Privacy Policy for VietFood Lens

Last Updated: May 25, 2025

Introduction

Welcome to VietFood Lens ("we," "us," or "our"). We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our mobile application ("App").

Information We Collect

Information You Provide

• Account Information: When you create an account, we collect your email address and password.
• Profile Information: You may choose to provide additional information such as your name and profile picture.
• User Content: Information you provide when using our features, including food photos you upload, comments, and feedback reports.
• Communication: Information you provide when contacting us, including email communications.

Third-Party Authentication

• Google Sign-In: When you choose to sign in with Google, we receive information from your Google account such as your name, email address, and profile picture. We only store and use this information to manage your account with us.

Information Collected Automatically

• Device Information: We collect information about your mobile device, including device model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information using the device_info_plus plugin.
• Location Information: With your permission, we collect your precise location data to provide location-based features such as finding nearby restaurants and navigation services using the geolocator and location plugins.
• Usage Data: Information about how you use our App, including features you use and time spent on the App.
• Photos and Media: With your permission, we access your camera and photo library to allow you to take and upload photos of food.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) Token: To enable us to send you push notifications, our App collects a unique registration token (FCM token) generated by Firebase for your specific app installation on your device. This token allows us to direct notifications to your device.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, maintain, and improve our App and its services.
• Provide and improve the accuracy of our Vietnamese food recognition feature.
• Manage your account and facilitate your use of the App's features.
• Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support messages.
• Send you push notifications: With your permission (which, on Android 13 and newer, includes the explicit `POST_NOTIFICATIONS` permission granted by you), we use your FCM token to send you push notifications regarding App updates, new features, important alerts, promotional messages (if you opt-in to receive them), or other information relevant to your use of our App. These notifications may utilize sound and vibration to alert you.
• Respond to your comments, questions, and provide customer service.
• Develop new products and services.
• Generate anonymized, aggregate statistics about how users interact with our App to understand usage patterns and improve our services.
• Protect against, identify, and prevent fraud and other illegal activity.

Third-Party Services

Google Services (including Google Maps API & Firebase)

We use Google services in our App:

• Google Maps API: We use your location data to search for restaurants and food establishments near you using Google's Places API. We retrieve detailed information about specific locations including address, opening hours, reviews, and photos from Google Places API. We use Google Directions API to provide navigation routes to restaurants.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM): We use Firebase (a Google service) to deliver push notifications. The FCM registration token is shared with Firebase to facilitate the sending of these notifications to your device.

When you use these features, relevant data (location data, search queries, FCM token) is sent to Google. This information is subject to Google's Privacy Policy, which can be found at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Cloudinary

We use Cloudinary to store and manage the photos you upload to our App (both for your recognition history and, if you consent, for AI training). Cloudinary's use of your data is governed by their Privacy Policy, which can be found at https://cloudinary.com/privacy.

Recognition History and Training Data

Recognition History

When you take a photo to identify a Vietnamese dish, the image is stored in your personal history so you can revisit previous recognitions. You may delete any photo from your history at any time, and it will be permanently removed from our system (including from Cloudinary).

AI Training Data (Optional)

With your explicit consent, photos you capture may also be stored in a separate dataset on Cloudinary to help us train and improve our food recognition model. These images may be associated with your user ID internally for management and auditing purposes, but they will not be shown publicly and are used exclusively for machine learning improvement. You may contact us to request removal of training data previously shared with consent.

• You can enable or disable this feature at any time directly on the home screen using the "Allow Save" toggle.
• Training images are not shown in your history.
• Deleting a photo from your history does not automatically remove it from the training dataset if previously shared with consent.

Permissions We Request

To provide our services, we may request the following permissions on your device. You can manage these permissions through your device settings.

• Camera: To allow you to take photos of food for recognition.
• Photo Library/Media Access: To allow you to upload existing photos from your device for recognition, and for the App to potentially save images if needed (Permissions: READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE for older Android versions; READ_MEDIA_IMAGES, READ_MEDIA_VIDEO for Android 13+).
• Location: To provide location-based features such as finding nearby restaurants and restaurant recommendations (Permissions: ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION).
• Internet: To connect to our servers (including Cloudinary and Google Maps API) and provide our services (Permission: INTERNET).
• Push Notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS): To send you notifications about app updates, new features, and other relevant information. On Android 13 (API level 33) and higher, we will request this permission from you at runtime. On iOS, you will be prompted by the system to allow notifications.
• Vibration (VIBRATE): To allow notifications to vibrate your device to alert you, enhancing the notification experience. This permission is generally granted by default if declared but works in conjunction with your device's notification and vibration settings.

Data Sharing and Disclosure

We may share your information with:

• Service Providers:
  • Cloudinary: As described above, for storing images.
  • Google: As described in the "Google Services" section, for maps, location-based features, and delivering push notifications via Firebase.
  • We may use other third-party vendors for services such as analytics or error reporting in the future. If so, this policy will be updated to reflect those changes.
• Sharing Initiated by You: When you choose to share content from our App with friends or on social media platforms using your device's native sharing functionalities. In such cases, the sharing is governed by the privacy policies of those third-party platforms.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
  • Comply with a legal obligation.
  • Protect and defend our rights or property.
  • Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the App.
  • Protect the personal safety of users of the App or the public.
  • Protect against legal liability.

We do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. However, please remember that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.

Your Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, including:

• Access: The right to access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: The right to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Deletion: The right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• Restriction: The right to request restriction of processing of your personal information.
• Objection: The right to object to our processing of your personal information.
• Data Portability: The right to request a copy of your personal information in a portable format.
• Managing Push Notifications: You can opt-out of receiving push notifications, or manage your notification preferences (including aspects like sound and vibration), at any time by adjusting the settings on your mobile device (usually found under "Notifications" in your device's Settings menu for our App). If you have granted the `POST_NOTIFICATIONS` permission and later wish to revoke it, you can typically do so through your device's app settings.

To exercise any of these rights (excluding direct management of push notifications via device settings), please contact us at adminnhat@unime.site. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable law.

If you request to delete your account, all personal data associated with your account will be deleted from our systems, except for any information we are required to retain by law.

Children's Privacy

Our App is not directed to children under the age of 13 (or the applicable age in your jurisdiction), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under this age. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under the relevant age, please contact us at adminnhat@unime.site.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date at the top. For significant changes, we may also provide a more prominent notice (such as an in-app notification or an email to your registered address, if applicable). You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

Your continued use of the App after any modification to this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such modification.

Consent

By downloading, installing, accessing, or using our App, you consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms. This includes consenting to the collection and use of your information as described herein, including for the purpose of sending push notifications if you grant the necessary permissions.