Privacy Policy

How we collect, use, and protect your data

Effective Date: April 15, 2026

Sharp Cooking ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your personal information.

By using Sharp Cooking, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use our service.

What information we collect

Account information

When you create an account, we collect your name and email address. Email is used for authentication, account recovery, and service notifications (like shared recipes or security alerts). We never sell your email to third parties.

Recipe data

Your recipes, meal plans, shopping lists, tags, and notes are stored in our database. This content belongs to you. We use it only to provide the service — we don't sell your recipe data or share it with third parties.

Usage data

We collect basic usage statistics through Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused, cookieless analytics service. This includes page views, referral sources, and device types — but no personal information. Plausible doesn't track you across websites and complies with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations without requiring cookie consent.

Image uploads

Recipe photos you upload are stored on Cloudinary, a third-party image hosting service. Images are private by default and only accessible through Sharp Cooking. Cloudinary's privacy policy is available at cloudinary.com/privacy.

AI processing during recipe import

When you import a recipe — from a URL, a photo, a PDF, or pasted text — the source content is sent to a third-party AI service to extract the recipe structure (title, ingredients, instructions, timing). This is what allows Sharp Cooking to turn a cluttered webpage or a photograph of handwritten notes into a clean, editable recipe.

We use two AI services for this:

  • Anthropic (Claude) — The content you submit during import is processed under Anthropic's API terms, which prohibit using API inputs to train their models. Privacy policy: anthropic.com/privacy
  • Groq — Groq (not to be confused with Grok, which is X/Twitter's AI product — these are entirely separate companies) is a hardware and infrastructure company that runs open-source AI models, including Llama, developed by Meta. Groq runs these models on their own dedicated hardware; your data is not processed by Meta. Privacy policy: groq.com/privacy-policy

What this means for your data:

  • AI only processes content when you are importing it. Your saved recipes, meal plans, notes, and shopping lists are never sent to an AI service.
  • Not used for training. We use these services under agreements that prohibit using your content to train their models.
  • Not retained after processing. Once extraction is complete, the content is not stored by the AI service.
  • You review the result. The AI produces a draft. You see it before anything is saved. Everything is editable.

How we use your information

We use your information to:

  • Provide the service: Store and sync your recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists across devices
  • Authenticate you: Verify your identity when you sign in via magic links or passkeys
  • Communicate: Send account notifications, shared recipe alerts, and service updates
  • Improve the service: Analyze aggregated usage data to fix bugs and add features
  • Prevent abuse: Detect and prevent spam, copyright violations, and terms of service violations

We do not: Sell your data, track you across the web, use your recipes to train AI models, or share your personal information with data brokers.

Cookie policy

Strictly necessary cookies

We use minimal, strictly necessary cookies for authentication. These cookies keep you logged in and cannot be disabled without breaking core functionality. They don't track you or share data with third parties.

No tracking cookies

We don't use tracking cookies, marketing cookies, or third-party cookies beyond the ones mentioned above. Our analytics (Plausible) is completely cookieless. You won't see intrusive cookie consent banners because we don't need them.

Third-party services

For AI recipe extraction, we use Anthropic and Groq. See the AI processing section above for full details on what data is sent and how it is handled.

We also use third-party providers for database hosting, image storage, email delivery, web hosting, and analytics. These providers process data only as necessary to deliver the service and are contractually prohibited from using it for their own purposes.

Questions about specific providers? Email us at hello@sharpcooking.com.

Data protection

Recipe privacy

Your recipes are private by default. We actively block search engine crawlers (Google, Bing, etc.) and AI web scrapers (GPTBot, Claude-Web, etc.) from indexing your content. Recipe URLs require authentication and aren't publicly accessible.

Security measures

We use industry-standard security practices: HTTPS encryption for all connections, secure authentication tokens, restricted database access, and automatic security updates. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. While no system is 100% secure, we take security seriously and review it regularly.

Data breaches

In the unlikely event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we'll notify you via email within 72 hours and explain what information was compromised and what steps we're taking to address it.

Your rights

Most of these you can do yourself in Settings — no need to contact us:

  • Access your data — your recipes, plans, and lists are always visible in the app
  • Export your data — Settings → Export
  • Delete your account and all data — Settings → Delete Account
  • Correct your account information — Settings → Profile

For anything not covered in Settings — objecting to data processing, questions about what we hold, or GDPR/CCPA requests — email hello@sharpcooking.com. We'll respond within 30 days.

California users: we don't sell personal data, so CCPA opt-out doesn't apply. EU users: all standard GDPR rights apply.

Data retention and deletion

We keep your account data and recipes for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account (Settings → Delete Account), we permanently delete:

  • All recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists
  • Your name and email address
  • Authentication tokens and session data
  • Recipe photos from Cloudinary

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Export any recipes you want to keep before deleting your account.

We may retain anonymized usage statistics (from Plausible Analytics) after account deletion, but these cannot be linked back to you.

Children's privacy

Cooking is a family affair. Parents are welcome to create an account and share it with their children as part of a household — the account belongs to the parent.

Sharp Cooking does not knowingly allow children under 13 to create their own independent accounts. If we discover that a child under 13 has registered independently, we'll delete the account immediately. If you're a parent and believe this has happened, email hello@sharpcooking.com.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we'll notify you via email and post the updated policy with a new effective date at the top.

Your continued use of Sharp Cooking after policy changes means you accept the updated policy.

Contact us

Questions about this Privacy Policy, how we handle your data, or want to exercise your privacy rights:

Email: hello@sharpcooking.com

Data Controller: Schick Creative LLC

Last updated: April 15, 2026