Data Safety

Revision Date: 01-Oct-2026
App Name: PKU Pal
Contact Email: contacts@pkupal.com

PKU PAL helps people living with phenylketonuria (PKU) track what they eat, record blood phenylalanine results and stay within the daily allowance set by their clinic. Doing that means the app holds health information, usually about a child, so this page sets out exactly what is stored, who else handles it, and how to have it deleted.

PKU PAL is not a medical device and does not give medical advice. Your metabolic clinic sets your targets and interprets your blood results. Always follow their guidance over anything the app or its assistant says.

At a glance

Do you collect personal data?
- Yes — an email address, the profiles you create, and what you log.
Do you collect health data?
- Yes — food log entries, blood phenylalanine results, body weight and daily targets.
Is it encrypted in transit?
- Yes, every request uses HTTPS/TLS.
Do you sell personal data?
- No. Never, to anyone.
Do you show ads or use advertising IDs?
- No.
Do you use tracking or advertising SDKs?
- No.
Can I delete my account and data?
- Yes — in the app, or by email. See Deleting your account.

What the app collects, and why

Your account

Signing in uses a one-time code emailed to you, so we store your email address and an internal account identifier. The address is also how profile sharing works: when somebody invites you to help with their profile, access is granted by matching the address they invited against the one you sign in with. Required — the app cannot have accounts without it.

The profiles you create

A profile is the person the diet belongs to — often the account holder's child. It holds a name (whatever you choose to type; a first name or a nickname is enough), a date of birth, body weight, the preferred weight and phenylalanine units, and the daily targets for phenylalanine, protein, energy, carbohydrate, fat, fibre and water. The date of birth and weight are used to estimate starting targets from published age-band guidelines; the targets are what every figure in the app is counted against. We also keep a history of target changes, so a day in the past is still scored against the allowance that applied on that day rather than today's.

What you log

Food log entries (the food, the amount in grams, the meal, the date and time), blood phenylalanine results (the value as your lab reported it, its unit and the date), and any foods you add yourself — name, brand, nutrition values, and optionally ingredients and a method. On a shared profile the app also records which of you entered or corrected an entry, so a figure can be traced back to a person.

Photos

Optional, both of them. A profile photo is stored privately and is only ever served through short-lived signed links to you and to anyone you have shared that profile with. A photo on a food you created is stored in a public location at an unguessable address — practically speaking it is unlisted rather than secret, so please don't put anything private in a food photo. Photos of a nutrition label that you scan are sent for reading and are not stored at all.

Your chat with PKU Pal

If you use the in-app assistant, your messages and its replies are stored so the conversation is still there next time. The assistant also keeps a short set of notes about preferences you have told it — for example a food the profile will not eat. You can read and delete every one of those notes in the app under Settings → Assistant → What PKU Pal remembers. Your chats are private to you: two people who both manage the same profile cannot see each other's conversations.

For a limited period we also keep a technical trace of each assistant request — which lookups it made and what they returned — so that a wrong answer can be investigated. These traces are deleted automatically after 30 days.

Sharing a profile

If you invite somebody to help with a profile, we store the email address you invited and when. They can then see that profile and log against it. You can see who has access and withdraw it at any time under Settings → Profiles → Profile sharing.

When you write to us

The "Get help" and "Send feedback" links open your own email app with the app version and your account identifier already filled in, so we can tell which build you are using. Nothing is sent unless you send it.

Technical records

Like any website or app, our hosting and database providers record technical request information — including IP address, timestamps and error details — for security and reliability. The app itself contains no analytics, advertising or tracking SDK: it does not profile you, and it does not report your behaviour to anyone.

Who else handles your data

We use a small number of providers to run the service. They process data on our instructions and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes. We do not sell data and we do not share it with data brokers, advertisers or insurers.

Supabase
Stores app's data and handles data security.

OpenAI
Generates the assistant's replies and to read values off a label photo. Used only to answer that request.

Deleting your account and data

You can ask us to erase your account and everything in it at any time, and you do not have to give a reason.

In the app

Open Settings (the last tab).
Scroll to Account and tap Delete account.
Read what will be removed, type DELETE to confirm, and submit.

That files the request immediately. A person on our team checks it — which is how we make sure deleting your profile does not quietly remove entries from the food log of somebody you have been sharing with — and then carries it out. We will email you when it is done, within 30 days of your request and usually much sooner. If anything needs clarifying first we will write to you at the address on your account. The app keeps working in the meantime, and you can withdraw the request from the same screen until it has been carried out.

By email, if you cannot open the app

Write to contacts@pkupal.com from the address you sign in with, asking us to delete your account. We reply to the same address to confirm, and the 30-day commitment above applies equally. Please send it from the account's own address — it is how we check that the request is really yours.

What is erased

Your sign-in, so that email can no longer receive a code for this app.
The profiles you own, with their targets and target history.
Every food log entry and blood result recorded on them.
Foods, serving sizes and photos you added, and your profile photos.
Your conversations with PKU Pal and the notes it kept about you.
Invitations you sent, and any access you were given to someone else's profile.

Two things worth knowing first

It cannot be undone, and there is no copy afterwards. If you want your logs or results for your own records, or to give to your clinic, ask us before you delete and we will send them to you.
Anyone you share a profile with loses it too. Deleting your account deletes the profiles you own, so a partner, grandparent or helper who has been logging against one will lose that history as well. The app tells you who is affected before you confirm. If you would rather they kept it, say so in the note on the deletion screen or in your email and we will talk to you before going ahead.

Deleting some things without closing your account

A log entry: press and hold it on the home screen.
A blood result: open Add to Log → Log Blood Test and remove it from the list.
A profile: open it from the profile switcher and use Delete profile.
Assistant notes: Settings → Assistant → What PKU Pal remembers.
Somebody's access to your profile: Settings → Profiles → Profile sharing.

What we keep after a deletion

We keep a short record that a deletion request was made and when it was completed — the email address it came from, the dates, and nothing else. That is our evidence that we did what you asked, and we would have no way to show it otherwise.

How long data is kept

Your account and everything in it: until you delete it, or ask us to. We do not expire inactive accounts.
Nutrition-label photos you scan: not stored.
Technical request records at our providers: their standard retention periods.

Security

Every request between the app and our servers uses HTTPS/TLS, and data is encrypted at rest by our database and storage providers.
There are no passwords to steal: signing in is a one-time code sent to your email address.
One account cannot read another's profiles, logs, results or chats even by crafting its own request. A profile shared with you is read-only: you can log against it, but you cannot change its targets.
Profile photos are stored privately and served through short-lived signed links.

No service can promise perfect security. If you believe something is wrong, please tell us at contacts@pkupal.com and we will look at it straight away.

Children's data

PKU is identified by newborn screening, so most profiles in PKU PAL describe a child while the account belongs to a parent or carer. The app is intended to be used by an adult, or by a young person with their parent's agreement. We ask for the least we need about the person on the profile — a name you choose, a date of birth, a weight — and the date of birth is there because the phenylalanine allowance per kilogram changes enormously with age, by roughly a factor of ten between a newborn and an adult. A parent or guardian may exercise every right below on a child's behalf.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to have it deleted, and to receive it in a portable form. Most of it you can do yourself in the app; for anything else, write to contacts@pkupal.com and we will answer within 30 days.

Our legal basis for handling health information is your explicit consent, given when you create a profile and log against it, and you may withdraw it at any time by deleting the data or your account.

Changes to this page

If what we do with data changes, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If a change is significant we will send an email notice.