Privacy Policy

Last updated 13 October 2026

MintChip is a habit-and-behaviour app for people who do not want to count calories. This policy explains what the app collects, why, and what you can do about it, and it covers this website separately where the two differ. It describes the app as it actually works today. MintChip is publicly available on the App Store and can be downloaded on iPhone in the regions where it is listed. If we change how the app or this website handles your data, we will update this page.

Who operates MintChip

MintChip is operated by MkStudios – Mario Koll, Drosselweg 5/2, 4030 Linz, Austria. You can reach us at office@mintchip.app for any question about this policy or your data. Full company details are in our Impressum.

What we collect and why

Account and sign-in

You create an account with an email address and password, with Sign in with Apple, or with Google Sign-In. We store your email address, the sign-in method you used, and an internal account identifier. If you enter a first name during setup, we store that so the app can greet you. We use this only to sign you in and to keep your data attached to your account.

Setup answers

During setup MintChip asks a few questions to calculate your starting Treat Balance. We store your answers about sugary drinks, snacking, and eating out.

What you log

The app exists to record what you eat and drink, so this is the bulk of what we hold:

• Meals, treats, and drinks you log — including any description you type, the attributes you pick (such as whether there was protein or vegetables, portion size, where the food came from), and the time of the entry.
• Optional extras you may add to an entry, such as how full you felt afterwards, how the treat felt afterwards, or whether it was planned.
• Your coin balance and coin history, weekly summaries, streaks, badges, your Focus, and any experiments you accept.
• Optional daily mood ratings and check-ins.

We use this to run the app's features: your Treat Balance, your history, your Insights, and your Coach.

Weight and progress photos — both optional

MintChip works fully without either of these.

• Weight: if you turn on weight tracking, we store the weights you enter with their date and unit, plus your chosen goal, starting weight, and pace.
• Progress photos: if you add one, the image is stored in a private storage area under your account, together with the date and any note you add. Photos are not public, are not shared with anyone, and are not sent to any AI service.

You can skip both, and you can delete photos individually at any time.

Photos of food and drinks

When you use the photo ("Snap") logging feature, the picture is sent to OpenAI so it can be turned into a meal entry. MintChip does not store that picture. It is used for the classification and then discarded. We keep only the resulting entry and a small technical record of the classification (which method was used and what kind of item it identified) so we can monitor how well the feature works.

AI processing

MintChip uses OpenAI for two separate things: recognising what you log, and the Coach. Each is its own request to OpenAI.

Recognising what you log

• When you type a description of a meal, treat or drink, the text you typed is sent so it can be turned into a structured entry.
• When you log a meal, treat or drink with a photo, the image is sent, as described above.

The Coach

So that its answers fit your own habits, the Coach uses relevant parts of your MintChip history. Each time you send the Coach a message, our server puts together a written summary from your account and sends it to OpenAI, together with your message and the most recent messages of the current conversation. Depending on what you have logged and which features you use, that summary can include:

• What you logged recently — the names saved for your meals, treats and drinks, when you had them, and the details recorded with them, such as where a meal came from, whether it included protein, fruit or vegetables or a starchy base, its size, how full you felt, what you drank, and whether a treat was planned.
• Patterns MintChip has worked out from your logs — for example the makeup and timing of your meals, your treat and snack habits, the items you log most often, and how these compare with the period before.
• Your own check-ins — for example summaries of your mood ratings and day check-ins, and any days you marked as Vacation or Sick mode.
• Your progress in the app — your Treat Balance and what you have spent, how regularly you log, your current Focus and your progress on it, and whether you use optional features such as Wins.
• Your weight trend, only if you have turned on weight tracking — the direction of the trend your Progress view shows, how many times you have weighed in recently, and when you last did. If weight tracking is off, no weight information is sent.

The exact contents of the summary can change as MintChip improves. If we start sending a new kind of information, we will update this page.

These calls are made by our servers, not by your phone, and our API credentials never leave our servers. The Coach model has no access to our database — it can only see the text summary we send it. This processing takes place on OpenAI's infrastructure, which is outside the EU. The Coach is not sent your email address, your name, your account identifier, your progress photos, the photos you log meals with, or any weight you have recorded — it is told how your weight is trending, not what you weigh. Your messages and the names saved for your entries are sent as they are written, so anything you type into them reaches OpenAI.

