Privacy policy

CartVibe is made by Marcin Wołodźko, in Poland ("we"). This page explains, in plain words, what happens to your information on this website, in the demo, in CartVibe you host yourself, and in CartVibe for iPhone.

The short version: we run no server that stores your receipts, lists or photos. This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Self-hosted CartVibe keeps everything on your own server. The iPhone app keeps everything on your iPhone, or in your own iCloud if you turn on sync.

This website

• Hosting. cartvibe.app is a set of static pages served by GitHub Pages (GitHub, Inc.). To deliver a page, GitHub receives the usual technical details of your request, such as your IP address and browser, and handles them under the GitHub privacy statement. The domain's DNS is run by Cloudflare, which answers address lookups for cartvibe.app.
• No cookies, no analytics, no ads. The site remembers your colour palette and Day/Night choice in your browser's local storage. That stays on your device and you can clear it at any time.
• The roadmap. The roadmap section asks GitHub's public API for the project's roadmap issues, straight from your browser, so GitHub sees that request too. The answer is kept in your browser for 15 minutes. No cookies or credentials are sent with it.
• Links to GitHub, the App Store and other sites take you to services with their own privacy policies.

The demo

The demo is the real web app running entirely in your browser with made-up sample data. Whatever you add or change stays in your browser's storage and is never sent anywhere. Reset in the demo, or clearing the site's data in your browser, removes it.

CartVibe you host yourself

When you run CartVibe on your own server, its data (the database, receipt photos and files) stays on that server, and you are in charge of it. Nothing is sent to us: the app has no connection to us and reports nothing back. It only talks to the services you switch on yourself, such as the AI provider whose key you add, Logo.dev for shop logos, Open Food Facts for barcode lookups, and your browser's push service for notifications. Each of those has its own privacy policy.

CartVibe for iPhone

The iPhone app is not on the App Store yet. This section describes it as it is being built, and will be checked again when it is released.

What stays on your iPhone

Your receipts, their line items, photos, shopping lists, warranty dates, goals and settings are stored on your iPhone, in files that iOS encrypts. Receipts are read on the iPhone itself, with Apple's on-device text recognition and language model. None of it is sent to us or to any artificial-intelligence service.

iCloud sync and shared households

If you turn on sync, your household's data is copied to your own iCloud account through Apple's iCloud (CloudKit), so it appears on your other Apple devices. Personal fields such as receipt names, shops, notes, receipt text and photos are also encrypted with keys kept in your iCloud Keychain. We have no copy of your iCloud data and no way to look into it. Apple's handling of iCloud is covered by Apple's privacy policy.

If you share a household, the people you invite can see and edit that household's receipts and lists, and you see what they add. You choose who to invite and can remove people at any time. Sharing links are never public.

Barcode lookups (Open Food Facts)

Food & Health looks up a product's barcode in Open Food Facts, a free public food database run by a non-profit association in France. The app asks before the first lookup. A lookup sends the barcode number, the list of product details the app wants back, the app's name and version with our contact address, and what every internet request carries, including your IP address. It sends nothing from your receipts and no name, account or device identifier. Open Food Facts keeps visitors' IP addresses and server logs for three years; see theOpen Food Facts privacy policy. A product you looked up is kept on your iPhone for 30 days.

What the app does not do

• No accounts: there is nothing to sign up for. Purchases and iCloud use your Apple ID.
• No tracking, no ads, and no analytics or advertising code from anyone else.
• No other servers: the app connects only to Apple's services and to Open Food Facts.
• No selling or sharing of your information with anyone.

Purchases, Face ID and permissions

• Upgrades are sold by Apple through the App Store. We never see your payment details.
• App lock uses Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. The check is done by iOS; your face or fingerprint never reaches the app.
• The camera is used to scan receipts and barcodes, photo access only to save or pick the image you choose, and notifications for the reminders you set. Each permission is asked for when it is first needed.
• If you choose to share analytics with app developers in your iPhone's settings, Apple may give us crash reports and usage statistics that do not identify you.

Deleting your data

• Deleting the app removes everything it stored on that iPhone.
• Your iCloud copy: on your iPhone open Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage → CartVibe → Delete Data from iCloud. Deleting the app alone does not delete its iCloud data.
• In a shared household, the owner can stop sharing or remove a member, and a member can leave.

If you write to us

If you email us, we use your address and message only to answer you, and delete them when they are no longer needed for that. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in answering your question (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)).

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us for access to, correction or deletion of the personal data we hold about you, ask us to restrict or stop using it, and ask for a copy to take elsewhere. Because we hold almost nothing (at most an email you sent us), most of these are quick to answer. Write to support@cartvibe.app. You can also complain to the Polish data protection authority, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), or to the authority where you live.

Children

CartVibe is a household finance app and is not directed at children.

Changes

If this policy changes, we update this page and its date. If a change means more of your data leaves your device, the iPhone app tells you before it happens.

Contact

Marcin Wołodźko, support@cartvibe.app. Help with the apps is on the support page.