Privacy Policy
The short version. MeatCheck has no account and no login. Your scans are stored on your iPhone. When you scan a package, the photo is sent to our server and to a third-party AI service so the text on the label can be read; neither we nor that service keep the photo after the response comes back. The app sends usage events and error reports to PostHog under a random install id that is not tied to your name, email or device identifiers. Purchases are handled by Apple. The app includes Meta and TikTok ad measurement; iOS asks you once whether to allow tracking, and nothing is sent to them for tracking unless you allow it.
MeatCheck reads what the label says. It does not test the product and is not medical advice.
1. Who we are
MeatCheck ("MeatCheck", "we", "us", "our") is an iPhone app that reads the label on a package of meat and explains the claims printed on it. MeatCheck is developed and operated by Learning Phase Labs Inc., a company incorporated in Ontario, Canada. You can reach us at contact@learningphaselabs.com.
This policy explains what the app can access on your device, what it stores, what leaves your phone and who receives it. The summary above is accurate on its own.
2. What the app accesses on your device
Camera and photos
To scan a package, MeatCheck asks iOS for the camera, or for the photo you pick from your library. It sees only the photo you take or choose for that scan. It does not scan your photo library. You can change either permission in the iOS Settings app under Privacy & Security.
Your state
The app suggests a US state from your device's region setting so it can show the rules that apply where you shop. You can change or clear it in the app. The app does not use GPS and does not ask for location permission.
Tracking
After onboarding, iOS shows you the App Tracking Transparency prompt once. If you decline, no attribution events that identify your device are sent.
3. What is stored, and where
Everything MeatCheck keeps is stored in the app's own private area on your iPhone, in a local database:
- Your scans: the photo you took, the text read from it, the flags found and the verdict.
- Your settings: state, language, notification choices, and the answers you gave during onboarding.
- A random install id: 32 hexadecimal characters drawn once on first launch. It identifies the install, not you, and it is reset if you delete and reinstall the app.
- Your subscription status as reported by Apple.
There is no MeatCheck account, no cloud sync and no server-side copy of your scan history. Deleting the app deletes all of it.
4. Scans and the scan service
Reading small print off a photo needs more computation than a phone can do well, so the scan runs on a server.
- When you scan, the app sends the photo, your install id and your app version to our scan service, hosted in the United States.
- The scan service passes the photo to a third-party AI service that reads the text. That service processes the photo only to return the text and does not keep it or use it for training.
- The result is sent back to your phone and saved there.
- The photo is not stored after the response. It is held in memory for the length of the request and is not written to a database, a bucket or a log by us. We do not use your photos to train anything.
- Ordinary request logs (time, rough size, status code, IP address) are kept by our hosting provider for a short period for abuse prevention and troubleshooting.
Do not photograph anything other than a food package. A scan of a document, a person or anything private is sent off your phone like any other scan.
5. What we do not collect
- No name, email address, phone number or postal address.
- No account, password or social login.
- No precise location.
- No contacts, calendar, health data or advertising identifier, unless you allow tracking and Meta or TikTok measurement is switched on.
- No copy of your photo library, and no scan history on our servers.
6. Purchases
Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple through the App Store. Apple handles the payment; we never see your card, your Apple Account email or your billing address. The app asks StoreKit whether this Apple Account has an active subscription and stores the answer on the device. We record that a purchase, trial start or cancellation happened, with the product id, price and currency, against your install id.
7. Analytics and diagnostics
The app sends usage events and crash and error reports to PostHog, which we use as our analytics processor. Events say what happened — an onboarding step finished, a scan started, a paywall opened, a purchase completed — with the app version, the build, whether the install is subscribed, and which variant of any running split test this install is in. The distinct id is the random install id. Photos, label text and scan results are never attached to an analytics event.
If you want the events for your install deleted, write to us and we will delete them.
8. Advertising and attribution
MeatCheck is promoted with paid ads on Meta and TikTok. To know which ads lead to installs and subscriptions, the app includes those companies' measurement SDKs. They stay off until we switch ad measurement on, and they are covered by the iOS App Tracking Transparency prompt.
What would be sent
An install event, a trial-start event and a subscription event, each with the product, price and currency, plus the identifiers those SDKs collect for attribution — which include your device's advertising identifier only if you allowed tracking.
Your choices
Decline the tracking prompt, or turn it off later under Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking. With tracking declined, no advertising identifier is available and attribution is limited to Apple's own aggregate SKAdNetwork reporting, which does not identify you.
California and other US states
We do not sell personal information for money. Sharing device identifiers with ad networks for measurement can count as "sharing" under some state laws; declining the tracking prompt opts you out of it.
9. Support email
If you write to contact@learningphaselabs.com, we see your email address and whatever you put in the message, including any screenshot you attach. We use it to answer you and keep the thread as long as it is useful, then delete it.
10. Retention and deletion
- On your phone: until you delete the scan, or delete the app.
- Scan photos on our server: not retained after the response.
- Hosting request logs: a short period set by our hosting provider, for abuse prevention.
- Analytics events: retained by PostHog under our project's retention setting. To have the events for your install deleted, write to us and we will find and delete them.
- Purchase records held by Apple: governed by Apple's own policy.
11. Children
MeatCheck is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has sent us something, write to us and we will delete it.
12. Security
Traffic between the app, our server and our processors uses HTTPS. Scan data on your phone sits inside the app's sandbox, protected by iOS. We keep no database of user content, which is the simplest protection available. No system is perfect, and we do not claim otherwise.
13. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what we hold about you, to get a copy, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to some processing. Because there is no account, almost everything is on your phone and under your control: deleting the app deletes it. For analytics events, send us your install id and we will delete them. Write to contact@learningphaselabs.com.
14. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and a material change will be flagged in the app before it takes effect.