Chews
Privacy Policy
Chews is an iPhone app for choosing a restaurant with friends: everyone in a session swipes through the same deck of nearby places and the app reveals a winner. Because sessions are shared between people, Chews needs a small backend. This policy explains exactly what that backend holds, who can see it, and how to get rid of it.
The short version
- No ads, no advertising identifiers, no analytics SDKs, and no tracking. Google's Firebase Analytics is switched off and not compiled into the app.
- You can use Chews as a guest with no email, no password and no name beyond the display name you type.
- Your card-by-card swipes are readable only by you. The group sees progress and the final result, never your verdicts.
- Sessions, decks, swipes and results are deleted automatically seven days after the session was created.
- Restaurant searches run on twofox's server, so Foursquare and Google never receive your identity, only a location and filters.
- Everything can be deleted from inside the app with Delete account, or by emailing support@twofox.app.
1. Who we are
Chews is made and published by Nischal Khadka, an independent developer, under the name twofox. twofox is the data controller for the information described below. For anything about this policy, write to support@twofox.app.
2. What Chews stores, and why
Chews keeps only what a shared session needs to work. Nothing below is used for advertising, profiling or sale.
| Data | What it is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | A random user ID created by Firebase Authentication on first launch (anonymous, with no email or password). If you use Sign in with Apple, the account is linked to the identifier Apple gives us and, if you agree to share it, your name. Chews does not ask for your email address. | So a session can tell participants apart and your profile can follow you to a new phone. |
| Profile | A display name, an avatar colour, the cuisines you marked as liked or disliked, whether taste setup is done, and, if you claim one, an @handle. | Decks are curated from the table's tastes; the handle lets friends find you. |
| Taste memory | Tiny per-venue counters of how you have swiped on a place before. | So decks stop showing you what you always pass on. |
| Sessions | The invite code, mood, radius and filters, the participants (display names, avatar colours, join time, progress counters), the deck that was dealt, and the computed result. | The session itself. |
| Swipes | Your like, pass or super-like per card, in a document only you and the reveal function can read. | To compute the result. |
| Trips and shared places | Restaurants you save to a trip, and places you pin to your profile shelf with an optional note of up to 140 characters. | Your own lists, and a shelf your friends can see. |
| Friends | Friend requests, friendships, blocks, and session invites between accounts. | Sessions with friends. |
| Push token | A device token from Apple Push Notification service, relayed through Firebase Cloud Messaging. | To tell you when a match is ready. |
| Location | When you allow it, your position at roughly 100-metre accuracy, used to search for places. For caching, it is reduced to a coarse geohash cell, never stored as exact coordinates. | To find restaurants near you. |
3. Where it is stored
Chews runs on Google Firebase: Firebase Authentication for identity, Cloud Firestore for the data above, Cloud Functions for the server-side logic, and Cloud Messaging for push. Google processes this data on twofox's behalf, on Google Cloud servers, under Google's data-processing terms; it does not get to use it for its own purposes. As with any internet service, Google's servers see your IP address and basic device information when the app connects. Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics and advertising features are not used and are not part of the app.
Firestore also keeps an offline copy of your own data on your phone so the app works on a bad connection. Deleting the app deletes that copy.
4. Restaurant data and photos
Venue names, photos, ratings, price levels, hours, phone numbers and reviews come from Foursquare Places and, where available, Google Places. Those searches are made by twofox's server, not by your phone: a request carries a location, a radius and your filters, never your account, name or device details. Results are cached by area for 24 hours so nearby groups share one search. The attributions required by both providers appear in the app.
Restaurant photos are loaded by your phone directly from the providers' image servers, so, like any image on the web, those servers see your IP address when a picture is displayed.
5. Who can see what
- People in your session see your display name, avatar colour and how far through the deck you are. They never see your individual swipes.
- Friends (requests you accepted) can see your profile and the places on your shelf.
- Signed-in users can find you by searching your exact @handle. Guests and people you have blocked cannot. Blocking someone hides you from their search and dissolves any friendship.
- Nobody can see your trips, your taste memory or your swipes. There is no public profile, no follower count and no feed.
- twofox can, in principle, read the database as its administrator. In practice it is looked at only to fix a bug or answer a support request you sent.
6. Location
Chews asks for location permission only when you choose Use my location while setting up a session or opening I'm Hungry, and only while the app is in use. You can deny it and search for a place by name or postcode instead; recent searches are remembered on your device. Your position is used for that search and for the coarse 24-hour cache described above, and is not kept as a location history.
7. Notifications
Chews sends one kind of push notification: Your match is ready, when the last person finishes swiping. The app asks for notification permission after you finish your own swipes, never on first launch. If you decline, the reveal still appears the next time you open the app. Friend requests and session invites appear inside the app.
8. How long data is kept
| Data | Kept until |
|---|---|
| Sessions, decks, swipes, progress and results | Seven days after the session was created, then deleted automatically by a daily clean-up job. |
| Cached restaurant searches | 24 hours. |
| Profile, taste memory, trips, shelf, friends and blocks | You delete your account, or ask us to. |
| Push token | You delete your account, or turn notifications off and the token expires. |
9. Deleting your data
- In the app: Profile → Delete account removes your account and everything tied to it: profile, handle, taste memory, trips, shelf, friendships, requests, blocks, push token, and your swipes in any session that has not yet expired. Sessions you were part of stay visible to the other participants without your name until they expire.
- Sign out on a guest account has the same effect over time: nothing can reconnect to the old account, and its sessions expire within seven days.
- By email: write to support@twofox.app from any address and we will delete your account within 30 days. If you signed in with Apple, you can also stop using Sign in with Apple for Chews under iOS Settings → your name → Sign in with Apple.
10. Children
Chews is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, write to us and we will delete it.
11. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask what we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, or receive a copy of it, by using the controls above or writing to support@twofox.app. Privacy laws such as the GDPR, the CCPA and the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act give some of these rights formal names and deadlines; we honour all of them for everyone, and we never sell or share personal data for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. You may also complain to your local data-protection authority.
12. Security
Data travels over TLS. Firestore security rules enforce the visibility described in section 5, and every write that could affect another person, such as friend requests, handles and session codes, goes through a server function that validates it. Restaurant API keys live only on the server, never in the app.
13. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version is published at this address with a new date, and material changes are announced in the app. We will never quietly start collecting data under an old policy.
14. Contact
Questions about privacy
support@twofox.app
For help using the app, see Help & support.