Privacy

Last updated 6 November 2026

The short version. To read a label, your photo has to leave your device — there is no way around that. It goes to our server, and on to the AI service that reads it. You never need an account to scan. What we keep from a scan is about the product on the label, not about you.

If you choose to sign in with Google to add your child, we keep your email and what you enter about your child — nothing more, and you can delete it all yourself.

We would rather tell you that plainly than bury it.

This policy covers the Pikabee Scan website, pikabee.app, and the Pikabee Scan apps for Android and iPhone. They read labels the same way and keep the same things.

Who we are

Pikabee is a small family project run by Chintalapudi Naga Sai Gowthami, an individual based in India. We are the data fiduciary for the purposes of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

Reach us at hello@pikabee.app. Any privacy question or complaint goes to that address, and a person will answer it.

What happens to the photo you scan

It is sent over an encrypted connection to our own server, which runs on Cloudflare Workers.
That server forwards it to Anthropic PBC (United States), whose Claude model reads the ingredient list and applies our rules.
The result comes back to your device and is shown to you.
We keep label photos to improve accuracy. If a photo shows a person, we delete it. Email hello@pikabee.app to ask us to delete a photo.

Because the photo is processed in the United States, this involves a transfer of your data outside India. Anthropic handles it under its own privacy terms, which you can read at anthropic.com/legal/privacy. We do not permit your images to be used to train AI models.

We do keep the ingredient list. After a scan, we save what the label said — the ingredients as printed on the packet — along with the result we showed you (the flags and the reason for each, the short summary, and the notes on a clean result) and how long the scan took. That is information about a product, not about you: there is no name, no email, no IP address and no account attached to it, and nothing in it could be traced back to you or your baby.

We keep it because it is the only way to tell whether the app is actually any good — which ingredients we flag most, where we misread a label, and where we get it wrong. If you would rather a particular product was not recorded, don't scan it.

Photograph the label, not your baby. The app only needs the ingredient list. Please don't send us pictures of people — we have no use for them and no wish to receive them.

What we do keep

An abuse counter. To stop one person burning through our budget, we count scans per visitor per day, and feedback messages per visitor per hour. The key we count against is a salted, irreversible hash of your IP address — we deliberately do not store the address itself — and it is deleted automatically within two days.
A running total of spend, and a daily count of how many scans happened. Two numbers. Neither has anything in it about you, about your product, or about the result — we count that a scan occurred, not what it was.
Standard security logs kept briefly by Cloudflare, our hosting provider, as with any website or app.
Anonymous page statistics, via Cloudflare Web Analytics. It counts page views and how quickly pages load. It sets no cookies, does not fingerprint your device or browser, and does not follow you to any other website — which is why this site has no cookie banner. We see totals, never individuals. This is on the website only; the apps contain no analytics at all.
One setting in your own browser (pikabee.theme), which remembers whether you chose light or dark mode on our website. It never leaves your device and we cannot read it. If you sign in, a second one (pikabee.signedIn) notes only that this browser has signed in, so the site checks your sign-in only for people who have one.

In the apps

Camera. The app asks for the camera so it can photograph the label you point it at. It takes a picture only when you press the button.
Photos. If you choose a photo instead, the app reads only the one photo you pick. It does not browse or upload your library.
No microphone, no location, no contacts, and no advertising or tracking identifiers. Sign-in is optional, exactly as on the website (below).

Scanning never needs an account. Signing in with Google does one thing: it lets you add your child, so results are checked for your child's age and point out the allergies you mark, and you can tick the milestones you have seen in Your baby by age.

About you: the email address of your Google account, and the account number Google gives us for you, so we know it is you next time. We never see your Google password, and we don't keep your name or photo from Google.
About each child you add: a nickname, only if you give one; the birth month and year (never the day); the allergies you tick; and, if you use them, the milestones you tick in Your baby by age — which milestone, and the day you ticked it. Untick one and it is deleted.
Why: only to personalise what you see — the age a label is checked for, the allergy note on a result, and your ticks on the age guide, which only you see. Never for marketing or advertising, never to track or profile your child, never sold or shared.
Your scans stay unlinked. Signing in changes nothing about what we keep from a scan. Scans are never connected to your account, so we still could not find "your" scans if we tried.
Where: in our own database on Cloudflare. On the website you stay signed in with one cookie that only our server can read; in the apps, a sign-in key is kept in your phone's secure storage. Either one stops working after 90 days, or when you sign out.
Google's part: when you tap "Sign in with Google", Google's sign-in window opens and Google's own privacy policy covers that step. It loads only when you tap it — never just because you visited.
We ask first. The first time you sign in, we ask before keeping anything. Until you agree, nothing is stored. If you signed in before milestone ticks existed, we ask once more before keeping your first tick.

Deleting your account

Tap Delete my account in Pikabee, on the website or in the app, while signed in. It deletes your account, every child you added, their allergies and the milestones you ticked, straight away. You can also remove a single child, with their ticks, at any time. Or email hello@pikabee.app from the address you signed in with and we will delete it for you.

Signing out only ends the sign-in on that device; it does not delete anything.

If you write to us

The feedback form on our website, and any email you send to hello@pikabee.app, reaches a real inbox that we read ourselves.

We keep your message, and your email address if you choose to leave one, for two purposes and no others:

To check a message came from a real person rather than a bot, so that real messages don't get lost in spam.
To improve Pikabee based on what you tell us — if you say we flagged something wrongly or missed an ingredient, that is how we fix it.

Your email address is used to reply to you. It is never added to a mailing list, never used for marketing, and never given or sold to anyone else. Ask us to delete your message and we will.

What we don't do

No sign-up to scan, and no password, ever. We learn your email only if you choose to sign in, or write to us.
No marketing emails. We write back to you; we do not write at you.
No advertising trackers, no ad-network pixels, no Google Analytics, and no cross-site profiling. The only measurement here is the cookieless page count described above.
No selling or sharing of personal data. There is nothing to sell.
No scan history. We cannot show you your past scans, because what we keep is not linked to you in any way, even when you are signed in — we could not find "your" scans if we tried.

Your rights

Under the DPDP Act you may ask what personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct or erase it, nominate someone to act for you, and complain to the Data Protection Board of India. Write to us and we will respond.

If you have never signed in, the honest answer to "what do you hold about me?" is almost always nothing — that is the design, not an accident. If you have, it is your email, the children you added and any milestones you ticked, and you can see, change and delete all of it yourself in the app.

Children

This app is for parents and carers, not for children, and it is not intended for anyone under 18 to use. Scanning a product label tells us about a product, not about your baby.

If you sign in and add a child, we keep what you enter about them — a nickname if you choose one, the birth month and year, allergies, and any milestones you tick — on your say-so as their parent or carer, only to personalise your results. We never use it for advertising, tracking or monitoring your child's behaviour, and you can delete it whenever you like.

Changes

If we start keeping anything we do not keep today — and we may, if it would make the flags more accurate — we will change this page and date it before we do, not after.