Privacy Policy
Last updated June 27, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains what Ancel (“Ancel,” “we,” “us”) collects when you use the Ancel app and website, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. Ancel is an adaptive nutrition tracker: you log food and weight, and the app learns your metabolism to set a daily calorie and protein target.
The short version: We collect only what the app needs to track your nutrition and weight — your email, the food and weight you log, and your goals. We use a few trusted services to make the app work (AI nutrition analysis, food data, email, and push notifications). We don’t show ads, we don’t sell your data, and we don’t track you across other apps or websites. You can export or permanently delete everything at any time from the app.
1. Who we are
Ancel is operated by Wonderboy Creative. If you have any questions about this policy or your data, contact us at privacy@ancelhealth.com.
2. Information we collect
We collect only the information below. We do not ask for or collect your real name, address, phone number, contacts, precise location, or device advertising identifiers.
| Category | What it includes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Email address and a securely hashed password. If you subscribe to a paid plan, a payment-processor customer reference (we never store your card number). | To create and secure your account and sign you in. |
| Profile & goals | Sex, age, height, activity level, starting weight, goal weight, target rate of change, protein goal, optional GLP‑1 mode, and your notification preferences. | To calculate and adapt your daily calorie and protein targets. |
| Weight logs | The weights and dates you record. | To chart your trend and learn your real metabolism. |
| Food logs | Foods you log — name, calories, protein, carbs, fat, portion, date, and how it was entered (typed, voice, photo, barcode, or database). | To track intake against your target. |
| Saved meals & food memory | Meals you save and a per-account cache of foods you’ve logged before (names and nutrition), so repeats autocomplete instantly. | To make logging faster over time. |
| Adaptation history | The learned maintenance/TDEE and target values the app computes from your data over time. | To adjust your target as your body responds. |
| GLP‑1 dose log (optional) | If you enable GLP‑1 mode, the dates of doses you log and any optional note. | Only if you choose to use this feature. |
| Push notification tokens (optional) | If you enable notifications, the push subscription/device token issued by your browser or device. | To deliver reminders and milestone notifications you’ve turned on. |
| Technical & security data | Your IP address is used transiently for rate-limiting and abuse prevention, and standard server logs are generated when the app talks to our server. | To keep the service available and secure. |
Food photos
When you log a meal by photo, the image is sent to our AI provider (see §4) to estimate the food and its nutrition. The photo itself is not stored on our servers or in your account — only the resulting food entry (name and macros) is saved. We do not keep a copy of your images.
3. How we use your information
- To provide the core product: log your food and weight, and calculate and continuously adapt your daily calorie and protein targets.
- To estimate nutrition from a description, photo, or barcode, and to power the “What can I eat?” coach.
- To send account email you’d expect, such as password resets.
- To send push notifications you’ve explicitly enabled (logging reminders, protein nudges, milestones, dose reminders).
- To secure your account, prevent abuse, and keep the service running.
- To process payment if you choose a paid subscription.
We do not use your data to build advertising profiles, and we do not use it for any purpose unrelated to running Ancel.
4. AI processing
To turn a description, voice note, or photo into calories and macros — and to generate coach suggestions — the relevant text or image is sent to Anthropic (the Claude API) for processing. Only the content needed for that request is sent (for example, your food description or meal photo, and your remaining calories/protein for a coach suggestion). Anthropic processes this to return a result and, under its API terms, does not use it to train its models. Anthropic’s privacy terms are available at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
5. Services we share data with
We share the minimum necessary with a small set of service providers that operate on our behalf. We do not sell your data to anyone.
| Provider | What’s shared | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude AI) | The food description/photo or coach prompt you submit, plus the relevant targets for that request. | Estimating nutrition and generating coach suggestions. |
| USDA FoodData Central | Food search terms and barcodes you look up (no account or personal identifiers). | Looking up nutrition data for foods and barcodes. |
| Postmark | Your email address and the contents of transactional emails (e.g. password reset). | Sending account email. We do not send marketing email. |
| Apple Push Notification service / Google Firebase Cloud Messaging / Web Push | The push token for your device or browser and the notification content. | Delivering notifications you’ve enabled. Only used if you turn notifications on. |
| Payment processor (e.g. Stripe / the app store) | Only what’s needed to process a subscription. Card details go directly to the processor; we never see or store your full card number. | Billing, only if you subscribe. |
We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users and the service.
6. What we don’t do
- No advertising. Ancel contains no ads and no ad networks or ad SDKs.
- No selling your data. We never sell or rent your personal information.
- No cross-app or cross-site tracking. We don’t track you across other apps or websites and don’t use third-party advertising trackers.
- No data brokers. We don’t share your data with data brokers.
7. Data retention
We keep your information for as long as your account exists, so the app can track your history and keep adapting your targets. When you delete your account, your data is deleted (see §8). Transient technical data such as rate-limit counters and standard server logs are short-lived and automatically aged out.
8. Your rights and choices
You are in control of your data, directly inside the app:
- Access & export. In the app, go to Profile → Account & data → Export my data to download everything in your account as a JSON file.
- Delete. In the app, go to Profile → Account & data → Delete my account and confirm with your password. This permanently deletes your account and all associated data — your profile, weight logs, food logs, saved meals, food memory, dose log, notification subscriptions, and adaptation history — immediately and irreversibly.
- Correct. You can edit or delete any individual food entry, weight, or profile detail at any time in the app.
- Notifications. You can turn any notification type on or off in your profile, or disable them at the OS/browser level.
You can also email privacy@ancelhealth.com to make any of these requests, including a request to access or delete your data, and we will help. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws such as the GDPR or CCPA; we honor those requests.
9. Security
Passwords are stored only as salted bcrypt hashes — never in plain text. All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit with HTTPS/TLS. Sessions can be revoked (for example, changing your password signs out previously issued sessions), and password-reset links are single-use and expire after one hour. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data with sensible, current safeguards.
10. Children’s privacy
Ancel is intended for users 13 and older and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Where your data is processed
Ancel is operated from servers in the United States, and the service providers listed above may process data in the United States and other countries. By using Ancel, you understand your information may be processed in the U.S.
12. Changes to this policy
If we make material changes to this policy, we’ll update the “Last updated” date at the top and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continuing to use Ancel after an update means you accept the revised policy.
13. Contact us
Questions, requests, or concerns? Email privacy@ancelhealth.com and we’ll get back to you.