Privacy Policy | Cooking with Robots

Last reviewed: October 4, 2026

1. Information We Collect

When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and cooking preferences (allergies, dietary restrictions, cuisine preferences, serving size). When you use the pantry scanner, images are processed through OpenRouter to identify food items — we do not store the images after processing.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to personalize recipe recommendations, generate meal plans, and create grocery lists. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

3. Third-Party Services

We use OpenRouter-hosted models for recipe generation and pantry analysis, and Google Gemini for recipe images. We use Instacart Connect for grocery delivery. When you check out via Instacart, you are redirected to their platform and their privacy policy applies. We also run the Google Ads conversion tag so we can tell which ads bring people here; it loads only after you accept cookies — in the cookie banner, or by signing in or signing up (see section 5) — and it may then set its own cookies.

4. Data Retention & Deletion

You can delete your account and all associated data at any time from the Settings page. Upon deletion, all personal data is permanently removed from our systems.

5. Cookies & Analytics

Always on (needed for the site to work): a session cookie that keeps you logged in; a signed cookie (cwr_anon, up to 2 years) that counts the free searches you run without an account, alongside a daily count kept against a keyed hash of your IP address (the IP itself is not stored) so the limit can’t be dodged by clearing cookies; and a cookie (cwr_consent, 1 year) that remembers whether you accepted cookies.

Only if you accept: our own page-view analytics and the Google Ads tag described above. There are two ways to accept: choose Accept in the cookie banner, or sign in or sign up. Until you do one of those, nothing is counted, no analytics cookie is set, and the Google Ads tag is never loaded. After you accept, a first-party analytics cookie (cwr_vid, up to 2 years) holds a random visitor ID so we can count how many people use the site, and for each page you open we record the page path, the site you arrived from, any campaign tag in the link you followed (such as utm_source), and your browser’s user-agent. If you are logged in, the page view is also linked to your account. This data stays on our servers — no analytics vendor, no cross-site tracking, no IP-based location.

Signing in or signing up counts as accepting: since October 4, 2026, the sign-in and sign-up pages carry the note “By signing in, you consent to the cookies policy”. There is no box to tick and nothing blocks you from signing in. When a sign-in or sign-up succeeds, we treat it as Accept, record when you accepted and which version of this policy you accepted, and stop showing the cookie banner while you are signed in. A failed sign-in changes nothing. This applies even if you chose Reject earlier.

Changing your mind: while signed out, choose Cookie settings in the footer and then Reject. That stops page-view counting and the Google Ads tag and deletes the cwr_vid cookie. Signing in again counts as accepting again.

6. Contact

For privacy inquiries, email us at hello@cookingwithrobots.com.