Nearby Eats Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 24, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Nearby Eats ("Nearby Eats", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use the Nearby Eats mobile app, this website, and related services.

Nearby Eats is designed to help you discover restaurants using your preferences, your notes, and AI-assisted recommendation features. By using Nearby Eats, you agree to the practices described in this policy.

Information We Collect

We may collect the following categories of information:

Account information. When you sign in, we may collect identifiers and profile information such as your user ID, email address, display name, and profile photo.
Preference and profile information. We collect information you add to your Nearby Eats profile, such as meal schedules, anchor addresses, cities or areas, dietary preferences, cuisine preferences, budget preferences, distance settings, repeat settings, and allergy information.
User-provided content. We collect descriptions, vibe prompts, notes, visit feedback, ratings, restaurant history, and other text you choose to provide so Nearby Eats can generate better recommendations.
Recommendation and activity data. We store generated restaurant recommendations, recommendation metadata, visit logs, and AI-generated taste profile summaries that help personalize future picks.
Search and location-related inputs. We collect location-related information that you type into the app, such as addresses, cities, areas, or place searches. Nearby Eats is based on places you provide or select. Nearby Eats currently relies on manual text inputs and place selections inside the app. It does not describe continuous background location tracking, and this policy should be updated if Nearby Eats later introduces a current-location feature that uses device GPS permissions.
Device and notification data. If you enable notifications, we may store your push notification token and basic delivery metadata such as platform and notification status.
Photos you upload. If you upload a profile photo, we store that image in our cloud storage.
Technical and security information. We may collect limited technical data needed to operate the service, prevent abuse, enforce daily limits, debug failures, and protect Nearby Eats.

How We Use Information

We use collected information to:

create and manage your account;
generate restaurant recommendations and quick picks;
personalize recommendations using your preferences, notes, and history;
search for restaurants, addresses, and place details;
show restaurant information, maps links, and related place metadata;
send push notifications if you opt in;
maintain app functionality, troubleshoot issues, and monitor performance;
enforce product limits and protect Nearby Eats against misuse or abuse;
comply with legal obligations and respond to valid requests.

How AI Features Work

Nearby Eats uses AI-assisted systems to help rank restaurants, generate recommendation text, and create taste-profile summaries. To support those features, we may process relevant context such as your profile settings, vibe or occasion descriptions, recent visit notes, recommendation history, and restaurant candidate data through our backend and AI service providers.

Third-Party Services We Use

Nearby Eats relies on third-party providers to operate key parts of the service, including:

Firebase / Google Cloud. Used for authentication, databases, cloud functions, storage, and app infrastructure.
Google Sign-In. Used when you choose to sign in with Google.
Google Maps / Google Places. Used for restaurant search, address suggestions, place details, place photos, and maps links.
OpenAI. Used for AI-assisted recommendation and taste-profile features.
Expo push notification services. Used to route app push notifications when enabled.

These providers may process information on our behalf to deliver their services. Their own privacy policies may also apply to the data they handle.

How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share information:

with service providers that help us run Nearby Eats;
when needed to provide restaurant search, maps, notifications, hosting, storage, or AI features;
if required by law, regulation, legal process, or government request;
to protect the rights, safety, security, and integrity of Nearby Eats, our users, or others;
as part of a merger, acquisition, financing, or transfer of all or part of the business.

Data Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to operate Nearby Eats, provide your account, personalize recommendations, maintain security, and comply with legal obligations.

Recommendation history, visit history, profile settings, taste-profile summaries, and push token records may be retained while your account is active unless you delete them through Nearby Eats or request account deletion.

Account Deletion and the 30-Day Restore Window

If you request account deletion in Nearby Eats, we currently deactivate your Nearby Eats profile immediately and sign you out. Your profile remains restorable for up to 30 days if you sign back in with the same account during that window.

During that restore window, Nearby Eats may temporarily retain information such as your profile state, recommendation history, visit history, taste profile data, notification records, and related deletion-control records so restoration can work and product limits cannot be trivially bypassed by deleting and recreating a profile.

After the restore window expires, Nearby Eats is intended to permanently purge the deleted profile and related data.

Your Choices

You can update much of your profile and preference information inside the app.
You can control notification permissions in your device settings.
You can request deletion by using the delete account flow inside Nearby Eats.
You can choose not to provide optional profile fields, notes, or vibe descriptions, but some features may work less effectively.

Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have privacy rights under applicable law. These may include the right to request access to your information, request correction of inaccurate information, request deletion, request a copy of certain information, or ask us to limit certain processing.

To make a privacy request, contact us using the email address below. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

Children's Privacy

Nearby Eats is not intended for children under 13, or the minimum age required in your jurisdiction. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children in a manner not permitted by law.

International Data Processing

Nearby Eats and its service providers may process and store information in countries outside your home jurisdiction. Those countries may have different data protection laws than where you live.

Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect information. However, no system can be guaranteed completely secure.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we may update the date above and, when appropriate, provide additional notice inside the app or on this website.

Contact

For privacy questions, support requests, or data-rights requests, contact us at support@nearbyeats.app.

For general business inquiries, contact contact@nearbyeats.app.

This policy is a practical product-facing draft tailored to Nearby Eats' current implementation and should be reviewed before public launch, especially if your data practices, regions, or legal obligations change.