Last updated: 19 June 2026
This Privacy Policy explains what data the BananaCal app ("BananaCal", "we", "us") collects, why we collect it, and who we share it with. BananaCal is developed by Francesco Paciello. If you have any questions, you can contact us at [email protected].
We have designed BananaCal to keep most of your personal data on your own device. You do not need to create an account, and we do not ask for your name, email address, or phone number to use the app.
The short version
You can use BananaCal without signing up. Your meals, photos, weight, water intake, and goals are stored locally on your device. When you scan a meal, the photo or description is sent to our server and to our AI provider only to estimate its nutrition, and the photo is not kept after the analysis. We use anonymous analytics and session recordings to understand how the app is used and to improve it internally. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.
When you scan a meal, take a photo, or type a description, that image or text is sent to our server (hosted on Railway) and then forwarded to our AI provider, OpenAI, which estimates the food, calories, and macronutrients. We collect this so the app can recognize your food and give you nutrition information. Photos and descriptions are processed only to produce that result. Our server reads the image in memory, sends it to OpenAI, and discards it: we do not store your food photos on our server. OpenAI processes the image under its own data handling terms. The full resolution photo and the analysis result are saved only on your device, inside the app, so you can review your meal history.
To calculate your goals and track your progress, BananaCal lets you provide and record information such as your gender, height, weight, year of birth, activity level, diet preference, and weight goal during onboarding, and then your daily calories, macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats, fiber), water intake, body weight, and target weight over time. We collect this only to personalize your calorie and macro targets and to show you your history and progress. This information is stored locally on your device and is not synced to iCloud. BananaCal does not connect to Apple Health or HealthKit, and we do not read or write any data there. A limited, summarized subset of these values (for example your calorie goal, selected diet, goal type, and gender) is included in our analytics, as described in section 5.
When you scan a product barcode, the barcode number is sent to Open Food Facts, a public food database, to look up the product's nutrition information. Only the barcode is sent for this lookup. No personal data is included.
BananaCal offers optional paid subscriptions and features. Purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store, and we use RevenueCat to manage subscriptions and verify your purchase status. Through RevenueCat we receive transaction and subscription information such as the product purchased, price, purchase and expiration dates, and your subscription status, linked to an anonymous purchase identifier. We use this to unlock paid features, restore your purchases, and understand which plans are used. We never receive or store your full payment card details: those are handled by Apple.
We use PostHog (hosted in the European Union) to understand how people use BananaCal so we can improve it. This includes events such as opening the app, completing onboarding, scanning a meal, saving a meal, viewing the paywall, and making or restoring a purchase, together with technical details like your app version, current streak, number of workouts per week, subscription status, install date, and the summarized goal information mentioned in section 2. This data is tied to a random, anonymous identifier rather than to your name or email. We use it only for internal product analytics, to fix problems, and to test improvements such as different versions of certain screens. We do not sell it and we do not use it for advertising.
To better understand how the app is used and where people get confused, PostHog also records anonymized sessions of how the app's screens are used during your visits. These recordings can include the content shown on screen while you use the app, including screens that may display your food photos or text you have entered. We use these recordings strictly for internal product improvement, for example to find usability issues and to make the experience smoother. We do not use them for advertising, and we do not sell them. They are linked to the same anonymous identifier used for analytics.
If the app crashes, we collect technical crash and diagnostic information (such as the type of error, device model, and operating system version) so we can find and fix bugs. This information does not identify you personally.