In short: Hame Food doesn't collect your data. There's no account, no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and Hame has no servers. Your diary stays on your iPhone and in your own iCloud. Barcode lookups happen on your iPhone. AI runs on your iPhone unless you choose otherwise, and nothing goes to ChatGPT or Claude until you set it up and agree.
Who we are
Hame Food is one of the Hame apps, made by Inja. In this policy, "we" means the people who make Hame. This policy covers the Hame Food app for iPhone.
What we collect
Nothing. We don't receive your diary, your photos, your body details or anything about how you use the app. There's no Hame account and no Hame server to send them to. The app contains no analytics, no advertising, no tracking and no code from other companies.
If you choose to share crash reports with app developers in your iPhone's settings, Apple may pass us anonymous crash reports. They contain technical details about the crash, not your diary.
What stays on your iPhone
Everything you log is saved in the app on your iPhone: the food you eat, your own foods, meals and recipes, water, weight, body measurements, progress photos, exercise, steps, sleep, blood sugar, medicines, fasting, notes, goals and reminders. So is your profile: a first name if you give one, sex, birth year, height, weights and goals, and your setup answers.
When you log a meal from a photo, Hame keeps a smaller copy of the photo (without its location or camera details) with your diary.
Barcodes and food data work offline. The food database (everyday foods and packaged products) is built into the app. Scanning a barcode, reading a nutrition label and searching for a food all happen on your iPhone, and nothing is looked up online.
If you use iPhone backups (iCloud Backup or a computer), the diary is part of those backups, like any other app's data.
Your iCloud
iCloud sync is on when your iPhone is signed in to iCloud. Hame Food keeps a copy of your whole diary, including your profile and photos, in your own private iCloud database, so it's on all your devices and comes back if you reinstall the app.
- Yours, not ours. The copy is in your iCloud account, under Apple's terms. We have no access to it.
- Encryption. Apple encrypts it on the way and in iCloud. It isn't end-to-end encrypted, so Apple holds the keys.
- To turn it off, go to More, then iCloud sync, in Hame Food. It's a choice for each iPhone, and takes effect the next time you open the app. Turning it off doesn't delete the copy already in iCloud; see Deleting your data.
Sharing with a buddy
Sharing with a buddy is off until you turn it on. When you do, Hame Food puts a summary in a shared space in your iCloud, using Apple's iCloud sharing. Only the people you invite can open it, and they can only read it. Your buddy needs Hame Food and an Apple Account.
- Always in the summary: the name you choose to show, and for each day, the calories you ate and your budget, the names of your meals, whether the day is logged, and your streak.
- On unless you switch them off: the foods you ate (name and calories), macros, and calories from exercise.
- Off unless you switch them on: water, and your weight change (never your weight itself).
- Never shared: notes, photos, body measurements, blood sugar, sleep and medicines.
- You share the last 7 or 14 days, and you can hide days.
- To stop, tap Stop sharing. This deletes the shared space from your iCloud, and your buddies lose access. Stop sharing before you delete everything or delete the app; neither of those stops a share.
Apple Health
Connecting Apple Health is optional. Every type has its own switch, all off until you turn them on, and Apple asks you for permission for each.
- Hame reads steps, workouts and active energy, weight, sleep and blood sugar, for the last 14 days, each time you open the app. What it reads becomes part of your diary, so it's in your iCloud copy too while iCloud sync is on.
- Hame writes the food you log (calories and up to 19 nutrients, with the food's name), water and weight.
- Deleting an entry in Hame Food doesn't remove it from Apple Health. Delete Hame's entries in the Health app if you want them gone. Data in Apple Health is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
AI: you choose where it runs
AI helps you log a meal from a photo, from your voice or from a description. It names the foods and amounts. Every number comes from Hame's food database, and you check the list before anything is saved. Hame is free, and we never charge you anything. You choose where AI runs, in Settings, AI:
- On this iPhone (the default). Apple's on-device model where your iPhone has Apple Intelligence, otherwise Hame's own reader. Nothing leaves your iPhone.
- Apple's Private Cloud. For photos only, and only on iPhones where Apple offers it. If the iPhone can't read a photo, it goes to Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which Apple says keeps nothing. Your voice and your words never go there.
- Your own ChatGPT or Claude. You add your own key from your OpenAI or Anthropic account. They bill you; Hame never does.
