culin · privacy policy

Last updated: 17 October 2026 · Published by Aksial Technologies AS

Culin stores your recipe library on your device. Everyday cooking works without an account. Optional cloud features and import diagnostics send limited data to the services described below.

You do not need an account

Your recipe library, cooking mode, timers, widgets, Spotlight search and Siri shortcuts all work fully offline with no sign-in. If you never sign in, your recipes are stored only on your device. Importing a web page needs a network connection. The import diagnostics described below can be sent without signing in.

Import diagnostics

To understand import reliability, the app can send the recipe website hostname and a label indicating that an import was completed on the device. This request contains no account identifier, device identifier, recipe content or full page URL. It is sent without signing in. As with other network requests, the hosting service receives connection information such as your IP address.

The service also logs cloud import outcomes and recipe-processing diagnostics, such as unrecognised ingredient names, without account identifiers. These diagnostics help us find import problems.

What we store if you do sign in

Three optional features need an account: syncing across your devices, translating a recipe, and the discovery feed. Signing in is via Sign in with Apple only: there is no password. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address.

Your email address, used to identify the account and nothing else.
An account identifier, which is what ties your library to you.
Your recipes: titles, ingredients, instructions, your own notes and ratings.
Which recipes you saved, cooked, or rated, which is what makes sync work.
If you subscribe to Culin Plus: which plan you are on, when the current period ends, and Apple's identifier for the subscription. That is what tells our servers you are a subscriber.

We never send you marketing email. We do not sell or rent any of this, to anyone, ever.

Photos never leave your device

Culin can read a recipe from a photo or a screenshot. That happens entirely on your iPhone, using Apple's on-device text recognition. The image is never uploaded to us or to anyone else. Only the text that was recognised is sent onward, and only when you are signed in and using cloud extraction.

Where your data goes

The following processors handle data to run the service. Optional account features use storage and cloud processing; import diagnostics are handled by the hosting service even without sign-in.

1. Recipe text: Anthropic

When a recipe page is too awkward for the app to read on its own, or when you translate a recipe, the recipe text is sent to Anthropic's Claude model to be turned into structured ingredients and steps. Cloud extraction and translation use this processor in addition to the storage and hosting services below. No account identifier is sent with it. See anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

2. Storage and hosting: Supabase and Vercel

Your account and synced recipes are stored in a Supabase Postgres database hosted in Stockholm, in the EU. The API runs on Vercel, also in Stockholm. Row-level security means one account cannot read another's library.

3. Caching: Upstash

Short-lived caches and rate-limit counters are held in Upstash Redis in Frankfurt, so the app stays fast and no one can overload the service.

The discovery feed shows no one's activity

Discovery is built only from recipes that enough different people have independently saved and cooked. It never exposes what any one person saved, there are no follower counts or profiles, and no part of the app learns your habits to recommend things to you. If a recipe has not cleared that threshold, it is not in the feed.

Culin Plus and payment

Culin Plus is billed by Apple, not by us. Your card, your billing address and your Apple Account credentials are handled entirely by Apple and are never sent to us and never visible to us.

What we receive is a signed receipt from Apple confirming that a subscription exists, which plan it is, and when it runs out. We keep exactly that, against your account, so the app knows what you are entitled to. Apple also tells our servers when a subscription renews, lapses or is refunded, so that entitlement stays correct without the app having to be open.

Cancelling is done in your Apple Account settings, not here: we have no ability to charge you or to stop a charge. Deleting your Culin account does not cancel the subscription itself, which only Apple can do. Limited purchase and recovery records remain after account deletion, as explained below.

purchase recovery and retained records

After account deletion, we retain limited purchase ownership and lifecycle records, usage-metering evidence, and a pseudonymous recovery identifier derived from your verified Sign in with Apple identity. We use these records to prevent a purchase being claimed by another account and to check recovery of a current subscription when you return. The recovery identifier is not your raw Apple sign-in identifier, but it is still personal data. These records are not deleted automatically when you delete your account. Contact privacy@aksial.io with a privacy or deletion request.

product measurement

We use retained saves, cooks, ratings and related service records to measure feature use and improve Culin. Reports use aggregated results; the underlying application records may remain linked to your account. This does not add an analytics SDK or involve tracking across other companies' apps or websites.

Optional usage statistics

The TestFlight pilot offers Share usage statistics, off by default. It helps us understand where imports fail, whether recipes are saved and cooked, return visits, and purchase or restore outcomes. Your choice does not change the app's features or price. Production collection remains disabled while this pilot is evaluated.

If you opt in, Culin sends random installation, session and event identifiers, action times, fixed action/result categories, bounded import and sync duration, app version/build, OS version, broad device family and language. The installation identifier is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Usage events do not contain your account ID, email, recipes, photos, pasted links, search text, Apple transaction identifiers or raw error messages. We do not collect location for usage measurement; Apple supplies separate aggregate territory and acquisition reports.

Events go to Aksial's existing Vercel and Supabase services. We add no analytics SDK or advertising provider. Our usage tables do not store IP addresses; hosting services still receive connection information when handling a request under their operational policies. On-device queues use platform file protection, are excluded from backup and hold at most 2,000 events for up to 30 days. Daily cleanup removes server events once they are older than 90 days. Non-identifying delivery totals may remain.

Open Settings → Data → Privacy and data → Usage statistics to change your choice or select Delete usage history. Turning sharing off also clears queued events, resets the usage identifier and requests deletion of this installation's uploaded history. No sign-in is needed. If offline, deletion stays visibly pending; keep Culin installed until that message disappears. A minimal identifier and deletion-capability hash remain for up to 32 days to stop delayed uploads restoring deleted history.

Usage history is separate from account records. Delete it using the usage control before uninstalling: uninstalling can lose the random capability needed to locate that installation's history. Contact privacy@aksial.io for help.

shared households and notifications

If you use shared household features, we store membership, household names and nicknames, explicitly shared recipe copies, feedback, meal plans, shopping lists and cooking preferences. Current members can see the information you share with the household. Your personal library and private import previews are not shared automatically. Shared copies remain with the household when a contributor leaves or deletes their account.

If you enable household notifications, we store an installation identifier and Apple push token to deliver generic updates. Apple handles delivery. Notification content does not include recipe text, preferences, nicknames or invitation text. You can turn these notifications off in the app and in iOS settings.

Privacy safeguards

No advertising, and no advertising SDK is present in the app.
No analytics or crash-reporting SDK of any kind.
No tracking across apps or websites, and therefore no App Tracking Transparency prompt.
No location, contacts or health data is requested. No payment details either: Apple handles billing, and card numbers never reach us (see Culin Plus and payment above).
When you save a recipe from a link, we strip tracking parameters such as utm_*, fbclid and gclid from the URL before storing it.

Deleting everything

Open Settings → Data → Privacy and data → Account → Delete account and synced data in the app. This removes your personal account, private recipe data and household membership from our servers. It does not remove household-owned shared copies, the limited purchase and recovery records or diagnostic logs described above, or copies you exported separately.

Children

Culin is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes

We may update this policy as the app evolves. Material changes will be reflected here with a new "Last updated" date.

Contact

Questions about privacy: privacy@aksial.io