Privacy Policy
- We only collect what BoostCook needs to work: your email, your profile and what you choose to post.
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics tools, and we never sell your data.
- Hidden information in your photos (like GPS location) is removed on your phone before upload.
- You decide who sees each post. Your saves and blocks are visible only to you.
- You can delete your account in the app at any time. It is erased immediately.
- Your data is stored in the European Union (Ireland).
1. Who we are
BoostCook is currently run by Eva Lesto, an individual based in the United Kingdom (“BoostCook”, “we”, “us”). We are the controller of your personal data, which means we decide how it is used and are responsible for protecting it.
Questions or requests about your data: privacy@boostcook.com.
2. What we collect
Your account
- Email address: to create your account, sign you in and send you verification or password-reset codes. It is never shown to other people.
- Password: stored only in scrambled (hashed) form by our hosting provider. We cannot read it.
Your profile
- Username, optional display name and bio, optional profile photo, and whether your account is public or private.
- Your confirmation that you are at least 16 and accept our terms.
What you post and do
- Posts: photos, title, type (Self-made or Hotspot), optional recipe, who can see it, and for Hotspots the optional place (name, address and map coordinates of the restaurant or shop, never your own position).
- Interactions: likes, “I cooked this”, comments and saves.
- Connections: who you follow, who follows you, follow requests, and accounts you block.
- Reports you send about content or accounts, including the reason, any details you add, and a copy of the reported content.
- Messages you send us with the in-app “Contact us” form: the topic and your message, together with your username, name and account email (so we know who you are and can reply), and the app version and phone type (iOS or Android).
Photos
The app only receives the photos you pick, never your whole photo library. Before upload, each photo is resized and all hidden metadata (including GPS location, date and device details) is removed on your phone.
Location (only if you tap “Near me”)
When searching for a Hotspot place, you can choose “Near me”. Your position is rounded to about 1 km on your phone and only used to show nearby places first. It is never stored, and it is never attached to your posts.
Technical data
- Your sign-in session is stored encrypted on your phone.
- Our hosting provider keeps short-lived technical logs (such as IP address and time of requests) for security and to fix problems.
We do not use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and we do not build profiles of you for marketing.
3. Why we use it (and our legal basis)
| Purpose | Legal basis (UK & EU GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Creating your account, showing your profile and posts, and letting you like, cook, comment, follow and search | Performance of our contract with you (our Terms) |
| Sending verification and password-reset codes | Performance of our contract |
| Keeping BoostCook safe: handling reports, removing content that breaks our rules, blocking abuse, securing the service | Our legitimate interest in a safe community, and legal obligations |
| Answering your messages and data requests | Performance of our contract, and legal obligations (for data-protection requests) |
| “Near me” place search | Your consent (you choose to tap it and allow location on your phone) |
4. Who can see your data
- Other BoostCook members can see your profile header (username, name, bio, photo, public or private) so they can find you and send follow requests.
- Your posts are visible according to the setting you choose for each one: Everyone (public accounts only), Followers only, or Only me.
- Only you can see your saves, your blocked list and your Activity.
- People who are not signed in cannot see anything.
- Blocked people cannot see your profile, posts or comments, and are not told they were blocked.
5. Service providers
We use a small number of trusted providers, who only process your data on our instructions:
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and photo storage | European Union (Ireland) |
| Brevo | Sending verification and password-reset emails, and forwarding your “Contact us” messages to our inbox | European Union |
| Geoapify | Hotspot place search (the text you type, and your rounded position if you use “Near me”) | European Union |
| Cloudflare | Our website and forwarding emails sent to privacy@boostcook.com | Global network |
If a provider accesses data from outside the UK or EU, the transfer is protected by recognised safeguards such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. We never sell your personal data or share it for advertising. We would only disclose it if required by law.
6. How long we keep it
- While your account exists, we keep your account, profile and content so BoostCook works.
- Content you delete (a post, comment, like, profile photo…) is removed straight away.
- When you delete your account, everything linked to it is erased immediately: profile, posts, photos, likes, cooks, comments, saves, follows, blocks and your login.
- Reports are kept for up to 12 months after they are handled, without your name if you deleted your account.
- Messages you send us (and our emails about them) are kept for up to 12 months after the conversation ends, unless the law requires longer.
- Deleted data may remain in our hosting provider’s encrypted backups for a short period (typically up to 30 days) before being overwritten.
- Activity only shows the last 90 days.
7. Your rights
You can, at any time:
- Access your data, or get a copy in a portable format: ask us in the app (Settings → Contact us) or by email.
- Correct it: edit your profile and posts in the app.
- Delete it: delete posts, or your whole account, in the app (Settings → Delete account).
- Object to or restrict certain uses, and withdraw consent (for example, turn off location for BoostCook in your phone settings).
Use Settings → Contact us in the app, or write to privacy@boostcook.com (from the email address of your account, so we can check it is you). We reply within one month. You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority: the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the UK, or the authority in your EU country (for example the CNIL in France).
8. Age
BoostCook is for people aged 16 and over. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we will delete it.
9. Security
Data is encrypted in transit. Strict database rules make sure people only see what they are allowed to see, photos are stored privately and shared only through short-lived links, and your session is stored encrypted on your phone. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and will tell you and the authorities if a breach affects you, as the law requires.
10. Changes
If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we will tell you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top always shows the latest version.