Privacy policy

Who runs Our Table

Our Table is a private meal-planning and recipe app maintained by David James Essery. This policy covers the app and this privacy page.

For privacy questions or app support, email david@theesserys.com.

What the app stores

The app stores the information you add and the results you choose to keep, including:

• Recipes, ingredients, methods, photographs, notes, favourites, meal categories and recipe statuses.
• Meal plans, shopping lists, pantry items and cooked-meal history.
• Dietary profiles, exclusions, allergies, personal food avoidances and household notes. These may include health-related information.
• AI recipe suggestions, questions, answers and proposed changes.
• Reminder schedules, notification preferences, cooking progress and app settings.

Unaccepted recipe-import drafts, saved-recipe discussions, cooking progress and device notification preferences stay local to that device. Selected recipe photos may be kept with an accepted recipe. Recovery copies can contain older versions of your information.

We do not add advertising or third-party analytics SDKs to Our Table. If you use TestFlight, Apple collects beta-testing information such as crash logs, usage and feedback under its TestFlight terms and privacy information.

Household sharing is your choice

When you connect a shared household, Apple CloudKit stores shared recipes and selected photos, dietary profiles, household notes, meal plans, shopping information, pantry items, meal history, pending recipe ideas and their follow-up discussions, and reminder schedules.

Invited household members can view and edit that shared content. Shared data is not posted to a public recipe feed. Each device separately controls whether it receives reminder notifications.

Leaving or disconnecting a household keeps a local copy on the device. Revoking an invitation does not erase copies or exports that another person has already saved. iCloud storage and account settings are also governed by Apple’s privacy policy.

What goes to AI

AI features are optional. Requests travel over HTTPS through our private service hosted on Google Cloud, currently in London, to OpenAI for processing. OpenAI processing is not promised to stay in the UK.

Meal ideas and recipe advice

These requests include the relevant dietary profiles and household notes, your preferences or question, the working recipe, relevant recent follow-up messages and rejected recipe titles. They may contain health-related information if you put it in your profile or request. Saved recipe photos are not included in these advice requests.

Recipe imports

These requests include the photo, PDF, pasted text or public webpage content you select, its source URL when applicable, and any import notes. Dietary profiles are not included in extraction requests. Photo imports are re-encoded to remove image metadata; PDFs are sent as selected and may contain their own metadata. Avoid including personal information that is not needed for the recipe.

For website imports, our service fetches the public recipe address. It does not forward your app connection key, browser cookies or website login credentials to that site.

How requests are used

The private service processes requests rather than keeping a separate recipe library or uploaded-file archive. Hosting providers can retain operational or security logs. OpenAI’s default API policy does not use API content to train its models unless the account holder opts in. OpenAI can retain abuse-monitoring data for up to 30 days by default, with exceptions for safety or legal obligations. Asking not to store response state does not mean zero retention.

Read OpenAI’s API data controls for its current retention rules. AI output still needs human review; it is not an allergy-safety or medical assessment.

Camera, photos and reminders

Camera: access is requested when you choose to take a recipe photo. Captured photos are not automatically saved to your photo library.

Photos and Files: system pickers let you choose specific images and documents. Our Table does not request access to your whole photo library for this workflow. Choosing a source alone does not upload it; the import action starts the AI request.

Notifications: permission is requested when you enable notifications on that device or send a test. Notification delivery is handled locally by iOS; reminder schedules can be shared through your household, but device opt-in is not shared.

Our Table does not request location, microphone or contacts access. You can change camera and notification permissions in iOS Settings.

Keeping and deleting information

App content remains on your device or in the connected iCloud household until you remove it. You can edit profiles, delete recipes and reminders, and discard import drafts in the app. A shared deletion takes effect on other devices after they sync.

Deletion removes an item from the active view; it is not a secure-erasure guarantee. Recovery copies, the household’s initial snapshot and sync conflict history can retain older content. Other people may also have their own copies or exports. Removing the app does not automatically erase shared iCloud data.

To stop sending new information to AI, stop using its features or withdraw AI-sharing permission in the app where offered. You can continue organising recipes manually. This does not remove information already processed by providers.

For help with a complete deletion request, older recovery copies or service-held information, contact david@theesserys.com. Some iCloud data is controlled by the household owner or Apple account holder; we will explain the steps needed rather than claim we can remotely erase every copy.

The services involved

• Apple: iCloud household storage and sharing, system permissions, local notification delivery and TestFlight distribution.
• Google Cloud: the private service that handles optional AI requests and retrieves public recipe pages. See Google’s privacy information.
• OpenAI: optional recipe generation, extraction and advice. Its API processing and retention policies apply to submitted requests.
• This website’s hosting providers: serve this privacy page and may process network request details, such as IP address and request time, for delivery and security.

This page has no added advertising, analytics scripts, contact forms or newsletter signup. Contacting us by email sends the information you choose to include to our email service.

Your choices and questions

You can use Our Table without enabling AI, household sharing, camera access or notifications. You can change dietary information, choose what to share, export your recipe collection and ask for help with access, correction or deletion.

If applicable data-protection law gives you additional rights over your personal information, contact us to exercise them. We may need enough information to identify the relevant request or household, and will explain any limits caused by data held only on your device, by another household member or under a provider’s control.

The app is intended for private adult household use and is not directed at children. We may update this policy when the app or its services change; the effective date above identifies the current version.