Privacy Policy

Version 1. Effective date: 15 October 2026.

Operator: SelfCtrl Ltd (registered in England and Wales, company number 17503835, registered office 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA).

This Privacy Policy explains how SelfCtrl ("we", "us") collects, uses, and protects your information when you use the SelfCtrl service (the "Service"). SelfCtrl is currently offered as an early access preview to a limited, invited group of users.

Who we are

SelfCtrl Ltd, the operator named above, is the controller of your personal data.

Information we collect

Account information. You sign in with your Google account. We receive the email address and name (and, if Google provides one, a profile picture) associated with the account you choose. We do not request access to your Gmail, Drive, or other Google content.

Content you provide, and what we derive from it. Meal photos and notes you submit for logging; the nutrition estimates made from them; and optional profile information such as biometrics, activity level, and nutrition or weight goals. This can reveal information about your health; the Health Data Consent page covers it in detail.

Photo location (optional, off by default). Some photos carry location data set by your camera. We only read it if you turn on "Photo location" in Context — off until you choose to enable it, and you can turn it off again at any time. When on, we reduce the coordinates to an approximate area (several kilometres across, not your exact spot) and use that, for that photo only, to make the nutrition estimate more accurate (for example, favouring a cuisine typical of that area). We do not store the location, use it for any other purpose, or show it to you or anyone else.

Your agreements. We record which version of the Terms of Service you agreed to, which version of this Policy you confirmed you had read, and which version of the health data consent you gave, each with the time.

How we use your information

We use your information to provide and improve the Service, including generating nutrition estimates, showing your meal history, and maintaining your account and goals. We also use limited technical logs for legitimate security, fraud-prevention, monitoring, and diagnostic purposes — for example, to detect abuse, investigate errors, and keep the Service reliable.

We do not use your individual photos, notes, or account content for marketing, advertising, or behavioural analytics, and we do not sell your private information.

Legal basis

Your account and the Service: to perform our contract with you (the Terms).
Health data (meal content, estimates, profile and goals): your explicit consent, given on the Health Data Consent page.
Security and diagnostic logs: our legitimate interest in keeping the Service safe and working.
Records of your agreements: to show that you agreed and consented.

Who receives your information

Service providers that host, store and process data on our behalf, under contract and only to run the Service, including a third-party AI provider that produces the estimates (see the Health Data Consent page for what it receives). Google, when you sign in. We do not sell your information or share it with anyone else unless the law requires us to.

Some of these providers may process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or approved contract terms, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

Photos

Photos you upload are kept private to your account and are never shared publicly or with other users. We do not retain full-size, unprocessed originals indefinitely: a resized display copy and a small thumbnail are generated shortly after upload, the original is deleted within a short period, and older display photos and thumbnails are automatically deleted on a rolling basis as part of routine data lifecycle management.

Cookies and local storage

We do not use marketing, advertising, performance, or analytics cookies or tracking technologies of any kind, so there is no cookie banner. The only data stored in your browser is what's strictly necessary to keep you securely signed in (an authentication token and a short-lived value used during sign-in). This is used solely for authentication and security, never for tracking across websites.

Data retention

We keep each meal, with its estimate and any notes you added, for five years after the date of the meal, and then delete it automatically. Photos are kept for a much shorter period (see Photos above). We keep the rest of your account data (your profile, goals, and a record of the agreements you accepted) for as long as your account exists.

Once paid plans are available, if your subscription has lapsed and you have not added or edited a meal for a year, we will delete your account and its data.

Deleting your account, including to withdraw your health data consent, deletes your data from the Service straight away; copies in our encrypted backups expire within 45 days. Technical security and diagnostic logs are retained only as long as needed for those purposes and are then deleted.

Your rights and deleting your data

You can download a CSV copy of your meal history, and permanently delete your account and everything associated with it (meals, photos, profile, and goals), from the Account page (reached via the Profile menu's "Account" link). Deletion cannot be undone. Short lived usage counters (not meal data) may remain for up to about a week in order to detect and prevent abuse or excessive usage. These expire and are removed automatically once their retention period is over (typically 7-8 days).

You also have the right to access, correct, restrict or object to our use of your information, to receive a copy of it, and to withdraw your consent at any time (see the Health Data Consent page for what that means). Contact support [at] selfctrl [dot] co [dot] uk to use any of these. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

We make no decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Security

We use industry-standard technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including encryption in transit and restricted access to production systems. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we will do our best to protect it.

Not medical advice

SelfCtrl is a personal logging tool. It is not a medical device, a dietetic service, or a substitute for medical, nutritional, or clinical advice. If you have a health condition or an eating-disorder concern, please seek qualified care rather than relying on this app.

Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time, including as the Service moves from early access to general availability and paid plans. We will update the effective date above when we do, and material changes will be communicated to you.

Contact

Questions about this Policy, or reports that something in the Service is not working, can be sent to support [at] selfctrl [dot] co [dot] uk.