MintChip does not store your Coach conversation on our servers. It is kept on your own device, under your account, and stays there between sessions until you delete your account or sign out — it is not synced anywhere. On our servers we keep only a timestamped record that a message was sent, so we can enforce a daily usage limit.

Analytics and diagnostics in the app

This section is about the MintChip app. Analytics on this website works differently and is described separately below.

MintChip uses PostHog to understand how the app is used and to catch crashes. Events are sent to PostHog's EU ingestion servers. We do not use automatic capture of everything you tap — the app sends a defined list of product events, for example that onboarding was completed or that a meal log succeeded or failed. Events are linked to your account identifier, so this data is not anonymous.

Session replay is switched off. PostHog's session recording is disabled for our project, so the app does not record your screens. If we switch it on again we will say so here first, and it would then run only for accounts that have agreed to analytics: text you type into fields, images, and system views are masked before recording, and network content and console logs are never recorded. Uncaught errors are reported so we can fix crashes; that is separate from replay and follows the same analytics choice.

Analytics is your choice. You are asked when you create your account, and you can change your mind at any time in Settings → Data & Privacy → Analytics consent. If you decline, MintChip sends no product events, no session replays and no error reports — and nothing is collected while we are still checking what you chose. Declining does not limit any feature of the app.

Measuring our ads

We advertise MintChip and want to know whether those ads work. This is separate from analytics: it has its own purpose and its own choice, and agreeing to one does not agree to the other.

For everyone: Apple's ad attribution

When you first open the app, it tells Apple that it has been opened. Apple uses this for its own privacy-preserving ad attribution (SKAdNetwork): if you installed MintChip after seeing one of our ads, Apple reports that to the ad network in aggregated form and with a delay. MintChip itself sends the ad network nothing for this.

Only if you opt in: Meta

MintChip contains software from Meta (the company behind Facebook and Instagram). It stays switched off unless two things are both true: you have turned on "Ad measurement", which is off by default, and we have activated this measurement on our side. You can turn Ad measurement on when you create your account or later in Settings. We record the date and time you gave this consent.

When Meta's software is running, it can send Meta:

• Technical information about your device and the app: device model, iOS version, app version, language and region, time zone, mobile carrier name, screen size, processor and storage size, the version of Meta's software, whether you have allowed apps to track you, and your IP address.
• If we have enabled it, app events: that MintChip was installed and opened, that an account was created and whether you signed up with Apple, Google or email, and that you finished setting up the app — together with an identifier Meta's software creates for this installation of the app.
• Possibly crash reports about Meta's own software.

We have configured Meta's software not to collect your device's advertising identifier, and we do not ask for permission to track you across other companies' apps and websites. We do not send Meta what you eat or drink, your photos, your weight or goals, your check-ins, your messages to the Coach, your name, your email address or your MintChip account identifier.

This information is not anonymous: it relates to your device and to this installation of the app.

What Meta does with it

Our contract for this is with Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Block J, Serpentine Avenue, Dublin 4, Ireland), "Meta Ireland". For collecting this information in the app and sending it to Meta Ireland, we and Meta Ireland are joint controllers. We have an agreement with Meta Ireland (Meta's Controller Addendum) that sets out who is responsible for what: we are responsible for giving you this information, and Meta Ireland is responsible for your rights of access, correction, deletion and data portability for the information it keeps afterwards. You can exercise those rights directly with Meta Ireland.

What Meta Ireland does with the information afterwards is not part of that joint responsibility: Meta decides that for itself, under its own terms and privacy policy. Meta's terms say it uses such information to measure and report on our advertising, and also for its own purposes, including improving its ad delivery and its products. Meta's terms currently state that it may keep it for up to two years. Meta Ireland's details as a controller, the legal bases it relies on and how to exercise your rights are in Meta's Privacy Policy.

For people in the US states covered by Meta's "Limited Data Use" setting, we ask Meta to process this information only as our service provider.

We send this information to Meta Ireland, a company in the EU. Meta Ireland may transfer it to Meta Platforms, Inc. in the United States and to other countries outside the EU. Meta's terms state that, where Meta Ireland processes information on our behalf, it relies for transfers to Meta Platforms, Inc. on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission's related adequacy decision. That statement does not cover transfers Meta makes for its own purposes; for those, see Meta's Privacy Policy.

