app across your own devices. It stays in your own iCloud account and you can switch it off at any time.
• Sending your postcode to Just Eat's restaurant search while you use Order In: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), given when you tap Allow in Order In or switch on Profile → Delivery check with Just Eat. Only the postcode is sent, only while you are using Order In, and you can withdraw at any time in Profile → Delivery check with Just Eat.
• Putting your approximate location into an Uber Eats link, or your postcode into the Just Eat "everything that delivers to you" link: our legitimate interests in making the button you tapped open on your area. It happens only when you tap, only for the service you chose, and it is reduced to the minimum needed — rounded to about 110 metres, or a postcode.
• The website, the waitlist and emails to us: see OUR WEBSITE, THE WAITLIST AND EMAILING US.
Giving us any of this is optional: without location, Eat Out and Order In can only search around a postcode you type, and without a dietary profile recipes are simply not filtered.

YOUR RIGHT TO OBJECT

Where we rely on legitimate interests — finding places near you, what goes into a delivery link, and iCloud sync — you have the right to object at any time. Because it all runs on your iPhone, the quickest way is to stop it directly: turn off location for What2Eat in iOS Settings, or switch iCloud sync off in Profile. You can also write to vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk.

HOW LONG IT IS KEPT

On your device, each item stays until you delete it. A favourite or one of your recipes can be removed in the app; a cooking-history or spin-history entry can be deleted by pressing and holding it, and each history can be cleared in full. Cooking history keeps at most 500 entries and spin history the last 200. Places you marked as shut are forgotten automatically after 30 days. Deleting the app removes everything on that device at once.

If you use iCloud sync, the synced items are also kept in your iCloud account until you delete them in the app while sync is on, or until you switch sync off and choose to remove them from iCloud. Deleting the app on its own does not remove that copy, which is why your profile and favourites come back if you reinstall — so to erase everything, switch iCloud sync off and remove the iCloud copy first, then delete the app.

For the website, the waitlist and emails, see OUR WEBSITE, THE WAITLIST AND EMAILING US.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to be informed, and rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability over your personal data, and to withdraw consent at any time. For the app, everything is on your device and under your control, so you exercise most of them directly:
• Access — everything the app keeps is visible in the app.
• Portability — recipes you create can be exported as share links; for anything else, write to us and we will explain how to export it.
• Rectification — edit it in the app.
• Erasure — delete the item, clear a history, remove your dietary profile, or delete the app (see HOW LONG IT IS KEPT for the copy in your iCloud account).
• Withdraw consent — Profile → Dietary profile → Remove all and withdraw consent; Profile → Delivery check with Just Eat; or change a permission in iOS Settings.
We hold no copy of your app data, so we cannot access, correct or delete it for you. For anything we do hold (the waitlist and emails you send us), or if you believe we hold something about you, write to vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk.

OUR WEBSITE, THE WAITLIST AND EMAILING US

Website. what2eat.uk is hosted by Cloudflare, Inc., which acts for us. Like any web host it processes your IP address, browser details and the page you asked for in order to deliver it, and keeps short-lived security logs. The site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads nothing from other companies' servers.

Launch waitlist. If you join the waitlist, we keep your email address, the wording you agreed to, which page you signed up on and when. We use it for one purpose: to send you one email when What2Eat launches. Our lawful basis is your consent (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(a)). The list is stored for us by Cloudflare. We delete it within 30 days of sending the launch email, or sooner if you ask; withdraw at any time by emailing vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk.

Emailing us. Mail to vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk is routed by Cloudflare and kept in our Google mailbox. We use it only to reply and to keep a record of requests and complaints (our legitimate interests), and delete it 12 months after the matter is closed.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

Apart from loading recipe photos from our website, the app sends nothing to us, so we transfer nothing abroad from it. Requests to Apple Maps, and anything kept in your iCloud account, are handled by Apple under its own policy, which may involve storage outside the UK. What a delivery or taxi link carries is handled by the service you chose, under its own policy. For the website (including the recipe photos), the waitlist and our mailbox, Cloudflare and Google may process data outside the UK; where they do, they rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or the UK-US data bridge.

CHILDREN

What2Eat is for everyone, and some of our users will be under 18. We design it to the UK Information Commissioner's Age Appropriate Design Code: anything that shares information starts switched off (your name on shared recipes is off, and allergies are saved only with your consent and never synced), your location is only used when you choose a feature that needs it, and nothing identifying is shared unless you choose to share it. iCloud sync to your own iCloud account is on by default, so your favourites and history follow you to your other devices; you can switch it off in Profile. If you are under 13, ask a parent or guardian before saving allergies. Children should cook with an adult and never use cooking equipment unsupervised.

CHANGES

If this policy changes, the "Last updated" date above changes with it, and the current version is always in the app and at what2eat.uk/privacy.

CONTACT AND COMPLAINTS

Questions, requests or complaints: vincentwhistler@what2eat.uk, or Profile → Contact us about your data. We will acknowledge a complaint within 30 days, and reply to any request or complaint without undue delay and within one month. For complex requests we may extend that by up to two further months, and will tell you if we do.

If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first.
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113 — ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint