Privacy Policy

Data controller: MAKAN APP LTD

Registered address: 86–90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom

Contact email: support@makanofficial.com

MAKAN APP LTD is responsible for determining how and why personal data is processed under this Privacy Policy. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer, as we are not required to; data-protection queries can be sent to the contact email above.

We use personal data to:

• Help you decide what to eat — by remembering the meals you have saved, keeping the comparisons you have answered, and building the private picture of your taste described in section 2.7
• Create and manage user accounts
• Provide core App functionality, including saving meals and displaying feeds according to the audience you chose
• Operate the friend graph, including friend requests and mutual friendships
• Synchronise content across your devices
• Show nearby places and calculate distances, using your device location where you have granted permission
• Find and fix faults, using crash reports and diagnostic data
• Maintain security, prevent abuse, and protect the integrity of the Services
• Respond to support enquiries
• Feature content you post to a public audience in our own marketing, where permitted (see section 5)
• Understand usage and improve the reliability, performance, and design of the Services

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use personal data for third-party advertising.

Dish recognition — a feature we are building. The hardest version of the question Makan exists to answer is a menu in a restaurant you have never visited. To help there, we are building a feature that recognises when two of your own meals are the same dish — so the App can tell you that you have eaten something before, and point to a dish somewhere new that resembles one you already chose to return to.

It is not available yet, and nothing analyses your photographs today. We will describe the feature in this Policy, and name the service provider involved, before it starts. Photographs you uploaded before it existed will never be analysed unless you separately opt them in — doing nothing means they are never touched. That was our promise when you saved them, and it does not change.

When it arrives, it will be part of how the App works. Recognising your own dishes is not an extra we add on the side; it is how Makan answers the question you opened it to ask. So we will not ask you to switch it on, and there will not be a setting to switch it off. For this we rely on legitimate interests rather than your consent, and we explain that choice in section 4.2.

You can still tell us to stop. You have a right to object to processing we base on legitimate interests. If you would rather we did not do this with your photographs, write to us at support@makanofficial.com and we will stop for your account. Your guidance will then come from whatever other evidence we have, which may be less useful to you. We will not keep asking you to change your mind.

When we introduce it: we will compare your photographs only with your own. We will use it only to recognise and compare dishes. We will not use it to identify people, faces or places, to work out your dietary habits, your health or your beliefs, for advertising, or to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases. In short: contract covers your account and the core features; legitimate interests covers the private taste picture, dish recognition, usage measurement, security, fault-fixing, improving the Services, and featuring meals you have made public in our marketing; and consent covers enquiries and any analysis of photographs you saved before dish recognition existed.

Each meal you save has one of two audiences. What other people can see depends on which you choose.

• Public — visible to other users, and it may appear in discovery features within the App
• Friends only — visible to your mutual friends

Your first shared meal is always friends-only. After that you choose for each meal.

To be clear about what “friends only” means: a meal that is not public can be seen by people you and they have both added as friends. It is not visible only to you. If you do not want a meal seen by anyone else, do not save it to Makan.

You choose a meal's audience at the moment you save it, and at present there is no way to change that choice afterwards. If you want a meal to have a different audience, delete it and save it again.

Deleting a meal removes it from the App. Copies may remain temporarily in device caches or system backups for limited periods, as described in the retention section.

We use the following providers to operate the Services. Where they process personal data on our behalf, they do so under contractual terms requiring appropriate security and confidentiality. Some of the services below are contacted directly by your device, which means they see your IP address even where we send them nothing about you; those are listed here too, so the picture is complete.

We do not use third-party advertising SDKs or cross-app tracking technologies. We keep this list current. Where we replace or add a provider performing a function already described in this Policy, we update this list before the new provider begins processing personal data. Where a change would introduce a new purpose, we describe it in this Policy and establish a lawful basis for it first.

The Site. The Site uses Vercel Web Analytics, which is privacy-friendly and cookieless: it identifies visits using a hash that resets daily and cannot track you across days or across other websites. Vercel Web Analytics does not use cookies and collects no personal identifiers. The fonts used on the Site are served from our own domain, so loading a page does not send your details to a font provider.

App usage analytics. We use Firebase Analytics by Google to understand how the App's screens and features are used so we can improve them. It uses an app-instance identifier. Usage analytics is on by default on this device once you are signed in and your saved preference has been checked. You can turn it off under Settings › Privacy › App usage analytics. The switch stops future usage measurement on this device. Your choice is kept when you sign out or delete your account; set it separately on other devices. Existing opt-outs stay off. Turning off collection does not itself erase data already collected.

