Padkos
Privacy Policy
Last updated 1 November 2026 (optional accounts). Applies to Padkos 1.0 for iPhone and Apple Watch.
The short version
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics tools. We never sell or rent your data.
- An account is optional. Sign in with Apple only if you want your kitchen, recipes and goals kept on our server for a new phone.
- Your food log and body data live in Apple Health on your devices. Everything else lives in the app on your iPhone and Watch, and your kitchen and recipes in your own iCloud Drive.
- Health data is never stored in iCloud Drive by Padkos.
- AI features are off until you agree. When you use them, what you send goes to DeepSeek, a third party, through our proxy.
- Settings, Delete all my data removes what Padkos keeps. Food you logged stays in Apple Health until you delete it there.
1. Who we are
Padkos is made by Ruan Koekemoer, an independent developer in South Africa ("we", "us"). For the personal information Padkos sends through our proxy to DeepSeek (section 3) and the little we receive ourselves (section 5), we are the responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA) and the controller under the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Contact: ruankoekemoer@outlook.com.
2. What Padkos uses and where it lives
On your iPhone and Apple Watch
Your profile (name if you give one, goal, weight, height, birth year, sex, activity level, goal weight and pace), your answers about how you eat, your settings, the week meal plan, the shopping list, the Ask Padkos conversation, and meal photos you take or pick. This stays in the app's own storage on your devices, protected by iOS. The iPhone shares today's numbers with the Padkos widget and the Watch app directly, device to device. Like all app data, it is part of your device backup if you back up your iPhone (for example with iCloud Backup, which is Apple's service and under your control).
Apple Health
Only if you allow it. Padkos writes the food you log (energy, protein, carbohydrates, fat, saturated fat, fibre, sugar, sodium), water and caffeine. Padkos reads those back, plus weight, body fat, lean body mass, waist, steps, active and resting energy, exercise and stand time, workouts, sleep, heart rate, resting and walking heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, wrist temperature and cardio fitness, to work out your budget and fill the Health tab. You choose each type in the Health permission sheet and can change it any time in Settings, Health, Data Access and Devices, Padkos.
Health data is read and worked out on your device. It is never used for advertising or marketing, never sold, never stored in iCloud Drive by Padkos, and only leaves your device in the AI summaries described in section 3, when you ask for it.
Your iCloud Drive (kitchen and recipes only)
If iCloud Drive is on, Padkos keeps your kitchen (cupboard items in fridge, freezer and cupboard, Ready meals with their eat-by dates) and your recipes with their pictures and per-portion nutrition in a Padkos folder in your own iCloud Drive, so they reach your other devices and survive a reinstall. It is your iCloud account: we cannot see it. Apple's privacy policy applies to iCloud. No food log, weight, body measurements, sleep or heart data is put there.
3. AI features and DeepSeek
AI is off until you turn it on. The first time you use an AI feature, Padkos shows what will be sent and to whom, and asks for your agreement. Nothing goes to DeepSeek before that, and nothing goes when you are not using an AI feature. You can turn AI off again in Settings at any time.
The AI features are: Ask Padkos (the assistant that plans your week, logs what you ate, re-plans and searches the web), the photo estimate for a meal or a label, reading a till slip, order screenshot or cupboard photo to update your cupboard, describing a meal in words or by voice, and importing a recipe from text or a link.
What is sent, only when you use one of these
- The words you type or say (voice is turned into text on your phone first, see section 4).
- Photos you choose to have estimated: meals, labels, recipes.
- For Ask Padkos, a summary of the app's current state so it can act: today's log and calorie budget, the week plan, Ready meals, cupboard, recipes, shopping list, settings and your house rules. When the request needs it, short health summaries such as your weight trend, body composition, sleep, heart, activity and body battery headline numbers.
- Web searches and web pages Ask Padkos looks up for you (for example a restaurant's nutrition page). These go through DeepSeek's search and page reading service.
Requests do not include your email, your Apple ID or any advertising identifier. Our server does not pass your account or device identifier on to DeepSeek. Ask Padkos only talks about food, your kitchen and your health: each message is first checked by the AI to keep it on those topics.
How it travels
Your request goes over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) to our small proxy on Cloudflare, which adds our DeepSeek key and passes it on unchanged to DeepSeek. The proxy does not store or log what you send. It keeps one thing: a count of AI calls per random device identifier (or per account, if you signed in) per day, to apply the free daily limit, deleted after 2 days. Cloudflare handles the traffic as our service provider.
DeepSeek is a third party
The AI is provided by Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd. through its developer platform. DeepSeek processes your request on our behalf to produce the answer, under the DeepSeek Open Platform Terms. DeepSeek processes and stores data in the People's Republic of China, and may keep records as its terms and Chinese law require. DeepSeek's privacy policy explains how DeepSeek handles data in general. Because this sends personal information outside South Africa and the EU, to a country without an adequacy decision, we rely on your explicit consent (POPIA section 72(1)(b), GDPR Article 49(1)(a)). Padkos sends only what the request needs. Do not send anything you would not want a third party to see.
