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Privacy Policy

Ulamin is built so your kusina lives on your phone, on iPhone and Android alike. This policy explains exactly what leaves your device, why, who receives it, and how you can delete it.

Effective 6 November 2026

The short version

  • There’s no account. Your recipes, plans, lists, preferences and cook history are stored on your phone. If you start or join a family, your phone gets a random anonymous ID, with no email or password (section 6a).
  • Data leaves your phone only for features that need it: Kaldo’s chat and food scans (if you use them), voice typing, recipe videos, purchases, crash reports, backup to your own iCloud or Google account, and Family Sharing (if you start or join a family).
  • When you ask Kaldo a question, your food preferences go with it so he can tailor the answer. That can include allergies, health goals and, if you set it, your faith (section 3).
  • Scan photos are read on our server and not kept. Photos of dishes you finish cooking stay on your phone.
  • No ads, no usage analytics, no location, and we never sell your personal information.

Who we are

The Ulamin mobile app (“Ulamin,” “the app”) is developed and published by Clifford Francisco, doing business as Fordytech Solutions, based in Naga City, Camarines Sur, Philippines (“we,” “us”). We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. Contact us at support@fordytechsolutions.com.

This policy covers the Ulamin app on iPhone (iOS) and Android, and this website. It does not cover the websites or services of other companies that the app links to, such as YouTube.

1. Information stored on your device

Everything you enter in Ulamin is saved in a database on your phone, including:

  • Your meal plans, palengke lists and baskets, and weekly budgets
  • Saved recipes, collections, notes, and the ingredient prices you set
  • Your own recipes (typed in, scanned, or your versions of library recipes), with their photos
  • Your cook history, with the photo you take of each finished dish
  • Food preferences, all optional: household size, what you love and don’t eat, diet, allergies, health goals, spice level and faith
  • Your conversations with Kaldo
  • Your settings, such as language, appearance, sounds and reminders

We cannot see this information unless you send part of it to Kaldo (section 3). Deleting the app deletes it from your phone. Cloud backup is described in section 6.

So the app can apply Kaldo’s daily chat allowance without an account, it also creates a random ID for your installation and keeps it on your phone. It doesn’t identify you, and it is reset if you delete the app.

2. No account

Ulamin has no sign-up or login. We don’t collect your name, email address, phone number or password to use the app.

3. Kaldo, the AI kusina helper

When you send a message to Kaldo, the app sends the following to our server, which forwards it to our AI service provider, Google (the Gemini API), to write the answer:

  • Your message and the last few messages of the conversation (up to six in all)
  • The list of recipe names in Ulamin, the recipe you opened Kaldo from (if any), and this week’s meal plan
  • Today’s date and the next two weeks’ dates, so plans land on the right days
  • How many people you usually cook for
  • The food preferences you’ve set: what you love and don’t eat, diet, allergies, health goals, spice level, and, if you chose one, your faith and the foods it excludes
  • Your app language, the random installation ID, whether you have Ulamin Pro, and, if you do, your purchase ID (section 7)

Allergies, health goals and faith are sensitive. They are sent only when you use Kaldo, only so he can avoid and suggest the right dishes, and they are not stored by our server. You can leave any preference unset, or clear them all in Settings → Food preferences. Kaldo doesn’t receive your photos, location, contacts or cook history.

If you use voice typing, the words you say are turned into text by your phone’s speech recognition service: Apple on iPhone, Google on Android. Depending on your phone and language, this may happen on Apple’s or Google’s servers, under their privacy policies. Only the resulting text is sent to Kaldo.

4. Food scans

When you scan a dish, your phone first checks that the photo shows food, on the device: with Apple’s Vision on iPhone, and with Google’s ML Kit image labeling on Android. If it does, the app sends a reduced copy of the photo (about 1024 pixels), your app language, the random installation ID and, with Pro, your purchase ID to our server, which sends the photo to Google’s Gemini API to identify the dish and write the recipe. The photo is not stored on our server. On Android, ML Kit may send Google basic information about how the check performed (such as the device model), but not the photo.

