1. Overview

TSTE ("the App") is operated by Alexander Alber. We take your privacy seriously. This policy explains what data we collect, why, and how we handle it.

2. Data we collect

Account data (required): To use TSTE, you sign in with Sign in with Apple (the only login method). We receive your Apple ID and, if you choose, your name and email. We use this solely for account management and progress sync.

Usage data: Mission completions, points, badges, and progress are stored locally on your device. If you sign in, this data is synced to our servers (Supabase) so you can access it across devices.

Location data: The App uses your location to verify proximity to mission locations and provide navigation. This is processed on-device, and we store no coordinates of yours on our servers. There are two exceptions to the "stays on your device" rule: Dining Groups and your visit history; both are described below.

Dining Groups (social feature): When you create or join a Dining Group to plan a meetup with other players, your display name, precise location, and cuisine preferences are stored on our servers and shown to the other members of that group so you can agree on where to eat. This data is deleted when you delete your account.

Friends (social feature): When you connect with someone using a friend code or QR code, we store that connection. Your friends only see you under a pseudonym (e.g. "Foodie #A3F1"). As long as you have at least one friend and the "Lists visible to friends" setting is on, we store a copy of your bucket list on our servers and show it, together with your restaurant ratings, to your friends: every friend sees the average, the four category scores (Food, Service, Ambience, Value), and your rating photo; your free-text comment is only shown if you explicitly allow it via the "Share with friends" toggle when rating (default: off). If you turn the setting off or have no friends, the copy is deleted. All data is deleted when you delete your account. If you take the taste type test, we store your result on our servers. Your connected friends can see your current taste type, your top three taste directions and your taste profile only if you explicitly allow it after the test or switch on the "Taste type visible to friends" setting yourself. Without your consent (default: off) your result stays invisible to friends; you can withdraw consent at any time in Settings. Your quiz answers are never shown to friends.

Foodie name (optional): If you set a foodie name, we store it under your user ID and show it only to your friends, in their friends list next to your pseudonym (e.g. "Foodie #A3F1"). Everyone else still sees only the pseudonym. The foodie name has 2 to 20 characters, is always written in lowercase and is checked against a word list when you save it. You decide whether to use a real name or a made-up one. You can change or remove it at any time. The legal basis is performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). It is deleted when you delete your account.

Invites / referral program: If you invite friends to TSTE via your personal invite link or code, we store, under your user ID, who you invited and the progress of your invite rewards (referral ladder). This is used solely to calculate your rewards. If you connect through an invite code, we also store a SHA-256 hash of your device identifier (no plain-text identifier), so that an invite counts only once per device. This data is deleted when you delete your account.

Meetups (social feature): When you create or join a meetup to arrange a meal with others at a restaurant, we store the chosen restaurant (the mission), the city, date and time, the number of seats, optionally a theme and a target group, and two free-text fields that you write yourself: a description (up to 140 characters) and a meeting hint (up to 80 characters). We also store who is the host and who is a participant. Others only see you under a pseudonym (e.g. "Foodie #A3F1"), never with your name, email address, or account identifier. The description is visible to all signed-in users; the meeting hint is visible only to the host and the participants. Please do not put personal data such as a phone number or an address into the free-text fields. We store no location of yours for meetups: the meeting point is the restaurant. If you report a meetup or block a host, we store that under your user ID so that repeated reports are recognised and the block takes effect; we do not disclose who reported, and your block list is not visible to others. We review reported meetups manually and can hide them; in the review area we see the free texts, the report reasons, and the host pseudonym, but no names or email addresses. We use no additional service providers for meetups. Meetup data is deleted when you delete your account. Exception: if we ban a host for meetup abuse, we keep your user ID, a cryptographic hash of your Apple ID (no plaintext), and the ban reason even after account deletion, so a ban cannot be evaded by signing up again with the same Apple account. Our legal basis for this is our legitimate interest in preventing abuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We retain this ban data only for as long as necessary for that purpose.

Visit history (check-ins): When you complete a restaurant visit in the app, we store, under your pseudonymous user ID, which mission you visited, when you arrived, when the visit ended, how well the visit is evidenced (arrival confirmed, or arrival and stay confirmed), and whether you checked out yourself or the app closed a forgotten visit after twelve hours. We store no coordinates; the proximity check happens on your device. But the mission identifies the restaurant, so we say it plainly: this history is a record of when you were in which restaurant. We use it to recognise repeat visits (the basis for the loyalty stamp card) and, in future, to show restaurant partners aggregated visit counts in which individual users are not identifiable. Retention: 24 months from the visit, then automatic deletion. If you delete your account, the history goes with it immediately.

Analytics: Our website (tste.app) collects anonymous page views (page path, referrer) without cookies or personal identifiers. This is GDPR-compliant.

Waitlist signup: If you sign up for our city waitlist on the website, we store your email, city, and language preference so we can notify you when TSTE launches there. We do not use this for anything else.

Push notifications (optional): If you enable notifications, we store your device's push token together with your language, selected city, unlocked cities, and notification category preferences, so we can send you relevant pushes (e.g. reminders about open missions or meetups).