Usage events do not include your account ID, other people's account IDs, meal content, place names, captions or precise location. Advertising storage and personalisation are disabled. We use usage analytics solely to improve the App, not for advertising, cross-app tracking or the personal taste picture described in section 2.7. Our analytics provider must process this information only to help us improve the App, not for its own separate purposes.

Crash and performance diagnostics. We use Sentry to identify crashes and performance faults. Reports can include your account identifier while signed in, app and device information, and diagnostic context. The App usage analytics switch controls Firebase Analytics; it does not turn off Sentry diagnostics. We do not use these diagnostics for advertising, cross-app tracking or the personal taste picture.

We rely on legitimate interests for these purposes as described in section 4.2. To object to processing based on legitimate interests, contact support@makanofficial.com. We will assess the affected processing, explain the action taken and confirm its scope. The device analytics switch is not an account-wide control. Your rights, including how to ask us to delete information already held, are explained in section 11.

Some of the services listed in section 6 — including Google, Sentry, Vercel, Resend, Apple, Klipy, and Unsplash — receive or process personal data outside the United Kingdom, including in the United States.

Where international transfers occur, we rely on appropriate safeguards recognised under UK law, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, the UK extension to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or transfers to providers certified under an applicable data protection framework. You can request more information about these safeguards using the contact details above.

If you use the Services in Indonesia, additional rights and protections apply to you under Indonesia's Personal Data Protection Law (UU PDP No. 27/2022). We are extending this Policy and our practices to meet those requirements. For questions about your data as a user in Indonesia, contact support@makanofficial.com.

We apply technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal data, including encryption in transit, access controls, and server-side security rules.

No system is completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect data against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse. If a personal data breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will notify the Information Commissioner's Office, and affected users where required, within the timeframes set by law.

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access your personal data
• Request correction of inaccurate data
• Request deletion of personal data
• Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances
• Request data portability where applicable
• Object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests. This includes the private picture of your taste described in section 2.7, and the usage measurement and crash reporting described in section 7
• Withdraw consent where we rely on it. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing we carried out before you withdrew it

You can delete your account at any time from within the App, which begins the deletion process described above. To exercise any other right, contact us at support@makanofficial.com. We may request information to verify your identity, and we handle requests within the time limits required by law.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

You must be at least 13 to create an account.

The App does not verify age. Because a service like ours may be used by children and we cannot reliably tell which of our users are children, we apply the protections expected by the UK Age Appropriate Design Code (the Children's Code) to every user, not only to those we believe to be young. In practice this means:

• Your first shared meal is always friends-only; after that, you choose friends-only or public for each meal
• Location access is off by default and only used, with permission, at the moment you use a location feature
• We collect the minimum data needed, and we never use your data for targeted advertising
• We build a private picture of your own taste from the comparisons you answer, as described in section 2.7. It exists to help you choose what to eat, it is shown only to you, and it is never used to advertise to you, to judge you, or to decide anything about you
• We do not use manipulative design or nudges to push you to share more than you intend
• We do not use streaks, badges, points, or leaderboards to keep you using the App

If we become aware that personal data has been collected from a child under 13, we will take steps to delete that data. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us.

We do not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal effects or similarly significant effects for you.

Makan does build the private picture of your taste described in section 2.7, and it is fair to call that a profile of your preferences. We would rather say so plainly than hide behind wording. What matters is what it is for and what it cannot do: it exists to answer “what should I order”, it is assembled from comparisons you chose to answer, it is shown to nobody but you, and it is never used to evaluate you, to decide whether you can use any part of the Services, or to advertise to you.

We do not analyse the content of your meal photographs. By “analyse” we mean working out what a photograph shows. Ordinary technical handling — resizing, compressing, storing and delivering your photographs so the App can display them — is not analysis, and we do that for every meal you save.

When we introduce the dish recognition feature described in section 3, it will work by measuring how similar the food in two photographs looks. It affects only what the App shows you about your own meals, it does not produce a judgement about you, and it makes no decision that has a legal or similarly significant effect. You will be able to correct any grouping that is wrong, and you can object to the processing altogether as described in sections 3 and 11.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.

The updated version will be published with a revised “Last updated” date. Where the change is significant, we will take reasonable steps to notify you, for example within the App or by email.

The previous update, made on 30 August 2026, rewrote the dish recognition parts of sections 3, 4 and 13. That feature is now described as part of how the App works rather than as something you switch on, and legitimate interests replaces consent as its lawful basis. Your right to object is explained in sections 3 and 11. Photographs you saved before the feature existed are still excluded from it unless you opt them in.

The update dated 6 September 2026 describes the device-level App usage analytics switch in section 7, distinguishes it from Sentry crash and performance diagnostics, and clarifies how to object. Section 2.3 explains that usage interaction events no longer record the other person's account identifier. This update also clarifies that turning off future collection does not itself erase information already held.