Scanning a recipe from a cookbook page into My recipes works the same way.

5. How our server handles requests

Kaldo and scan requests go to our server, hosted by Expo (EAS Hosting) on Cloudflare’s network, which, like any web service, sees your IP address while handling the request. To apply the daily chat allowance (3 new chats in 24 hours on Free; a fair-use allowance with Pro), the server keeps a short record of each new conversation per installation ID and purchase ID (or, if there is none, per IP address): a random conversation ID, when it started, whether it was Free or Pro, how many answers it had and the AI usage it took, never the messages or answers, for up to 120 days. Scans are counted separately, per installation ID for the day. When a request to Google fails, the server logs the error code, the route and the country and data centre the request came through, but nothing you sent, no installation or purchase ID, and no IP address.

Google processes what we send it only to provide the Gemini service to us, under its terms for API customers. Please don’t put sensitive personal information, such as ID or bank numbers, in your messages. Kaldo can make mistakes; see our Terms of Use.

6. Cloud backup

Ulamin backs up your own recipes and their photos, plans, lists, notes, collections, food preferences, Kaldo chats and settings to the cloud account your phone already uses, free on every plan. We don’t run a backup server and cannot read these copies. With Ulamin Pro you can also save a backup file yourself, wherever you choose.

  • iPhone: the backup is kept in Ulamin’s folder in your iCloud, under Apple’s privacy policy. It uses a little of your iCloud storage.
  • Android: the backup is part of Android’s backup in your Google account, under Google’s privacy policy, if backup is on in your phone’s settings.

Photos of dishes you finish cooking are not included. You can turn off backup for Ulamin in your iCloud settings, or Android’s backup in your phone’s settings.

6a. Family Sharing (Pro to start, free to join)

If you start or join a family, Ulamin shares one meal plan and Palengke list with the people in it. There is still no sign-up: your phone gets an anonymous identity, a random ID with no email or password. The family’s admin shows an invite QR code or link that lasts 10 minutes; we keep only a scrambled (hashed) form of its token, never the token itself.

What is kept on our servers for a family: the family’s name, its members and their roles, the display name each member gives (shown to the others), the family’s shared meal plan and Palengke baskets and items, who added or ticked each one and when, notes on meals, and the recipes of your own that a shared meal uses (without their photos). Your own personal plan, lists, favorites, notes and Kaldo chats are not shared. Only people in the family can read the shared data. If you leave, or the admin removes you or deletes the family, the shared data is removed from your phone, and your personal plan and lists stay.

Family notifications. If you allow notifications, Ulamin sends your phone’s push token to our server, so we can tell you when someone in your family plans or changes a meal or the shopping list. Each person chooses which notifications they get, and the token is never shown to other members. We send each notification through Expo’s push service and Apple’s or Google’s notification service, which receive the token and the notification text. You can stop them in the app or in your phone’s Settings.

7. Purchases

Ulamin Pro is sold through the Apple App Store on iPhone and Google Play on Android. Apple or Google handles payment, and we never receive your card details. We use RevenueCat, a subscription management service, to check which plan you have and to restore purchases. It receives a random purchase ID, your purchase and subscription history, and basic device information such as the platform, app version and store country. When you use Kaldo or scan with Pro, our server asks RevenueCat whether that purchase ID has Pro.

8. Recipe videos

Recipe videos are YouTube videos. When you play one in the app, it loads from YouTube, which receives your IP address and information about your device and viewing, under Google’s privacy policy. Opening a video in the YouTube app works the same way. Nothing is loaded from YouTube until you open a video, apart from its preview image.

