Legal
Plain-language summary: Wheat stores your account email and shared ingredient research in the cloud. Your scan history and preferences never leave your device. We use AI services to research ingredient safety, and collect app usage statistics and crash reports, not linked to your account, to improve Wheat. If you choose to, you can contribute product photos to Open Food Facts, a public database. We do not sell your data.
Wheat is a mobile application published by H5 STUDIO, LLC, a limited liability company registered in the State of Washington, USA.
Contact: [email protected]
Information you provide
Your account record
If you create an account, we store your email address, when the account was created, when you last signed in, and its status. Nothing else is stored in your account.
Using Wheat without an account
Without an account, Wheat connects to our servers with a random anonymous identifier created by Firebase Authentication, which is not linked to your name or email address. You can scan up to 10 different products; creating an account and signing in lets you scan more.
Anonymized shared research data
When you scan a product barcode, Wheat looks up ingredient safety information. The research results are cached in our database indexed by barcode and ingredient name — not by your identity. This shared cache benefits all users and is not linked to your account.
What stays on your device only
This data is stored in a local database on your phone. We cannot access it, and it is permanently deleted when you uninstall the app.
Camera and photos
Wheat uses your camera to scan product barcodes. Barcode scanning happens on your device, and those camera images are never transmitted.
When a product is missing from Open Food Facts, or has no ingredient list there, Wheat offers to photograph its packaging (front, ingredient list and nutrition label) and contribute the photos to Open Food Facts. This is always your choice: nothing is uploaded unless you take the photos and confirm the upload. The photos are sent, with the product's barcode, through our servers to Open Food Facts under Wheat's contributor account; we do not keep a copy. They are not linked to your account or email address.
Photos you contribute become part of the public Open Food Facts database and are published under its open licence (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike). Avoid including people or personal information in them. Once published, they are managed by Open Food Facts; to ask for removal, contact Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org).
Usage statistics and crash reports
To understand how Wheat is used and to fix problems, the app sends to Google Firebase:
These are tied to a random app-instance identifier created by Firebase, not to your account, email address or name. They are collected in released versions of the app only.
App protection
To protect our servers from abuse, Wheat uses Firebase App Check. It asks Google Play Integrity (Android) or Apple DeviceCheck (iOS) to confirm that requests come from a genuine copy of the app on a genuine device. This check gives us no personal information.
Tips
If you leave a tip in Wheat, the payment is handled entirely by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) under your store account. We never receive your payment details or your identity; we only record, in our usage statistics, that a tip of a given size was made.
Problem reports
If you report a problem, we store your message together with the product's barcode and name (when the report is about a product) and your device platform (iOS or Android). Reports are not linked to your account or email address, so please don't include personal information in them.
What we do not collect
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.
Wheat uses the following third-party services. By using Wheat, you acknowledge that data may be processed by these providers in accordance with their own privacy policies.
| Service | Provider | Purpose | Data shared |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firebase Authentication | Google LLC | Account creation and sign-in; anonymous identifier without an account | Email address; anonymous identifier |
| Cloud Firestore | Google LLC | Cloud database for research cache, account records and problem reports | Account record (email, dates, status); anonymized product/ingredient data; problem reports |
| Cloud Functions | Google LLC | Server-side ingredient parsing and research orchestration | Product barcodes and ingredient text |
| Gemini AI | Google LLC | Ingredient parsing, research and AI synthesis of ingredient research | Ingredient names, ingredient text and scientific literature excerpts |
| Firebase Analytics | Google LLC | Usage statistics | Usage events, device and app information, app-instance identifier, approximate country |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Google LLC | Crash reporting | Crash and error reports, device and app information, installation identifier |
| Firebase App Check | Google LLC (with Google Play Integrity / Apple DeviceCheck) | Protecting our servers from abuse | Device integrity attestation (no personal information) |
| Open Food Facts | Open Food Facts (nonprofit) | Product database lookup; product photos you choose to contribute | Product barcode; contributed photos (published publicly) |
| App Store / Google Play | Apple Inc. / Google LLC | Processing tips | Handled by the store under your store account; we receive no payment details |
| Europe PMC | EMBL-EBI | Searching scientific literature for ingredient research | Ingredient names only |
| USDA FoodData Central | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Nutritional data fallback | Product name and barcode |
| Pinecone | Pinecone Systems, Inc. | Vector database for ingredient research corpus | Ingredient search terms |
Google's privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy
Apple's privacy policy: apple.com/legal/privacy
Open Food Facts' privacy policy: world.openfoodfacts.org/privacy
You can delete your account at any time in the app under Settings → Account → Delete Account. Deletion permanently removes your email from our authentication system and your account record from our database. Usage statistics, crash reports and problem reports are not linked to your account, so they are not identifiable as yours; they expire as described above. Photos you contributed to Open Food Facts are managed by Open Food Facts.
Depending on your location, you may have the right to:
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.
California residents (CCPA): You have the right to know what personal information is collected, to request deletion, and to opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information.
EU/EEA residents (GDPR): The legal basis for processing your email address is contract performance (providing the service you signed up for). Usage statistics, crash reports, App Check verification and problem reports are processed on the basis of legitimate interest in keeping Wheat working, secure and improving. Photos you contribute to Open Food Facts are sent with your consent, given each time you confirm an upload. You may withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account.
Wheat is intended for users aged 16 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at [email protected] and we will delete it promptly.
Wheat is an information tool, not a medical service. Ingredient scores and health summaries are based on publicly available research and AI analysis. They are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always verify ingredient information on the physical product label, especially if you have allergies or specific health conditions.
We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify users of material changes via an in-app notice or email. Continued use of Wheat after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
This policy was last updated in October 2026.
For privacy questions, data requests, or concerns:
This agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA.