Privacy policy

Countwell is a food journal. The data in it is yours: we store what you log so we can show it back to you, and nothing in this product is built on selling or advertising against your data. This page describes exactly what we collect, where it goes, and how to get rid of it.

What we collect

Account: your email and name, via our sign-in provider (WorkOS). What you log: foods, portions and their nutrition, weights, goals, and preferences like reminders and timezone. Diagnostics: basic server logs (IP address, user agent) kept briefly for security and debugging. We do not collect your location, contacts, or advertising identifiers, and we do not track you across other apps or sites.

Where your data lives

Your journal is stored in our database (Neon, hosted in the United States) and served through our hosting provider (Vercel). Sign-in is handled by WorkOS. These providers process data on our behalf and under our instructions.

Food database lookups

When you search foods or scan a barcode, your search text or the barcode number is sent to FatSecret, our licensed food database, to return matches. Your identity and your journal are not shared with FatSecret — only the query.

AI features — always with your consent

Two features send data to AI services, and both are off until you explicitly agree:

Photo scanning: if you use the camera to log a meal, the photo is sent to Google (Gemini) to estimate what's on the plate. Photos are used to answer your request, not to build an advertising profile, and we don't store them after the estimate returns.

AI connections: you can connect AI apps (Claude, ChatGPT, and others) to your journal. A connection only exists if you approve it, you choose whether it can read or also write, and everything an AI app can see is data you already logged. You can review and disconnect every connection at any time from your account page or the app's AI Connections screen. What an AI app does with data you let it read is governed by that app's own privacy policy — review it before connecting.

Apple Health

On iPhone, with your permission, Countwell reads your weight from Apple Health and writes the meals you log on that device back to Apple Health. Health data is exchanged on-device through HealthKit and is never sent to our AI providers.

Sharing with your coach

Share links are created only by you, show only what you chose to include, and can be revoked at any time. Anyone with the link can view that data until it expires or you revoke it — treat the link like the data it unlocks.

Retention and deletion

We keep your journal for as long as you have an account. You can export everything as CSV whenever you like, and you can delete your account — from the app or your account page — which permanently removes your journal, weights, goals, share links, AI connections, and sign-in identity.

Not medical advice

Countwell shows estimates — of calories, nutrients, and targets. It is not a medical device and its numbers are not medical advice. Talk to a professional about diagnosis, treatment, or eating-disorder concerns.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: db.vntrs@gmail.com. If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll say so in the app before it takes effect.