Privacy Policy
Last updated: November 7, 2026
What FoodFindr does
FoodFindr helps people discover nearby live street food vendors and other local informal sellers. Users can browse listings, follow sellers, receive alerts, share posts and stories, message vendors, submit safety reports, and block accounts or vendors. Sellers can publish a profile and menu and go live with photos or videos and listing details.
Information we collect
- account and anonymous guest identifiers, including a guest session stored in your browser when you use the website map
- the email address and customer-or-vendor choice you give when you join the launch waitlist
- approximate or precise device location
- push notification tokens
- photos and videos added to posts, stories, messages, profiles, menus, and live listings
- post and story captions, menu items and prices, vendor profile details, and direct-message content
- the vendors you follow and the accounts you block
- vendor weekly schedules, including any planned spot a vendor chooses to show before going live
- the menu information a vendor publishes after scanning a menu photo (the text is read on the device)
- the version and date of the Terms and Community Guidelines you agreed to
- community reports like Still here, Moved, Closed, Long line, Cash only, and Sold out
- product activity such as vendor cards shown, listing opens, engaged viewing time, map selections, filters, shares, follows, directions taps, likely arrival, and likely dwell
- device diagnostics and crash information
How we use location
We use location to show nearby vendors during an active live session, calculate live-only distance, keep a seller's live pin current in the background while that seller is actively live, support directions and likely arrival analytics, and give more weight to some community reports when the reporter is physically near an active listing.
When a seller starts a live session, the location they choose is shown to other FoodFindr users as an exact map pin only while that session remains actively live. When the vendor is not live, FoodFindr does not show a public pin or distance for that vendor, with one exception the seller controls: a seller who adds a weekly schedule can choose “Show my spot before I’m live.” FoodFindr then shows that saved spot, with the start time, on the map in the app and on getfoodfindr.com during the 12 hours before each scheduled run, until the run starts. The seller can turn this off or remove the schedule at any time in Edit. Sellers should only go live, or share a planned spot, at a location where they are comfortable being found by shoppers.
If a seller enables background live updates, FoodFindr collects precise location while the app is in the background or not visible solely to keep that seller-started live pin current. Background collection is not started for shoppers or inactive vendors. While stationary, FoodFindr normally sends a keepalive about every five minutes; movement may produce an earlier update. If FoodFindr cannot verify a successful live-location signal for 15 minutes, the public pin, distance, and directions are hidden. This is a safety timeout, not a recurring notification to the seller.
Background collection stops when the seller ends the live session, the required end time is reached, location permission is removed, the seller signs out, the listing or account is deleted, or the app can no longer verify the same active live session. Force-quitting the app, loss of network access, power-saving behavior, or other platform restrictions may also stop or delay updates. FoodFindr does not use background location for advertising.
Shared FoodFindr links contain a listing identifier rather than map coordinates. The app checks the current live state before showing a pin or directions.
On the website, “Near me” asks your browser for your location. It is rounded before it is sent and is used only to find vendors near you; it is not saved to your account or kept as a location history. If you don’t allow it, the map shows Phoenix.
The FoodFindr website
The live map at getfoodfindr.com signs you in as an anonymous guest so it can load vendors and menus. The guest session is stored in your browser’s local storage; clearing your browser data removes it. The website does not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking.
If you join the waitlist, we store your email and whether you joined as a customer or a vendor. We send a confirmation email first; you receive launch updates only after confirming. Confirmation links expire after 24 hours. We don’t sell waitlist information; our service providers process it only to run the waitlist and deliver these emails. To limit abuse, we keep keyed, hashed network identifiers and hashed email send records for about one day; an hourly cleanup removes records older than 24 hours. You can ask to be removed at any time by emailing privacy@getfoodfindr.com. Launch updates will include a way to unsubscribe.
To show the map and photos, your browser loads map images from OpenFreeMap and food photos from Unsplash, so those services receive your IP address and basic browser information, as with any website request. If you tap Directions, the vendor’s location opens in Google Maps (or your phone’s maps app in FoodFindr), which handles it under its own privacy policy.
Product activity and personalization
We use product activity to understand how FoodFindr works and which vendors or food categories may be useful to you. We may use per-user vendor and category interest summaries to personalize ordering and recommendations inside FoodFindr.
FoodFindr does not put raw search text, arbitrary taps, advertising identifiers, or a history of precise coordinates in the product analytics log. We do not use this activity for cross-app advertising tracking.
Retention and service providers
Raw product activity is retained for up to 13 months. Posts, messages, profiles, menus, reports, and uploaded media remain while needed to provide the service, address safety issues, or meet legal obligations. Derived vendor and food-category interest summaries remain until the account is deleted or they are no longer needed. Anonymous guest accounts, including website guests, are deleted after 30 days without activity. Waitlist emails are kept until shortly after launch or until you ask us to remove them. We share data only with service providers that run FoodFindr for us:
- Supabase: database, sign-in, media storage, and backend functions
- Cloudflare Turnstile: when FoodFindr requires a security check, Turnstile processes browser and network signals such as an IP address to help detect automated abuse. The challenge page does not receive your FoodFindr email or password. See Cloudflare’s Turnstile privacy notice.
- Vercel: hosting for this website and shared links
- Sentry: crash and diagnostic reports
- Apple Push Notification service and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging: delivering notifications
- Resend: delivering account emails such as confirmation and password reset, and waitlist confirmation and launch emails
- OpenFreeMap: map images on the website live map
- Unsplash: food photos shown on the website
These providers may use the data only to provide their service to FoodFindr, and they are required to protect it at least as well as this policy describes. FoodFindr does not sell personal data or share it for advertising. We may also disclose information if required by law or legal process, to protect the safety, rights, or property of FoodFindr, our users, or the public, or as part of a merger, sale, or reorganization of FoodFindr, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.
Children
FoodFindr is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Anyone under 18 must have a parent or guardian’s permission to use FoodFindr. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, contact privacy@getfoodfindr.com and we will delete it.
Security and where data is stored
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, such as encrypted connections and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. FoodFindr is operated from the United States, and your information is stored and processed in the United States.
Your choices
You can control location and notification permissions in your phone settings. You can unfollow vendors, turn off “Show my spot before I’m live,” and delete your weekly schedule at any time. You can delete your account and associated content from Settings in the app or at getfoodfindr.com/delete-account, or request access, correction, deletion, or privacy help through privacy@getfoodfindr.com. Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights; we will respond to requests as the law requires. Content others have already seen or saved, and records we must keep for safety or legal reasons, may remain after deletion.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We will post the new version here with a new “Last updated” date, and for significant changes we will give notice in the app or on this site. Using FoodFindr after an update means the updated policy applies.