Premium subscription: If you subscribe to Premium, we verify the transaction data signed by Apple on our server and store, under your user ID, the product, the original transaction ID, purchase date, expiry date, and the verification and revocation status. We use this to grant Premium and to detect renewal, expiry, and refunds. We do not receive payment details such as card or account numbers; payment is handled entirely by Apple. The legal basis is performance of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). This data is deleted when you delete your account.

Activity ping: When you open the app, we report once per day that you were active. We store only your user ID and the date (UTC). We use this to understand how many users come back. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the app (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). This data is deleted when you delete your account.

Restaurant ratings (community): When you rate a mission, your 4-axis score (Food, Service, Ambience, Value) is submitted to our Supabase database under your pseudonymous user ID. Once a restaurant has at least 10 ratings, we display an aggregated "TSTE score" to other users; individual ratings are never shown publicly.

Mission photos (community): If you choose to upload photos with your rating, they are stored in a private Supabase Storage bucket and shown on the corresponding restaurant page to other TSTE users. Photos are published anonymously (no name attached). Before upload, EXIF metadata, including any GPS coordinates embedded by your camera, is stripped on-device by re-encoding the image. You can delete your own photos any time, or report photos uploaded by other users via the in-app Report button; we review reports within 24 hours and remove inappropriate content.

Restaurant suggestions: When you suggest a restaurant to us in the app, we store, under your user ID, the city, the name of the restaurant, optionally a link and optionally your reason (up to 300 characters), together with the time and the review status. Suggestions require a signed-in account and are limited to five in 24 hours. Before storing, an automatic word filter checks your reason for offensive terms. Your suggestion is not shown to any other users: we review it manually and decide whether the restaurant becomes part of TSTE. Please do not put personal data such as a phone number or an address into the reason. We use no additional service providers for this. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving the restaurant selection (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). This data is deleted when you delete your account.

Restaurant ratings from Google (Places API): To show you a restaurant's public rating, we send the restaurant's name, address, and coordinates (not your personal data) to the Google Places API. Results are cached on our servers for up to 30 days to limit how often this lookup happens.

Recipe comment-to-DM (Instagram): If you comment on a TSTE Instagram post asking for a recipe, we receive your Instagram-scoped user ID and the relevant comment and post IDs via Meta's webhook, and use InstantDM (a Meta Tech Provider) to send you the recipe by Instagram DM. This data is used solely to deliver that DM and is not linked to your TSTE account.

Restaurant Partner Portal (business owners): If you register or manage a restaurant through our Restaurant Partner Portal, we collect your business contact email, a salted-and-hashed one-time login code (the plain code is never stored), and a log of your own edits to your restaurant's listing. Login codes are delivered by email via Resend (San Francisco, USA), which processes your email address solely to transmit that message. Portal data is retained for as long as your restaurant listing is active and is never used for marketing. See Section 9 for details specific to restaurant partners.

3. Data we do NOT collect

• We do not sell your data to third parties
• We do not use advertising trackers
• We do not store your precise GPS coordinates on our servers, except when you use Dining Groups to coordinate a meetup with other players (see Section 2)
• We do not use cookies on our website

4. Data storage

App data is stored locally on your device using Apple's SwiftData framework. If you sign in, synced data is stored on Supabase (hosted in the EU). Purchases are handled entirely by Apple's App Store; we do not process or store payment information.

5. Your rights (GDPR)

You have the right to:

• Access your data
• Request deletion of your account and all associated data
• Export your data
• Withdraw consent at any time

To exercise these rights, contact us at info@tste.app.

6. Data retention

Signed-in user data, including mission, rating, Dining Group, friend, bucket-list, meetup, referral, push-token, subscription, activity, and restaurant-suggestion data, is retained until you delete your account, which removes it. Your visit history (check-ins) is the exception: it is deleted automatically 24 months after each visit, even while your account remains. Ban data for meetup abuse (see Section 2) is also an exception: it remains after account deletion to prevent abuse. Anonymous analytics data is retained for 12 months.

7. Children's privacy

The App is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

8. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be communicated via the App or website.

9. Restaurant Partner Portal (business owners)

This section applies if you register or manage a restaurant on TSTE as a business owner, separately from the app-user data described in Section 2.

• What we collect: your business contact email, a salted-and-hashed one-time login code (never the plain code), and a history of edits you make to your restaurant's listing (menu, photos, business details).
• Partner applications: if you apply to list your restaurant, we also collect the restaurant name, city, and any message you submit via the application form.
• Third-party processor: login-code emails are sent via Resend (San Francisco, USA), under the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in our data processing agreement with Resend.
• Retention: portal data is kept for as long as the restaurant listing is active on TSTE; it is deleted on request or when a listing is permanently removed.
• Your rights: the same GDPR rights in Section 5 apply; contact info@tste.app to access, export, or delete your restaurant-owner data.

10. Contact

Alexander Alber
Toemlingerstr. 21
81375 München
Germany
info@tste.app