Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 23, 2026

Introduction

Kaeru ("the App") is a calorie tracking application developed by Benjamin Lobmueller ("we", "us", "our"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, retain, and delete information when you use Kaeru.

Data Stored on Your Device

Food and App Data

Kaeru uses Core Data for durable local storage of food entries, meals, your personal food library, queued entries, preferences, and related nutrition information. iOS protects this data using the security controls available on your device. Some of this information is also processed by Kaeru's service when you use AI features, as described below.

Health and Fitness Data (HealthKit)

Each HealthKit permission is optional. With your permission, Kaeru may:

• Read activity and energy: workouts and active and basal energy.
• Read nutrition: dietary energy, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, protein, total fat, sodium, and cholesterol.
• Read biometrics: date of birth, biological sex, weight, and height.
• Write nutrition: write dietary energy and the listed nutrition values from your food entries.
• Write biometrics: optionally write weight and height when you enable saving those values to Apple Health.

Kaeru uses these values for calorie budgets, nutrition synchronization, and user-confirmed biometric settings. Health records remain subject to Apple's Health data controls. HealthKit data is not included in AI prompts or sent to AI providers. Kaeru also does not send food entries or HealthKit data to Meta.

AI and Kaeru Service Processing

Information Included in AI Requests

When you use an AI feature, Kaeru sends the request through Kaeru's service to configured AI providers. Depending on the feature and available permissions, a request may include:

• The food text you entered.
• A coarse city or region when available, used for regional food and portion context. Kaeru does not need precise GPS coordinates for this purpose.
• The local time and meal type associated with the entry.
• Grouped-meal names, input, and components when an entry contains multiple foods.
• Selected recent food-history summaries used for meal-type classification. These summaries may include food names, meal types, timestamps and local times, calories, user-edited meal-type flags, and pattern summaries.

Kaeru's configured AI providers currently include OpenAI and providers reached through OpenRouter. These providers receive the request content needed to produce the estimate or classification. Normal network delivery also means Kaeru's service and its providers may process technical connection data, such as an IP address. We do not claim that IP addresses or every identifier are excluded from service or provider processing.

Service Identifiers and Retention

Kaeru creates stable device and installation identifiers and stores them in the iOS Keychain, where they can survive app reinstallation. Kaeru's service processes these identifiers and subscription identifiers for authentication, trial administration, rate limiting, request correlation, support, remote configuration, and abuse prevention. User identifiers are hashed in operational request logs, while a device identifier may also be recorded.

• DynamoDB request logs: request and response payloads are marked to expire 30 days after creation, together with provider/model information, identifiers, timing, usage, cost, and errors. DynamoDB TTL deletion is asynchronous, so expired records can remain after that timestamp.
• Asynchronous processing: DynamoDB job records are marked to expire 24 hours after creation, but their TTL deletion is also asynchronous. Failed asynchronous invocation payloads can be sent to an SQS dead-letter queue for up to 14 days.
• Device support: the device table stores a device identifier, support code, app version, app build, first-seen and last-config-fetch timestamps, and the last fetched configuration version.
• Trial administration: the trial table stores a trial install identifier, start and last-seen timestamps, usage counts, and FoodItem credit keys.
• Records retained separately: device-support and trial table records have no automatic expiration and may remain until manually deleted. CloudWatch operational logs may be retained separately and can remain longer than request records. They can include request identifiers, provider/model details, timing, status, sanitized provider-error summaries, and other diagnostic details.

AI providers may process and retain data under their own terms and policies. Kaeru does not sell your food entries or HealthKit data.

Meta Attribution and Analytics

Kaeru includes the Meta SDK to measure advertising results and subscription conversions. Meta may collect a linked device identifier and linked product-interaction data for third-party advertising attribution and analytics.

Kaeru explicitly logs subscription starts and renewals to Meta, including the product identifier, price or value, and currency, along with flags indicating whether the event is a renewal. The SDK may also record automatic app events used for attribution. Kaeru does not send food entries or HealthKit data to Meta.

Meta's advertiser-ID collection setting is disabled in Kaeru, and Kaeru does not request App Tracking Transparency authorization. On iOS 17 and later, the Meta SDK's advertiser-tracking state follows Apple's App Tracking Transparency status; Kaeru does not receive tracking authorization because it does not request it.

The bundled Meta SDK privacy manifest declares Other Data Types for analytics, Crash Data for app functionality, linked Device ID data as used for tracking, and ep1.facebook.com as a tracking domain. Those declarations describe the SDK's collection capabilities even though Kaeru does not request tracking authorization. Meta may still process the linked device, product-interaction, crash, and diagnostic data described here under Meta's own terms and privacy policy.

Apple Services

Kaeru uses HealthKit for health-data synchronization and the App Store for subscriptions. Apple controls those services under Apple's Privacy Policy. Health records written by Kaeru are managed separately in Apple Health.

Data Deletion

Deleting Kaeru removes the app's local Core Data and queued entries from that device. It does not immediately delete records already processed by Kaeru's service or third parties. In particular:

• Keychain identifiers can survive app deletion and reinstallation.
• DynamoDB request and job records can remain after their expiration timestamps because TTL deletion is asynchronous, and failed invocation payloads can remain in the dead-letter queue for its configured period.
• Device-support records, trial records, and CloudWatch logs have no automatic deletion schedule and can remain until manually deleted.
• HealthKit records must be reviewed or deleted through Apple Health and its data-access settings.
• Device backups, AI-provider records, and Meta attribution records are controlled by the relevant platform or provider and may follow separate retention and deletion rules.

You may contact us about service records associated with you. Our ability to locate or delete them may be limited by pseudonymous identifiers, retention-based deletion, legal obligations, and records controlled by third parties.

Children's Privacy

Kaeru is not intended for children under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 18 years of age.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:

Email: privacy@kaeruapp.net

Kaeru - AI Calorie Tracker
Benjamin Lobmueller