Estimates, not facts
Anything the AI works out is marked "(estimate)" in the app. You can change or delete it.
4. Other services Padkos contacts when you use a feature
- Open Food Facts (open food database run by a non-profit in France): the barcode number you scan, or the words of an online food search, to look up the product. Their privacy policy.
- Wikimedia Commons: the plain name of a meal (for example "banana") to find a free picture for a meal that has no photo. Their privacy policy.
- Recipe links you import: Padkos opens the page you share (a recipe site, TikTok, YouTube or Instagram) to read the recipe, like a browser would.
- Apple speech recognition: voice logging uses Apple's speech recognition. Depending on your device and language, Apple may process the audio under Apple's privacy policy. We never receive the audio.
Reminders (for example "take the mince out of the freezer") are scheduled on your phone. No push server is involved.
5. What we, the developer, receive
Without an account, almost nothing. We receive only:
- The daily AI call counter per random device identifier, kept 2 days (section 3).
- Crash reports and usage statistics, only if you chose to share them with app developers in your iPhone's settings (Settings, Privacy and Security, Analytics and Improvements). Apple sends them to us without your name or contact details.
- Emails you send to support, kept as long as needed to help you and then deleted.
If you sign in (optional)
Signing in with Apple is not needed to use Padkos. If you sign in, we keep on our server (Cloudflare D1 database and R2 storage, run by Cloudflare as our service provider):
- Your account: Apple's anonymous user number for Padkos, the name you let Apple share the first time, and the date you joined. We do not ask Apple for your email.
- A copy of your kitchen (cupboard, Ready meals, week plan), your recipes with their photos (up to 100 recipes), and your goals and profile settings (calorie and protein goals, height, weight, birth year, activity level, house rules).
- Your AI call counter per account per day, kept 2 days.
We use this only to give your data back to you on another phone. No food log, sleep or heart data is stored on our server. Signing out leaves the copy on the server; Delete my account in Settings removes all of it at once.
We do not use your data to track you across apps or websites, we do not use third party analytics or advertising tools, and we do not combine your data with data from elsewhere.
6. How long things are kept
| What | Where | Kept until |
|---|---|---|
| Profile, settings, plan, conversation, photos | Your devices | You delete them, use Delete all my data, or remove the app |
| Food log, water, caffeine and the data Padkos reads | Apple Health | You delete it in the Health app |
| Kitchen and recipes | Your iCloud Drive | You delete them, or use Delete all my data |
| Account copy: kitchen, recipes and photos, goals and settings (only if you sign in) | Our server (Cloudflare) | You use Delete my account |
| AI call counter | Our server (Cloudflare) | 2 days |
| AI requests | DeepSeek | As set out in DeepSeek's privacy policy |
| Support emails | Our mailbox | Your question is answered, then deleted within 12 months |
7. How to delete everything
- In Padkos: Settings, Delete all my data. This removes your profile, settings, plan, conversation and photos from your iPhone and Watch, and the Padkos folder in your iCloud Drive.
- In Apple Health: the food, water and caffeine Padkos logged stays in Health, because it is yours and other apps may use it. To remove it: open the Health app, tap your picture, Apps, Padkos, Delete All Data from "Padkos".
- Removing the app deletes everything Padkos keeps on the device. Your iCloud Drive folder stays until you delete it in the Files app (iCloud Drive, Padkos) or in Settings, your name, iCloud, Manage Storage.
- Account: if you signed in, Settings, Delete my account removes your account and everything kept with it on our server, straight away.
- AI: turn AI off in Settings to stop any further sending. For data already sent to DeepSeek, use the rights described in DeepSeek's privacy policy.
8. Your rights
Under POPIA and the GDPR you may ask to access, correct or delete your personal information, object to or restrict its processing, receive a copy, and withdraw consent at any time (turn AI off). Since nearly all your data is on your devices and in your own Apple services, you can do most of this directly in the app and the Health app. For anything else, email ruankoekemoer@outlook.com and we will answer within 30 days.
You may complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) or, in the EU or UK, to your data protection authority.
9. Children
Padkos is not made for children and is not meant for anyone under 13. We do not knowingly process information about children under 13. If you are under the age of digital consent where you live (up to 16 in some EU countries), ask a parent or guardian before turning on AI features. Calorie targets are not suitable for children, teenagers who are still growing, or anyone who is pregnant or breastfeeding, unless a doctor agrees.
10. Security
Data on your devices is protected by iOS and watchOS. Everything Padkos sends over the internet goes over HTTPS. The DeepSeek key is kept as a secret on the proxy, never in the app.
11. Changes
If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new date. If a change affects what is sent to a third party, Padkos asks for your agreement again in the app.
12. Contact
Ruan Koekemoer, South Africa. ruankoekemoer@outlook.com