Overview
ShopMate is a grocery price and spending app for iOS and Android. Feature availability differs by platform. This policy explains how ShopMate handles information used for accounts, scanning, grocery records, store comparison, community features, analytics, security, and support.
Account Data
ShopMate may collect your email address, authentication identifier, age bracket, profile settings, and app preferences. ShopMate uses Firebase Authentication to provide email and supported social sign-in.
Firebase Services and Analytics
ShopMate uses Google Firebase services to operate the app. Cloud Firestore stores account profiles, selected grocery records, community catalog and price submissions, and private household records. Firebase Storage stores optional user-uploaded images. ShopMate does not use this information to sell personal data. Optional app analytics is described separately below.
Optional App Usage Analytics
ShopMate 2.1, starting with iOS build 30 and Android version code 8, disables optional Firebase Analytics usage collection. There is no usage-analytics opt-in switch in these releases. All shopping features remain available. Core authentication, app verification, service-security processing and necessary service diagnostics still operate. The updated app resets its previous local usage-analytics choice and local Analytics data; this does not delete data already sent by older builds. Older installed versions may continue their previous analytics behavior. Website measurement and cookie choices are separate and remain as described below.
Website Cookies and Advertising Measurement
The ShopMate website uses Google Analytics to measure website visits, campaign activity, and clicks to the App Store and Google Play. Google Ads measures the configured iOS App Store click conversion. On a first visit, optional measurement starts automatically after our country check identifies the United States or Puerto Rico. Elsewhere, or if the check is unavailable, it stays off until you choose Okay or enable a category in Cookie settings. A saved choice takes priority. When measurement is already active or a choice is saved, Okay keeps the current settings. Opt out turns optional measurement off. Cookie settings remains available after saving, and we remember your choice when browser storage is available. Your browser's Global Privacy Control signal keeps advertising measurement off. Advertising personalization is disabled. A store-link click does not establish that an app was installed. Meta Pixel is not configured. Cloudflare also measures website performance separately from these optional tags.
Receipt OCR
On iOS, receipt images captured by camera or selected from Photos are processed on device for OCR and are not uploaded by the receipt OCR flow. Detected receipt text and selected grocery records may be saved only after you review the detected items and choose what to keep.
Android Barcode Scanning
On Android, ShopMate uses the camera to detect product barcodes on device. Camera frames are not saved or uploaded by the barcode-scanning flow. A detected barcode value may be used to find a product or prepare a price submission when you choose to continue.
Optional Photos
You may choose to add product photos, store photos, or price-entry photos where those features are available. These uploads are user-initiated and are separate from receipt OCR and barcode scanning.
Location and Store Coordinates
Location permission is optional. You can choose a shopping area with a supported ZIP code instead. When a location is not already resolved in our cache, ShopMate's backend may send the selected latitude and longitude to the U.S. Census Bureau to determine state and government-reference coverage. For government-reference ZIP searches, this can be a public ZIP-area centroid rather than a device location. We do not forward your account identifier, App Check token, search words, radius or device IP address to Census. Our backend retains location-resolution digests and the resolved state without automatic expiry; paginated local-browsing sessions can also retain the selected coordinates. Session expiry makes those session records eligible for automatic cleanup, not immediate physical deletion. Census handles requests under its own privacy practices; we do not control its logs. Public store coordinates may remain with shared store records.
Submissions and Community Safety
ShopMate may process product records, price entries, vendor or store details, reviews, reports, and related submissions that you create. Public catalog and price contributions may be visible to other users. These records are used to operate the app, maintain data quality, moderate abuse, and respond to reports.
How Information Is Used
Information is used to operate ShopMate, authenticate accounts, save selected grocery prices, compare prices by store, provide support, improve app quality, maintain security, prevent abuse, and comply with legal obligations.
De-identified Aggregated Insights
ShopMate may use de-identified, aggregated pricing data for broader market insights. These insights are designed to avoid identifying individual users.
No Sale of Personal Data
ShopMate does not sell personal data. Personal information may be shared with service providers that help operate the app, when required by law, or when needed to protect the service and its users.
Retention
Private account data is kept while your account is active and as needed to operate, secure, and support ShopMate. Completed deletion removes authored reviews, authored reports, private account-linked records, personal price notes and associated uploads. Some shared product/store facts and de-identified price history may remain without personal ownership links where lawful, along with non-identifying operation records. A temporary account-linked protection record prevents older sessions from restoring deleted data during deletion and for two hours afterward while older sign-in tokens expire. After that period, the record becomes eligible for automatic deletion and may remain until cleanup runs. A pending deletion is not represented as completed.
Account Deletion
You can request deletion in the app from Settings > Delete Account. The app requires confirmation and recent authentication for registered accounts. Guest-data deletion is also available from Settings. Follow the displayed progress until remote deletion is confirmed. Clearing the app locally is not confirmation that server deletion has finished. A completed request removes the ShopMate authentication account, profile, authored reviews/reports, associated private records and uploads, and personal price notes and ownership links. It does not delete your separate Apple or Google account. For details or help, visit shopmatehq.com/delete-account or contact support@shopmatehq.com.
Your Choices
You can manage camera, photo-library, and location permissions in iOS or Android system settings. You can review detected information before saving, choose whether to add optional photos, and use read-only catalog features without creating an account where guest access is offered.
Children
ShopMate is not intended for children under 13. ShopMate does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes
This policy may be updated from time to time. The updated version will be posted on this page with a new effective date.
Contact
Privacy and support questions can be sent to support@shopmatehq.com.