Skip to main content
Ringleaf

Ringleaf Privacy Policy

Version 1.0 · Effective October 5, 2026

Summary

  • Your food log is health-related data and stays on your iPhone. We have no server and no access to it. There is no cloud sync.
  • All AI runs on your iPhone: photo and text estimates and nutrition-label reading. Photos are not saved or sent anywhere. Ringleaf uses no cloud AI.
  • Barcode scans: US products are looked up in a USDA list stored on your iPhone. For other products only the barcode number goes to Open Food Facts in France; like any web request, this shows them your IP address.
  • Apple Health is optional. Health data is never used for advertising and never stored in iCloud by Ringleaf.
  • No account, no ads, no tracking, no data sales.

1. Who is responsible

Patrick Böttge, Ferdinand-Rhode-Str. 5, 04107 Leipzig, Germany, [email protected] (“we”). Legal notice: in the App under Settings › Imprint.

2. Data stored only on your device

Ringleaf stores the following only on your iPhone so the App can work:

  • food entries: food names, amounts, protein and fiber, time, meal, source (photo estimate, text estimate, barcode, favorite, manual), favorites;
  • water glasses per day;
  • your targets and the information used for them: goal, body weight, protein per kg or your own target, fiber target and ramp, whether you told the App you have kidney disease or a history of an eating disorder;
  • optional GLP-1 notes: medication name (if you enter it), dose schedule, dose days, nausea and constipation ratings (0–3);
  • an optional name for the care-team PDF;
  • settings (units, paper size, reminders, “Rings only”), purchase status and the version and date of the Terms of Use you accepted.

Much of this is health data (Art. 9 GDPR; “consumer health data” under US state laws). We cannot see it. It is protected by iOS data protection. You can view and change it in the App and delete everything with Settings › Delete All Data or by deleting the App. Storing it on your device is strictly necessary for the service you asked for (§ 25(2) no. 2 German TDDDG). Your device backups (iCloud or computer) are controlled by you and Apple; we do not copy app data into iCloud.

3. Photo and text estimates and label reading (on-device AI)

When you log a meal by photo or text, Ringleaf uses Apple’s on-device language model (Apple Foundation Models) to recognize foods and amounts; nutrient values come from the food lists described in Section 4. When you scan a nutrition label, Apple’s on-device text recognition (Vision) reads protein and fiber from the table. Photos, label images and text are processed on your iPhone only. They are not saved by Ringleaf and not sent to us, to Apple or to anyone else. Estimated values are marked “estimated” (✦), label values are shown for you to check, and nothing is saved until you confirm it. Ringleaf does not use Apple’s Private Cloud Compute or any cloud AI service. Adding such a service would require your explicit consent in advance and an update of this policy.

4. Barcode lookups and food lists

On your iPhone: the App contains food lists (USDA FoodData Central, public domain; German Bundeslebensmittelschlüssel BLS 4.0, CC BY 4.0) and a list of US packaged foods from USDA FoodData Central Branded Foods. A barcode found in this list is looked up on your device – no internet request. Updates of the lists are downloaded without any personal data.

Open Food Facts: for barcodes not in the USDA list, the App sends only the barcode number directly to the public Open Food Facts database to get the product’s nutrition data. Open Food Facts is operated by the Open Food Facts association, 21 rue des Iles, 94100 Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, France, as an independent controller. Like any internet request, the request reveals your IP address to Open Food Facts. According to its privacy policy, Open Food Facts keeps server logs including IP addresses for security and statistics (currently up to 3 years): https://world.openfoodfacts.org/privacy. We do not send any identifier, account or health information with the request and we do not receive or store the request.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the barcode function you use) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in offering product data without our own server). You can avoid barcode lookups by using the other ways to log food.

5. Apple Health (optional)

If you allow it, Ringleaf writes protein, fiber and water to Apple Health and reads your weight (only to suggest a protein target). You choose each type in Apple’s permission sheet and can change it anytime in the Health app. Health data stays on your device, is never used for advertising, marketing or data mining, never sold and never stored in iCloud by Ringleaf. Estimated values are written only after you confirm them.

