Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how personalchefs.com ("personalchefs.com", "the Company", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects information when you use our website and Service. It applies to personal chefs who use the Service ("chefs") and to the clients chefs invite to a limited client view. By using the Service, you agree to the practices described here.

Roles. For information that a chef enters about their own clients, the chef determines why and how that information is used, and personalchefs.com processes it on the chef's behalf to provide the Service. Chefs are responsible for having a lawful basis to provide client information to us and for telling their clients how their information is used.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information:

• Account information: your name, email address, and password credentials (passwords are stored in hashed form by our authentication provider).
• Business profile: details you add in settings, such as your business name, business email, phone number, business address, payment terms, cancellation policy, accepted payment methods, payment handles, writing-style preferences, and Stripe Connect onboarding status.
• Content you input: client briefs (client name, occasion, guest count, dietary needs, cuisine style, budget, service date, and notes) and any edits you make to generated documents.
• Client information you provide: the names and email addresses of clients you add or invite, and information about their events. This information is provided by you, the chef.
• Generated content: the proposals, menus, shopping lists, and invoices created for you, stored with your account.
• Payment information: billing and subscription details are processed by Stripe. We receive limited information such as your subscription status, plan, and identifiers — we do not store full payment card numbers.
• Communications: messages exchanged between chefs and their clients through the Service, reviews submitted through the client portal, payment reports, and any support or feedback messages you send us.
• Usage and device data: log data such as IP address, browser type, pages viewed, actions taken, and timestamps, collected automatically when you use the Service.
• Cookies and similar technologies: as described in our Cookie Policy.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain the Service, including generating your documents and powering the client portal, messaging, and payment-tracking features;
• Create and manage your account and authenticate you;
• Process subscriptions, billing, and (if you enable it) chef payouts;
• Send transactional and service-related emails, such as confirmations, password resets, invitations, and notifications;
• Provide customer support and respond to your requests and feedback;
• Monitor, secure, debug, and improve the Service, including protecting against fraud, abuse, and security incidents and enforcing usage limits; and
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

4. AI Processing and Anthropic

To generate your documents, we send the details you enter in a client brief — and, where relevant, the resulting menu — to Anthropic, PBC, the provider of the Claude API, which generates the proposal, menu, shopping list, and invoice. This means the brief data you submit is transmitted to and processed by Anthropic to produce your output.

Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, data submitted through the API is processed to return a response to us and is not used to train Anthropic's models. We send only the information needed to generate your documents. You should avoid entering sensitive personal information in a brief beyond what is needed to plan the event.

5. How We Share and Disclose Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only as follows:

• Service providers: with vendors that help us run the Service, including Anthropic (AI generation), Supabase (database, authentication, and hosting of your data), Stripe (payment processing and payouts), and Resend (transactional email). These providers may access information only to perform services for us and are bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations.
• Between chef and client: when a chef invites a client or shares a portal link, the relevant documents and messages are made available to that client; client reviews, approvals, and payment reports are made available to the chef.
• Legal and safety: when we believe disclosure is necessary to comply with a law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of personalchefs.com, our users, or others.
• Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, in which case information may be transferred as part of that transaction.
• Aggregated or de-identified data: information that does not identify you and cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
• With your direction or consent: in other cases where you ask us to share or agree to the sharing.

6. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. After you close your account, we will delete or de-identify your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we need to retain it to comply with legal, tax, accounting, or regulatory obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce our agreements. Backups and logs may persist for a limited additional period before being overwritten. You may request deletion as described below.

7. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect your information, including encryption in transit, access controls, and row-level security in our database. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential.

8. Where Your Information Is Stored

Your information is stored with our database and hosting provider, Supabase, in a data region located in the United States (US West), and is processed in the United States by us and our service providers. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data-protection laws may differ from those in your location.

9. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Access: request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• Correction: ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information (you can update most account and business details directly in your settings);
• Deletion: ask us to delete your personal information, subject to legal exceptions;
• Portability: request a copy of certain information in a portable format; and
• Opt-out: unsubscribe from non-essential emails using the link in those emails (we may still send transactional messages necessary to operate the Service).

To exercise these rights, email us at privacy@personalchefs.com. We will respond as required by applicable law and may need to verify your identity first. If your request concerns information a chef entered about you as their client, we may direct your request to that chef, who controls that information.

10. California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives you the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose; the right to request deletion of your personal information; the right to correct inaccurate personal information; and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not "share" it for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined under California law. The categories of personal information we collect, the purposes for which we use them, and the parties with whom we share them are described in the sections above. To exercise your California rights, email privacy@personalchefs.com. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf, subject to verification.

11. Children's Privacy

The Service is intended for users who are at least 18 years old and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a person under 18, we will delete it. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, contact us at privacy@personalchefs.com.

12. Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate the Service, remember your session, and understand how the Service is used. For details about the cookies we use and your choices, see our Cookie Policy.

We use Google Analytics (GA4), a web analytics service provided by Google, to collect aggregated information about how visitors use the Service — such as the pages you visit, how long you spend on the site, your device and browser type, and your approximate, city-level location (not your precise location). Google Analytics uses cookies, including _ga and _gid, to distinguish one visitor session from another. We use this information only in aggregate, to understand and improve the Service, and not for advertising. You can learn how Google handles this data in Google's Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy, and you can opt out of Google Analytics across all websites by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

13. Third-Party Links and Services

The Service may contain links to, or integrate with, third-party websites and services that we do not control. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those third parties, and we are not responsible for their privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party service you use, including Stripe when you make or accept payments.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the Effective Date above and take reasonable steps to notify you, such as posting a notice within the Service or sending an email. Your continued use of the Service after the changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact us at privacy@personalchefs.com.