Puffins is a shared pantry, shopping list, and recipe app for households, developed by Smallbox (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what information the app collects, why, who can see it, and how to remove it. It applies to the Puffins app for iPhone and Android and to the account you create in it.
The short version: we collect only what the app needs to work, we never sell or advertise with your data, and you can delete your account and everything in it from the Profile screen at any time.
What we collect
| Information | Where it comes from | Why we need it |
|---|---|---|
| Email address and password | You, when you sign up | To create your account, sign you in, and send the confirmation and password reset codes. Your password is stored only as a secure hash and we never see it. |
| Display name | You, when you sign up | Shown to the other members of your household. |
| Household name and invite code | You, when you create a household | To group members and let people you invite join. |
| Pantry items, shopping list, and recipes | You and your household members | This is the content of the app. |
| Receipt photos and the items read from them | You, when you scan a receipt | To read the receipt and add the groceries to your pantry. |
| Recipe photos | You, when you scan a recipe | To read the recipe into the editor. The photo is deleted from our storage as soon as it has been read. |
| Sign-in session | Created by the app on your device | Kept in your device's secure storage so you stay signed in. |
We do not collect your location, contacts, calendar, advertising identifier, or any analytics about how you use the app. There are no ads and no third-party trackers.
How we use it
We use your information only to run the app: keeping your account, syncing your household’s pantry, shopping list, and recipes between members, reading receipts and recipes from photos, and sending the emails needed to confirm your address or reset your password. We do not use it for marketing, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with anyone except the service providers listed below.
Reading photos with AI
When you scan a receipt or a recipe, the photo is sent from our server to Anthropic, whose Claude model reads it and returns the items or the recipe as text. Anthropic processes these photos on our behalf as a service provider. Under its commercial terms it does not use them to train its models, and it retains them only briefly for abuse monitoring. The result is shown to you for review before anything is saved.
Claude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double check the items and amounts it reads.
Your household can see what you add
Puffins is built for sharing. Everyone in your household sees the same pantry, shopping list, recipes, and scanned receipts, including who added an item. Anyone who has your household’s invite code can join it, so share the code only with people you want in your household.
Service providers
Your data is stored and processed by these companies, each of which acts on our instructions:
- Supabase hosts our database, file storage, and sign-in service, and runs the server functions that process photos.
- Anthropic provides the Claude model that reads receipt and recipe photos.
- Resend delivers the account confirmation and password reset emails.
- Apple and Google distribute the app through their app stores and handle any purchase or install data under their own policies.
We do not share your information with anyone else unless the law requires it.
How long we keep it
- Your account, household content, and receipt photos are kept for as long as your account and household exist.
- Recipe photos are deleted from our storage immediately after they have been read.
- Confirmation and reset codes expire shortly after they are sent.
- When you delete your account, your login, profile, and memberships are removed straight away. A household you own is deleted together with its pantry, shopping list, recipes, and receipts.
Deleting your account
Open Profile in the app and choose Delete account. This cannot be undone. Only you can delete your account.
Security
All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit. Every record is protected by database rules that allow access only to members of the household it belongs to, and photo storage is private with the same rule. The credentials used to call Anthropic live only on our server and are never included in the app.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and email you at the address on your account when the change takes effect.
Contact
Smallbox
puffins@smallbox.io