Changing your mind

You can turn Ad measurement off at any time in Settings → Data & Privacy → Ad measurement. Turning it off immediately disables MintChip's sending of advertising events. Meta's software cannot be shut down while the app is running, so it may still communicate with Meta until you fully close the app. After that it is not started again unless you turn Ad measurement back on and the measurement is still activated on our side.

Turning it off does not delete information Meta has already received; how long Meta keeps it is determined by Meta. If you would like our help with a request to Meta, email office@mintchip.app. Declining does not limit any feature of the app.

Analytics on this website

This website (mintchip.app) can use PostHog for optional analytics, so we can see how well the site explains the product. It is a separate measurement from the app analytics described above, and the choice you make in the app has no effect here.

Nothing is measured until you allow it. On your first visit we ask. Until you choose "Allow analytics", no analytics code is loaded and no request of any kind is sent to PostHog. If you choose "No thanks", none is ever sent. You can change your mind at any time using Privacy settings in the footer of any page.

If you allow it, website analytics may include the pages you view on this site and when you leave them, the address you arrived from and its domain, the campaign parameters in the link you followed (the utm_ values used to tell one advert or post from another), limited technical information your browser provides — such as browser and operating system, language, screen and window size, and time zone — and your interactions with the site's main buttons, currently "Download on the App Store" and "See how it works". PostHog also records the moment you turn analytics on, as the record of your choice. Events are sent to PostHog's EU ingestion servers.

Session recording is switched off on this website. So are heatmaps, "dead click" detection and automatic capture of whatever you click — the site sends only the kinds of information described above. We do not create a person profile for website visitors, and the website never tells PostHog who you are: it does not send your name, your email address, your weight, your height, any health or nutrition data, or any answer you have given in the app. There is no form on this site to fill in.

We do not persist a PostHog visitor identifier in cookies or browser storage. PostHog’s analytics state is kept in memory while the page is open. Your analytics preference itself is stored in your browser for up to 12 months so that we can remember your choice. If you change that choice while a page is open, PostHog may also set a short-lived opt-in/out cookie used only to apply the change during that page visit; it is cleared the next time you load the site.

Because that analytics state does not persist, the site cannot tell a returning visitor from a new one, and a second visit is counted as a new one. The preference we store is the word "granted" or "denied" together with the date you chose — it contains no identifier and no campaign data, and when the twelve months are up we ask again.

We should be precise about one thing. Sending anything over the internet requires your IP address so the reply knows where to go, so whenever website analytics is switched on, the request that carries it necessarily exposes your IP address to PostHog's EU servers. PostHog may use that address to derive approximate geographic information, such as the country or region a visit came from. Whether the address itself is retained, and for how long, is governed by PostHog's own configuration and privacy terms rather than by anything this website sends. Because your IP address is exposed in this way, we do not describe website analytics as anonymous. We do not collect or store your IP address ourselves, and we never join website measurements to a MintChip account.

Notifications

MintChip's reminders are scheduled by your own device. We do not operate a push server and we do not store a push token. If you decline the notification permission, the rest of the app works normally. You can turn individual reminders off in Settings.

Where your data is stored

Your account and everything you log are stored with Supabase, in their Frankfurt region (EU). Access is restricted at the database level so that an account can only read and write its own rows, and progress photos sit in a private storage area scoped to your account. Transfers outside the EU happen for the AI processing described above and, if you opt in to Ad measurement, for the information shared with Meta.

mintchip.app is hosted by Vercel Inc., a company in the United States. Every request to mintchip.app reveals ordinary connection information, such as your IP address, to Vercel. That applies when you visit this website and when the app starts, because the app then downloads a small settings file from mintchip.app. That request contains no information about you or your account.

