Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 13, 2026

VitalHelm is built local-first: your food diary lives on your phone, not on our servers. This policy explains what data the VitalHelm app and this website handle, what leaves your device and why, and the controls you have. If anything here is unclear, email support@vitalhelm.com.

Data that stays on your phone

The app stores the following in a database on your device only:

• Your profile (date of birth, sex, height, weight, goals, food preferences, allergies) and the daily calorie and macro targets calculated from it — the calculation happens on your phone.
• Your logged meals, weights, water intake, exercise entries, kitchen ingredients, saved recipes and coach chat history.
• Meal photos. Photos are kept on your device; they are transmitted only at the moment you request AI analysis (see below) and are not stored by us afterwards.
• Settings, including your language choice and reminder times. Reminders are scheduled locally on the device — no push-notification service is involved.

Deleting the app, or using Profile → Clear all data, removes this local data.

AI features: what is sent, and what happens to it

When you use an AI feature, the app sends the minimum needed to our server, which forwards it to an AI provider (Google Gemini, with OpenAI as an automatic fallback) to produce the result:

• Meal photo analysis / fridge scanning: the photo you chose and an optional note you typed.
• Quick text estimates: the food description you typed.
• Recipes: your ingredient list, food preferences and remaining calorie/macro budget for the day.
• Coaching (tips and chat): your targets, today's nutrition totals, activity summaries (such as step count and workout calories), recent trends and your chat messages.
• Language: the app's display language, so answers come back in your language.

Our server processes these requests in memory and does not store their contents — no photos, descriptions or coaching context are retained after the response is returned. Requests are processed by the AI providers under their API terms; we do not use your data for advertising and we do not sell it to anyone.

Optional cloud backup

Cloud backup is off until you sign in and use it. If you enable it:

• Account: we store your email address (verified by a sign-in link, or provided via Sign in with Apple / Google) and a sign-in token so your backup is yours.
• Backup contents: a snapshot of your profile, meals, weights, water, exercise, ingredients, settings and coach history. Meal photos are not included in backups.
• Storage: one snapshot per account, kept on our server (hosted on Railway) and replaced each time you back up.
• Deletion: in the app, Delete cloud backup removes the snapshot, and Delete account & all cloud data removes the snapshot and the account, immediately. Signing out revokes the device's token.

Health data

With your permission, VitalHelm reads steps and workout data from Apple HealthKit or Android Health Connect to adjust your daily energy budget. This data is processed and stored on your device. Daily activity summaries (for example, steps walked and workout calories burned) are included in AI coaching requests as described above. VitalHelm never writes to your health store and never sells health data.

This website

vitalhelm.com is a static site. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics or third-party trackers.

What we don't do

• No advertising, and no advertising SDKs in the app.
• No selling or renting of your data.
• No third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.

Children

VitalHelm is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

As VitalHelm approaches public launch this policy may be updated; the date above always reflects the current version, and material changes will be noted in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: support@vitalhelm.com.