Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

DishDrift is a recipe-sharing community for expats and travelers. This service is operated by Chia-Chi Shih, Flutstraße 26, 47533 Kleve, Germany, who is the data controller for the personal data you provide to us (see also our Impressum). This policy covers both the DishDrift website and the DishDrift iOS app.

Contact: [email protected]

2. What data we collect

• Account data: email address, display name, home country/region, current country/region. Collected when you create an account. Your notification preferences and the language you choose for notification emails are stored with your account too.
• Recipe content: titles, ingredients, steps, notes, and photos you voluntarily upload.
• Recipe attempts (“I made this”): when you mark a recipe as made, any photo and note you add are publicly visible on that recipe alongside your display name and current country/region. Photos and notes are optional — you can mark a recipe as made without either.
• Community contributions: comments and replies you post on a recipe, and the ingredient swaps and tips you share on recipes or the Swap Board, are publicly visible alongside your display name and country/region.
• Likes: when you like a recipe or a community post, we store which content you liked, linked to your account. The app only displays like totals, but likes are part of the public dataset.
• Profile details (optional): you can add a profile photo, a short bio, your hometown, the year you arrived, favourite shops, and one external link with a custom title. Everything in this section is publicly visible on your profile page, entirely optional, and can be edited or removed at any time.
• Usage data: page views and general usage statistics via PostHog product analytics. For signed-in users, PostHog links usage to your account; anonymous visitors are tracked by session only, and we honor your browser's Do Not Track setting.
• Push notifications (iOS app): if you enable push notifications in the iOS app, we store a device push token so Apple's push service can deliver notifications to your device. The token is removed when you sign out on that device or delete your account, and you can turn push notifications off at any time in your device settings or notification preferences.
• Feedback submissions: if you send us feedback through the in-app feedback form, we store your rating and the comments you write, linked to your account, solely to improve the app.
• Error data: technical error reports via Sentry (EU servers) to help us fix bugs, including a replay of the affected screen when an error occurs. Email addresses are scrubbed and all on-screen text is masked before reports leave your device.
• Report submissions: if you report content or a user profile, we store the selected reason, any additional details you choose to provide, a reference to the reported content or profile, and (if signed in) your account identifier. This data is used solely to review reported content and is not shared publicly.
• Launch notification list: if you leave your email address in the “get the app” prompt, we store that address (and the page you left it from) with your consent, solely to send you a single launch announcement. Contact us anytime to have it removed.
• Security data: to protect the service, write actions are rate-limited — for actions taken without an account this involves briefly processing your IP address, which is deleted within 48 hours. Our systems also automatically scan submissions for known attack patterns (such as script injection) and keep a security log of matches.

3. Why we collect it and legal basis

Under GDPR Art. 6, we process your data on the following legal bases:

• Contract performance (Art. 6(1)(b)): account data and recipe content are necessary to provide the service — showing you recipes, saving your preferences, and sending account emails such as verification, password reset, and notifications when someone interacts with your content — for example when they save, cook, comment on, or adapt your recipe, or reply to your comment or ingredient tip. You can turn interaction notifications off at any time in your profile settings.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)): anonymised usage statistics and error reports help us improve the app. These involve no personal content and use privacy-preserving tools. Keeping the service secure is also a legitimate interest: we rate-limit write actions and automatically scan submissions for attack patterns. Accounts that trigger clear attack patterns may be suspended automatically. This is an automated decision in the sense of GDPR Art. 22 — you always have the right to obtain human review: if you believe a suspension happened in error, contact us and a person will review it.

We do not sell your data. We do not use your data for advertising or profiling.

4. Third-party services

We use the following sub-processors, all of which are GDPR-compliant:

• Supabase (Germany, EU) — database, authentication, and file storage. Your account data, recipes, and uploaded photos are stored here.
• Cloudflare (USA, EU transfer via SCCs) — app hosting and content delivery, including edge caching of recipe photos.
• Resend (EU region) — transactional and notification email delivery (verification, password reset, and recipe interaction notifications).
• Sentry (EU region) — error monitoring. Reports contain technical details and a masked screen replay only; email addresses are scrubbed and on-screen text is masked before anything is sent.
• Google OAuth (USA, EU transfer via SCCs) — optional sign-in. When you use Google Sign-In, Google shares your email address with us. Google's Privacy Policy applies to their services.
• Apple (USA, EU transfer via SCCs) — optional Sign in with Apple, and the Apple Push Notification service that delivers push notifications to the iOS app. When you use Sign in with Apple, Apple shares your email address with us — or, if you choose "Hide My Email", a private relay address that forwards to your real one. Apple's Privacy Policy applies to their services.
• PostHog (EU region, eu.i.posthog.com) — product analytics to understand how users interact with the app. Logged-in users are linked to their account ID; anonymous visitors are tracked by session only.
• Ko-fi (ko-fi.com) — optional donations (“tips”). Payments are processed entirely by Ko-fi and its payment providers; we never receive or store your payment details. When you leave a tip, Ko-fi forwards the name you entered, your message (if any), the amount, and the currency to us, and we keep that record for bookkeeping. Tips are not linked to your DishDrift account. Ko-fi's own privacy policy applies on their site.

5. Data retention

We keep your data as long as your account is active. When you delete your account:

• Your account, recipes, uploaded photos (including your profile photo), community contributions (comments, cooking photos, ingredient swaps, and likes), feedback submissions, and any device push tokens are permanently deleted immediately.
• Any report submissions you made are anonymised — your account identifier is removed and cannot be traced back to you.
• Anonymised usage statistics (no personal identifiers) may be retained for analytics.
• Security and moderation logs are retained for up to 12 months for abuse prevention; once your account is deleted they can no longer be linked to you.
• Residual backups are purged within 30 days.

6. Your rights (GDPR)

If you are in the EU or EEA, you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate data (via your profile settings).
• Delete your account and all associated data (via Profile → Delete account).
• Object to processing or withdraw consent at any time.
• Restrict processing of your data while a dispute is being resolved.
• Receive a copy of the data you provided to us in a portable format (data portability).
• Lodge a complaint with a data protection authority. The authority responsible for us is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LDI NRW); you may also contact the authority of your own country.

To exercise any right, contact us at [email protected].

7. Minors

DishDrift is not directed at children under the age of 16. If you believe a child under 16 has created an account, please contact us and we will delete the data promptly.

8. Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above. For changes that materially affect your rights, we will notify you by email.