9. Camera, photos, microphone and notifications

The camera is used only when you scan a dish, photograph your own recipe or take the photo that finishes cooking; the photo library only when you choose a photo; the microphone only while you use voice typing. Reminders and cooking timers are scheduled on your phone as local notifications and alarms. The only push notifications are the ones Family Sharing sends if you use it and allow notifications (section 6a); without a family, no notification token is sent to a server. You can change each permission in your phone’s Settings at any time.

10. Crash and performance reports

We use Sentry to find and fix crashes. When the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report with technical details: the error, the app version, device model, operating system, the screen and the part of the app it happened in. It also measures how quickly some screens load. We set it not to collect personal information such as your IP address, and reports never include what you typed, said or photographed. Reports are kept for a limited period, typically up to 90 days.

11. Feedback and support email

Send feedback and Report a problem open your phone’s mail app with a message already filled in: the category, your app version, operating system and device model, and, for a recipe report, the recipe’s name. Nothing is sent until you send it from your mail app. We use your email only to reply and to fix the problem.

12. Why we use your information

We use information to provide the features you ask for (performing our contract with you), and to keep Ulamin secure, working and free of bugs (our legitimate interests). Food preferences such as allergies, health goals and faith are sent to Kaldo only with your consent, which you give by setting them and asking Kaldo a question; you can withdraw it by clearing them. We use the camera, photos and microphone only with your permission. We may also use information where the law requires it.

The companies that help us run Ulamin process data only to provide their service to us. We do not sell or rent personal information, we do not share it for advertising, and Ulamin has no ads or usage analytics.

13. How long we keep it

  • On-device data: until you delete it or delete the app
  • Cloud backup: in your iCloud or Google account, until you delete it there
  • Family Sharing: the shared plan and list until the family is deleted or you leave or are removed; push tokens until you turn notifications off or leave. The anonymous ID (no email) can be deleted on request
  • Kaldo messages and scan photos: not stored on our server after the answer is sent
  • Kaldo chat allowance records (no message text): up to 120 days, to apply the daily allowance and monitor AI cost
  • Crash reports: typically up to 90 days
  • Purchase records: as long as needed for your subscription and our tax and accounting obligations
  • Support emails: as long as needed to help you

14. Your choices and rights

  • Delete your data: delete what you like in the app, or delete the app to remove everything on your phone. Delete the backup in your iCloud settings (iPhone) or your Google account’s backups (Android).
  • Food preferences: change or clear them in Settings → Food preferences.
  • Family Sharing: in the app, open Settings → Your data → Family Sharing to leave the family, or (as admin) remove people or delete it, and to choose which family notifications you get. Email us to have your anonymous family identity deleted.
  • Subscriptions: deleting the app doesn’t cancel a subscription. On iPhone, cancel it in Settings → your name → Subscriptions. On Android, cancel it in the Google Play Store app → your profile picture → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions.
  • Permissions: turn camera, photos, microphone or notifications on or off in your phone’s Settings.
  • Requests: email support@fordytechsolutions.com to ask what we hold about you, or to correct or delete it. We’ll reply within 30 days. Because there is no account, we hold very little that can be linked to you.

Depending on where you live, including under the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012, the EU and UK GDPR, and California law, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or port your information, and to object to or restrict some uses. You can also complain to your local data protection authority. In the Philippines, that is the National Privacy Commission (privacy.gov.ph). We will not treat you differently for using these rights.

15. Security

Data sent between the app, our server and our providers is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, so use a passcode on your phone.

16. International transfers

We are based in the Philippines, and our providers may process data in other countries, including the United States. Where the law requires it, we rely on safeguards such as the providers’ standard contractual clauses.

17. Children

Ulamin is a cooking app for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country). We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

18. Changes to this policy

We’ll update this policy when the app or our providers change, and revise the effective date above. If a change is significant, we’ll let you know in the app or on this page before it takes effect.

Contact

Clifford Francisco (Fordytech Solutions)
Naga City, Camarines Sur, Philippines
support@fordytechsolutions.com