Third parties we use

Service	What it does	What it receives
Supabase	Database, account sign-in, photo storage	Everything described above
OpenAI	Recognising logged meals, treats and drinks; Coach	Typed descriptions and photos of what you log; Coach messages, the recent conversation, and a summary of your MintChip history
PostHog (EU)	Product analytics, session replay, crash reports (app)	Product events, account identifier, masked replays, error reports
PostHog (EU)	Optional website analytics (mintchip.app, opt-in)	Page views and exits, referral and campaign information, limited technical browser/device information, interactions with key buttons, the analytics consent event, IP address
Apple	Sign in with Apple	Sign-in only, per Apple's own terms
Apple	Privacy-preserving ad attribution (app)	That the app was opened. Apple itself reports to an ad network, in aggregated form, that an install followed one of its ads
Meta Platforms Ireland Limited	Measuring our own ads (app, only if you opt in and we have activated it)	Technical information about your device and the app, and your IP address; if enabled, that the app was installed and opened, that an account was created (and how you signed up) and that setup was finished, with an installation identifier created by Meta's software; possibly crash reports about Meta's software. We do not send what you log, your weight or any health data
Vercel Inc.	Hosting mintchip.app, including the settings file the app downloads (app and website)	Your IP address and standard web request data
Google	Google Sign-In	Sign-in only, per Google's own terms

Legal bases for processing

If you are in the EU or the UK, we process your data on these bases:

What	Basis
Running your account and the app's core features	Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b))
Food, drink and habit logs, wellbeing check-ins, sick days and anything else you choose to add about your health or weight, including when this data is used for AI-powered food recognition and your personalised Coach	Your explicit consent, given at sign-up or when the app asks you again (Art. 6(1)(a), and Art. 9(2)(a) where the data concerns health)
Analytics, session replay and crash reporting	Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time (Art. 6(1)(a))
Measuring our ads through Meta	Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time (Art. 6(1)(a))
Telling Apple that the app was opened, for Apple's privacy-preserving ad attribution	Our legitimate interest in knowing whether our advertising works (Art. 6(1)(f))
Keeping the service secure and preventing abuse	Our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f))

Where processing rests on consent, withdrawing it is straightforward and does not affect the lawfulness of what happened before you withdrew it.

Your rights

If you are in the EU or the UK, you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict or object to how we process it, and to receive it in a portable form. The app implements the two you are most likely to want directly — see Your choices below — and you can exercise any of them by emailing office@mintchip.app. We will respond within one month.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority. Our lead authority is the Österreichische Datenschutzbehörde, Barichgasse 40–42, 1030 Vienna, Austria (dsb.gv.at). You may also complain to the supervisory authority in the country where you live.

How long we keep things

We keep your data for as long as your account exists, because the app's value comes from your own history. We do not currently run an automatic deletion schedule for older entries. When you delete your account, the deletion described below happens straight away.

We keep the record of your Ad measurement consent with your account. Information shared with Meta for ad measurement is kept by Meta under its own terms, not by us.

Your choices

• Export your data: Settings → Data & Privacy → Export my data gives you a file containing the main records from your account — your profile and settings, what you have logged, your coins and weekly totals, your saved meals, your weights and your photo entries. It is a convenience feature and not a complete copy of everything we hold: some secondary records, such as your check-ins and moods, badges, streak history and Insights, are not included in it.
• Ask for a complete copy: if you want everything we hold about you, email office@mintchip.app and we will send it to you. The same address works for correcting or deleting specific data, or for any other request about your rights.
• Delete your account: Settings → Data & Privacy → Delete my account. This removes your progress photos from storage and then deletes your account, which removes the records attached to it. It cannot be undone.
• Sign in with Apple: deleting your MintChip account does not by itself withdraw the Apple sign-in permission. The app tells you this and points you to Settings → your name → Sign in with Apple on your device, where you can remove MintChip.
• Analytics: turn it off, or back on, at any time in Settings → Data & Privacy. The change takes effect immediately.
• Ad measurement: off unless you turn it on; change it at any time in Settings → Data & Privacy. See Measuring our ads above for what happens when you turn it off.
• Notifications, weight tracking, and progress photos can each be turned off or skipped entirely.
• Questions or requests about your data: email office@mintchip.app.

Age

MintChip is for adults. Creating an account requires you to be 18 or older: setup asks for your date of birth and will not create an account for anyone younger. That check relies on the date you enter and is not identity verification. Please do not use MintChip if you are under 18. If you believe a child has given us their data, email office@mintchip.app and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If the app starts handling data differently, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If a change is material, we will also tell you directly.

Contact

office@mintchip.app