Privacy Policy
Who is the data controller
ShadowLink Digital, publisher of the MyCheese application. Contact: shadowlinkdigital@gmail.com.
What stays on your device
Most of the app never leaves your phone. The following is stored in the app's local storage, and we have no access to it:
- your batches: recipe, milk volume, completed steps, task log;
- your cellar: temperature, humidity, pH and weight readings;
- your tastings: rating, notes, what you will change next time;
- your equipment inventory and the variants you are preparing;
- your settings: language, theme, text size, level, usual milk;
- your running timers.
Uninstalling the app erases all of it. No copy exists anywhere else.
What leaves your device, and when
Curd and rind photo analysis
Only when you tap the analysis button yourself. The following is then sent to our analysis service:
- the photo you have just taken;
- the recipe name and the title of the current step;
- the ageing day and expected flora, for a rind diagnosis;
- a random installation identifier (see below).
Our service passes the photo to Anthropic's API, which produces the verdict. The photo is not written to any disk, neither on our side nor in the app: it is processed in memory and then discarded. Only the verdict comes back to your phone, where it is stored with the batch concerned.
If no analysis service is configured, no photo is ever sent: the verdicts shown are examples, marked as such by a visible banner.
The installation identifier
The first time you use the analysis, the app draws a random identifier and keeps it locally. It is used only to obtain an access token for the service and to limit the number of analyses per installation, to prevent abuse. It contains nothing about you: no name, no address, no system-provided device identifier. It is not shared and cannot identify you across installations.
Subscription
Payments are handled by the App Store or Google Play. We never see your payment details. Subscription state is managed through RevenueCat, which receives your subscription history, an anonymous identifier and technical information about the device, in order to tell whether your subscription is active. None of your cheesemaking data is sent to it.
Ads (free plan)
The free plan shows a banner on the navigation screens and, now and then, a full-screen ad between two steps of a recipe. They are served by Google AdMob (Google Ireland Limited, for Europe). There are none for Premium subscribers or after the “No ads” purchase: the advertising component is not even loaded then.
To choose, display and count ads, and to fight fraud, Google's SDK receives and may store on the device: the IP address, the device model and operating system, the language, technical identifiers specific to the app, interactions with ads (impressions, taps) and diagnostics. On Android, the device's advertising ID is available to it; you can reset or delete it in the phone's Google settings. On iPhone, MyCheese does not ask for tracking permission (App Tracking Transparency): Apple's advertising identifier is therefore never shared.
On Android, the free plan's home screen may also show a Tals Ads banner presenting other apps. It is loaded from Tals Ads' servers (hosted by Netlify and Supabase), which receive the IP address, the device model and operating system, the language and the app's name, and anonymously count the impressions and taps of each ad. No cookies, no advertising ID. A tap opens the advertised app's page on Google Play. Like AdMob ads, it is never shown to Premium subscribers or after the “No ads” purchase.
Your consent. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, a Google form (an IAB-certified consent management platform) asks for your choice before any ad is shown. If you decline personalisation, only non-personalised ads are requested, chosen from context rather than from your profile. You can change your choice at any time: Profile → Ads → Ad privacy choices.
None of your cheesemaking data — recipes, batches, readings, notes — is sent to Google. Advertising data is governed by Google's policy: how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.
Sourcing links
Ingredient and equipment sheets offer search links. Opening one starts a search in your browser: the search engine then sees the query, exactly as it would for any search you ran yourself. We send nothing to those sites.
Backups you export
Exporting produces a readable JSON file and lets you choose where it goes: your files, an email to yourself, a cloud service. We never see that file and keep no copy of it. What you do with it is your choice, governed by the policy of whichever service you use.
What we do not do
- No account, no sign-up, no password.
- No analytics of our own, no behavioural measurement tools.
- No ads for Premium subscribers or after the “No ads” purchase. No tracking request on iPhone, and no personalised ads without your consent where the law requires it.
- No remote notifications: timer and cellar alerts are produced by your phone, with no server and no notification token.
- No sale or rental of data to anyone.
- No access to your contacts, your location or your photo library.
The photo library permission appears in the app because a system component we use to read and write files makes the declaration mandatory. MyCheese never browses your photos. That permission only comes into play if you choose a file located there yourself, when restoring a backup.
Legal bases and retention
| Processing | Legal basis | Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Making data on the device | Performance of the service you asked for | Until you delete it, or you uninstall the app |
| Photo analysis | Your explicit request, for each photo | The photo is not retained; the verdict stays on your device |
| Installation identifier and usage limiting | Legitimate interest: preventing abuse of the service | Token valid for 30 days, counters continuously discarded |
| Subscription and “No ads” purchase state | Performance of the subscription or sale contract | Per RevenueCat's and the stores' policies |
| Ads (free plan) | Your consent, where the law requires it (EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland); elsewhere, our legitimate interest in funding the free plan | Per Google's policy; your consent choice is kept on the device until you change it |
Your rights
You have the right of access, rectification, erasure, portability and objection. In practice:
- Access and portability: Profile → Backup → Export my data produces all of your data in a readable JSON file.
- Erasure: delete a batch from its own screen, or uninstall the app to erase everything.
- Photo analysis: do not tap the analysis button and nothing is transmitted. The app remains fully usable.
- Ads: Profile → Ads → Ad privacy choices to withdraw or change your consent; the “No ads” purchase or a Premium subscription to see none at all.
For any request, write to shadowlinkdigital@gmail.com. You may also lodge a complaint with your national data protection authority; in France, the CNIL.
Children
MyCheese is intended for adults and does not knowingly collect any data about children. The app never asks for an age, a name or an address, and its ads are not directed at children.
Transfers outside the European Union
Photo analysis relies on Anthropic's API, subscription management on RevenueCat, both established in the United States, and ads on Google, which may process data in the United States. These transfers occur only in the cases described above, and rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses or, for Google, on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
Changes
Any change to this policy will be published on this page, with a new update date. A change that widened what leaves your device would be announced in the app.