What happens with your own key:
- Nothing is sent until you agree. Before anything goes, including the test of your key, Hame Food shows which company it will go to and asks you. If you log a meal before agreeing, it asks again, and you can choose "Use my iPhone this time".
- What's sent: the photo or the words you choose, Hame's instructions and your key, straight from your iPhone to
api.openai.comorapi.anthropic.com. The photo is made smaller and re-saved without its location or camera details. Nothing else goes: not your name, your diary, your Health data or anything that identifies your device. Like any internet request, the company can see your iPhone's IP address. - Then their policy applies. OpenAI or Anthropic receives what you send under your account and their privacy policy. For ChatGPT, Hame asks OpenAI not to keep the request in your account; OpenAI's own rules on keeping data still apply. Hame has no servers, so we never see what you send.
- Your key is kept in this iPhone's Keychain. It's never synced, never moves to another iPhone with a backup, and is never in your diary or exports. Remove key in Settings, AI deletes it and switches back to your iPhone.
Voice: what you say is turned into text on your iPhone, with Apple's on-device speech recognition. The recording never leaves your iPhone. The text then goes where your AI choice says.
When the app uses the internet
Hame Food has no servers, so it never sends anything to us. It connects only:
- to Apple, to sync your diary with your own iCloud and to share with buddies, as above
- to Apple, the first time you use voice, to download the speech model (no personal data is sent)
- to Apple's Private Cloud Compute or to OpenAI or Anthropic, only as described under AI
- to a recipe page, when you import a recipe from a link you typed: one request for that page, with no cookies and no personal details, from the "HameFood" app
- to links you tap: the food data sources, a product's page at Open Food Facts (with its barcode), the sites where you get an AI key, and support websites
Everything else, including barcode lookups and the food database, works offline.
Reminders, widgets, Siri and app lock
- Reminders are scheduled on your iPhone; nothing is sent from a server. A medicine reminder shows the medicine's name.
- Widgets and the fasting Live Activity show today's calories, macros, water and your fast on your Home Screen and Lock Screen.
- Siri and Shortcuts can log water and food, start or end a fast, and tell you the calories you have left.
- App lock (off by default) asks for Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode when you open the app. It doesn't cover widgets, the Live Activity, reminders or Siri.
Exporting your data
You can export CSV files, make a PDF report, or save a backup file, all only when you ask. Each file leaves your iPhone only through the share sheet, to the place you pick. The PDF report includes your name and notes; the backup file leaves out your profile, photos, medicines, reminders and AI key. After you share a file, it's in the hands of whoever you sent it to.
Progress photos you add from your photo library are kept as they are, which can include when and where they were taken. Photos taken with the camera in Hame Food don't include a location.
Permissions the app asks for
| Permission | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Camera | To scan barcodes and labels, and to photograph meals | When you first use the camera |
| Microphone | To hear what you say when you log by voice | When you first use voice |
| Apple Health | To read and write the types you switch on | When you switch on a type |
| Face ID | To unlock the app when App lock is on | When you turn on App lock |
| Notifications | To show the reminders you turn on | When you turn on reminders |
To add photos from your library, Hame Food uses Apple's photo picker, so it sees only the photos you pick. Hame Food never asks for your location or contacts, and never asks to track you.
Deleting your data
- An entry: swipe to delete it, or tap Remove from diary.
- A date range: delete food, exercise, water, weight, body, progress photos, fasting, medicines, blood sugar, sleep and notes between two dates.
- Delete everything: in More, delete everything. This removes your whole diary, profile and photos from your iPhone. It doesn't stop a buddy share, remove what Hame wrote to Apple Health, or remove your AI key, so do those first (Stop sharing; the Health app; Remove key).
- Your iCloud copy: while sync is on, deletions also reach your iCloud and other devices. To make sure the copy is gone, open the iPhone Settings app, tap your name, then iCloud, then the storage list, choose Hame Food and delete its data.
- Deleting the app removes the diary on your iPhone. It doesn't remove your iCloud copy, a buddy share or your Health entries, and iOS may keep your AI key, so remove those first if you want them gone.
We can't delete your data for you, because we never have it.
Children
We don't collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13. Hame Food works without an account and without sending anything to us.
Not medical advice
Hame Food is not medical advice. Talk to a health professional about your diet, and to your prescriber about any medicine.
Changes to this policy
If the app changes how it handles data, we'll update this page before the change reaches you, and change the date at the top.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email hello@hameapps.com.