Privacy Policy

1. Data Collection and Consent

We collect the following information to provide and improve our service:

• Wine preferences and ratings — stored on your device to power your personalized recommendations. To measure and improve recommendation quality, we also retain a limited, pseudonymous snapshot of your ratings on our servers for as long as you have an account (see Data Storage, Security, and Retention).
• Anonymous usage analytics — to improve the service and user experience.
• Device information and app performance data — for compatibility and stability.
• Optional location data — for regional wine suggestions, only with your explicit permission.
• Photos of wine lists — processed immediately for OCR and never stored on our servers.
• Email address — collected only when you create an account; used for sign-in and password recovery.
• Firebase account identifier (UID) — a pseudonymous identifier linking your account to your device; it does not reveal your identity.
• Age attestation record — at account creation we record a timestamp, the version of the terms you accepted, the jurisdiction and age threshold shown to you, and your IP address, as legal evidence that you confirmed you are of legal drinking age.

Data Minimization. We collect only the minimum data necessary to deliver our core service.

Consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time through app settings or by contacting us. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing performed before withdrawal.

2. Data Usage

Your data is used to:

• Personalize wine recommendations based on your taste profile
• Improve our recommendation features, including measuring whether your recommendations get better as you rate more wines
• Analyze app performance and user experience
• Provide customer support when you contact us
• Comply with applicable legal requirements

3. Data Storage, Security, and Retention

We use industry-standard security practices to protect your information:

• Data in transit is protected using TLS encryption, and data at rest is encrypted by our cloud provider.
• Wine-list photos are processed in memory and immediately discarded — they are never written to our servers.
• Account data is hosted on Google Cloud Platform, which maintains SOC 2 compliance for its infrastructure.
• We apply access controls and pseudonymization where appropriate.

Retention. Account data (your email, Firebase UID, and attestation record) is retained until you delete your account, at which point it is permanently erased from our servers. To measure and improve recommendation quality, we retain a limited, pseudonymous snapshot of your wine ratings — the wine name, your 1–5 rating, and the relevant dates, linked only to your Firebase UID. We do not store your free-text tasting notes. We keep these snapshots for as long as you have an account — they power your own recommendations — and erase them immediately when you delete your account. We also delete them automatically after 3 years of account inactivity. We rely on our legitimate interest in improving the recommendations you receive as the legal basis for retaining them. Your full Wine Journey and taste preferences otherwise remain on your device. Aggregated, anonymous usage analytics are retained only in de-identified form that cannot reasonably be linked back to you.

4. User Rights

You have the right to:

• Be Forgotten — request complete deletion of your personal data.
• Data Portability — request a copy of your account data.
• Opt-Out — opt out of non-essential data collection at any time.
• Correction — correct inaccurate personal information we hold.
• Withdraw Consent — at any time, without penalty.
• In-App Account Deletion — delete your account at any time via Settings → Delete my account, which immediately removes your account, email, attestation record, and any retained rating snapshots from our servers and from Firebase Authentication.

5. Third-Party Services

Sommelier Snap integrates with the following third-party services, each governed by its own privacy policy:

• Google Cloud Platform — cloud infrastructure and hosting
• Firebase (Google) — anonymous sign-in, email/password authentication, and account management
• OpenAI — AI-powered wine recommendation engine (wine-list text and your taste profile are sent to generate recommendations; we do not send your email or identity)
• Google Cloud Vision — optical character recognition (OCR) for wine-list processing

6. Children's Privacy

Sommelier Snap is intended only for adults of legal drinking age. The App is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 years of age (or from anyone under the legal drinking age in their jurisdiction). If we learn that we have collected such information, we will delete it promptly. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us at privacy@sommeliersnap.com.

7. Prospective Tester Contacts

To run our invitation-only beta, we may store the name and email address of individuals invited to test the App, including contacts provided to us by existing testers. We rely on our legitimate interest in operating and growing the beta as the legal basis for this limited processing. If you have been invited and do not wish to have your contact information stored, or you wish to have it deleted, contact us at privacy@sommeliersnap.com and we will remove it.

8. International Transfers

Your data may be transferred to and processed in the United States, where our servers and service providers are located. By using the App, you consent to this transfer, subject to the protections described in this Policy.

9. GDPR (EEA/UK Users)

For users in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, we comply with the GDPR by ensuring a lawful basis for processing, data protection by design, and breach notification as described below. Our legal bases for processing are:

• Consent — for optional features.
• Legitimate Interest — for service improvement, fraud prevention, and beta operation.
• Legal Obligation — for compliance with applicable laws.
• Contract Performance — for delivering the service you requested.

10. CCPA (California Users)

For California residents, we honor the right to know what personal data is collected, the right to delete it, the right to opt out of any sale of personal data (we do not sell your data), and the right to non-discrimination for exercising these rights.

11. Data Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours where required by law, and we will notify affected users without undue delay, with information about the breach and recommended steps to protect yourself.

12. Contact

For privacy questions or requests:

• Privacy inquiries: privacy@sommeliersnap.com

We aim to respond to all inquiries within 30 days.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we make a material change to how we handle your personal data, we will require you to review and accept the updated terms before continuing to use the App.

14. Account Lifecycle

Sommelier Snap supports anonymous browsing without an account. Creating an account is required only to save wines to your Wine Journey or to save scanned wine lists.

When you create an account, we store: your email address, your Firebase UID, the date and time you attested to being of legal drinking age, the version of the terms you accepted, the jurisdiction and age threshold shown to you, and the IP address at attestation. To generate recommendations, your wine ratings are sent to our servers, where — beyond producing your recommendations — we retain a limited, pseudonymous snapshot of them (wine name, rating, and dates; never your free-text notes) for as long as you have an account, to measure and improve recommendation quality. Your full Wine Journey and taste preferences otherwise live on your device.

When you delete your account via Settings → Delete my account, all of the above — including any retained rating snapshots — is permanently and immediately removed from our servers, and wine data on your device is cleared. There is no recovery period; deletion is irreversible.