6. PDF and CSV exports

The care-team summary (PDF) and CSV export are created on your iPhone. You decide whether and with whom you share them. Once shared, the recipient’s privacy practices apply.

7. Reminders

Reminders are off by default. If you turn them on, they are local notifications scheduled on your device. They do not show medication names or health details.

Purchase reminders: If you choose it on the paywall, the App reminds you 2 days before a free trial ends. With a yearly subscription, the App reminds you 30 days before it renews (you can turn this off in Settings › Ringleaf Pro). Both are local notifications that only mention Ringleaf Pro, the price and the date.

8. Purchases

Purchases and subscriptions are processed by Apple. We do not receive your name, email address or payment details, only aggregated, non-identifying sales reports. Your purchase status is checked on your device. To document the terms shown to you, the App stores the version of the purchase screen, the plan and the time of purchase on your device only.

9. When you contact us

If you email us, we process your email address and your message to answer you (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR). Please don’t send us health information. We delete these emails when your request is closed, unless we must keep them longer by law. Our email provider: Apple (iCloud Mail), Apple Distribution International Ltd., Ireland.

10. No tracking, analytics or advertising

Ringleaf contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or tracking technology. We do not sell or share personal information and do not use it for targeted advertising.

11. Children

Ringleaf is for adults (18+). It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly process information about children.

Age range from Apple: Where the law requires it (for example in some US states), the App asks Apple for your age range using Apple’s Declared Age Range feature. You decide in the Apple dialog whether to share it. Apple only tells the App an age range (for example “18 or older”), not your date of birth. The App uses it only to decide whether you can use Ringleaf and keeps it on your device.

12. Your rights (EU, EEA, UK)

You can view, correct, export and delete your data in the App at any time. Where we process personal data (in practice: your support emails), you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability and objection (Art. 15–21 GDPR / UK GDPR) and may complain to a supervisory authority, for example the Saxon Data Protection and Transparency Commissioner (Sächsische Datenschutz- und Transparenzbeauftragte, SDTB), Maternistraße 17, 01067 Dresden, Germany, www.datenschutz.sachsen.de or, in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office.

13. Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy (Washington, Nevada, Connecticut and other US states)

  • Categories of consumer health data: the data listed in Section 2 (food entries, targets, body weight, optional kidney-disease and eating-disorder answers, GLP-1 medication name, dose days, nausea and constipation ratings) and, with your permission, weight read from Apple Health.
  • Sources: you (your entries) and, if you allow it, Apple Health on your device.
  • Purpose: only to provide the App’s features on your device (logging, targets, rings, insights, exports).
  • Collection and access by us: none. The data is processed only on your device; we do not receive, access, retain or sell it.
  • Sharing: we do not share consumer health data with third parties or affiliates. The only data the App sends off your device is a barcode number (with your IP address) to Open Food Facts when you scan a barcode (Section 4). It contains no health information from your log.
  • Your rights: you can confirm, access and delete your data directly in the App (Settings › Delete All Data) and withdraw permissions for Apple Health in the Health app. You can also contact us at [email protected]; we will respond within the time required by law. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our answer; if your appeal is denied, you may contact your state attorney general.
  • No sale, no geofencing. We do not sell consumer health data and do not use geofencing.

14. Security and incidents

Your data is protected by iOS data protection. Because we have no server, we hold no copy of your data. If we ever learn of a breach affecting data the App handles, we will inform affected users and authorities as required by law (including the US FTC Health Breach Notification Rule and Art. 33–34 GDPR).

15. International transfers

If you contact us from outside the EU, your email is transferred to us in Germany. Open Food Facts processes requests in the EU (France). Apple (App Store, Apple Health, notifications) may process data in the United States under its own privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/.

16. Changes

We will update this policy when the App changes and show the new effective date. Material changes are announced in the App.

17. Contact

Patrick Böttge · Ferdinand-Rhode-Str. 5 · 04107 Leipzig · Germany · [email protected]