MealDuel Privacy Policy

Last updated July 26, 2026

MealDuel ("we", "us") is a group voting app for deciding where to eat. This page explains what data the app collects, why, and how it's handled.

What we collect

• A display name you choose. Not a real-identity check — just a name shown to other people in your voting session.
• An account identifier. By default your account is anonymous — we don't collect an email address, phone number, or password. This identifier is what session, restaurant-pick, and vote data is stored against.
• Your email address and name, only if you choose to sign in with Apple or Google. Signing in is optional; its purpose is to keep your Premium status if you reinstall the app or switch devices. If you never sign in, we never receive these. Apple's "Hide My Email" is supported — if you use it, we only ever see the relay address Apple generates.
• Session data. The restaurants submitted, votes cast, and duel choices made during a session, so the app can sync live across everyone in it.
• A push notification token (native app only, if you grant notification permission), so we can send you a "round started" or "you still need to vote" alert for a session you're in.
• Your device location (native app only, if you grant location permission), used only to bias restaurant search results toward nearby places via the Google Places API. Location is used in the moment of that search and is not stored on our servers.
• Whether you have a Premium subscription. We record that an account is entitled to Premium, not how you paid — see Purchases below.

Who we share it with

We use Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Messaging) to run the app, and the Google Places API to power restaurant search. Purchases go through RevenueCat, and the free tier shows ads served by Google AdMob — both are described below. Data you submit is visible to other participants in the same voting session, since that's the point of the app.

We don't sell your data. We don't share your display name, session activity, votes, email, or location with advertisers.

Ads

The free version of MealDuel shows a banner ad served by Google AdMob. Premium removes ads entirely.

We request non-personalized ads only. That means ads are chosen based on general context rather than a profile of your interests or behavior, and MealDuel does not track you across other apps and websites — on iOS this is why the app never asks for permission to track you.

To serve an ad and to guard against fraud, Google still receives technical data from your device, such as its IP address, device and operating-system details, and a device identifier used for limiting how often the same ad repeats. We don't send Google your name, email, location, votes, or anything else you enter in the app. Google's handling of this data is covered by its own policy: Google's Privacy & Terms.

Purchases

Premium is billed by Apple or Google through your App Store or Play Store account. Payment details go to them, never to us — we never see your card number.

We use RevenueCat to keep track of whether a subscription is active. RevenueCat receives your MealDuel account identifier and the purchase receipt from the store so it can tell the app whether Premium is active. It does not receive your votes, sessions, or location.

Data retention & deletion

Session data persists in our database so results remain visible to participants after a session ends. There's no self-serve "delete my account" flow today — email us at the address below and we'll delete the data tied to your account, whether it's anonymous or signed in.

Children's privacy

MealDuel is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them.

Changes to this policy

We'll update the date at the top of this page whenever this policy changes.

Contact

Questions or data requests: [email protected]