Privacy Policy — theBEAT

theBEAT is operated by theBEAT LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company with operations based in Baltimore, Maryland (referenced below as "theBEAT," "we," or "our"). This Privacy Policy describes the personal information we collect when you visit thebeatedit.com or use the theBEAT iOS application (together, the "Services"), how we use and share it, and the rights and choices you have. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meaning given to them in our Terms of Service.

Last updated: 10 October 2026. Effective as of the same date.

N° 001Scope

This policy applies to information collected through the Services. It does not apply to third-party websites, applications, or services that may link to or from the Services, including Apple, Stripe, or the reservation platforms we deep-link to; see Third-party links. If we collect information offline — for example, by email correspondence — this policy still governs how we handle it.

N° 002Information we collect

We collect only the minimum information needed to operate the Services.

Account information

An email address, used to sign in and to send transactional notices.
If you sign in with Apple, the name and email address Apple shares with us (which may be an Apple private relay address).
If you buy a gift on this website: your name and email, and the recipient’s name, email address and any message, used only to deliver and manage the gift.
A phone number, only if you choose to sign in with one, used only to sign you in. The one-time sign-in code is sent by our sign-in provider, Google Firebase.
A display name, optional and editable, used in your account.
A mailing address, only if you enter one, used only to post something we owe you by mail.
Membership status and tier (Free, Plus, Priority, or Lifetime), used to unlock the features you have paid for.
Dietary and allergen preferences you select — for example, Celiac Friendly, Nut Free, or Halal — stored on your account so your filters follow you to every device you use. Some of them can reveal health information (for example, Diabetic Friendly), a religious belief (Halal or Kosher), or a pregnancy (Pregnancy Cravings). They are used to filter every board and, only if you ask, to adapt a recipe — that one request goes to our AI provider; see AI data processing. Delete them at any time by deleting your account; see Correction and deletion.

Usage & activity information

The dishes you save, mark visited, request, or review, and lists you build in theTABLE.
Your activity in Hunt, Group Hunt, Birthdays, and Next Eats, including selections you make while using those tools.
Text you submit to an AI Feature (for example, a Concierge Hunt dining request), used to generate a response as described in AI data processing.
Your written correspondence with our editorial and support team, including feedback you send from the app (and any screenshot you choose to attach to it).
A request you send our concierge desk from the app — the occasion, party size, budget, neighborhood, date and notes you enter — together with your account email, so we can answer it.
A report you file about another member or a piece of content, so our team can review it.
Usage analytics linked to your account — for example, which features you use, where you drop off in a paywall flow, and, if you choose to tell us, why you cancelled a membership — so we can tell whether a feature works. We do not sell this data. We do not use it for ad targeting. We do not share it with third parties.
App-usage measurement by Google Analytics for Firebase, which the app includes: when the app is in use, which screens are shown, and the sessions they fall in. We use it to count how the app is used.

Device & technical information

Basic device information — operating system version, app version, device model — used to diagnose crashes and triage support requests.
Crash reports, collected by Google Firebase Crashlytics and linked to your account ID, so we can fix a crash you hit.
Performance and diagnostic reports that iOS provides to the app (Apple’s MetricKit), collected by Crashlytics with the crash reports and linked the same way, used only to find and fix problems in the app.
A push-notification token, if you allow notifications, so Google Firebase Cloud Messaging can deliver them to your device.
An app-integrity token (Google Firebase App Check), which tells our servers that a request came from the genuine app.
A one-way hash of the app’s device identifier (Apple’s identifier for vendor), used only to count the free recipes used on a device. The identifier itself never leaves your phone.
A record that you agreed to our Terms: which version of the Terms and this policy, when you agreed, the app build you agreed in, and that the date of birth you entered met our minimum age, linked to your account ID. The date of birth itself stays on your phone.
Approximate location, if you grant permission. The app asks iOS for approximate location only and never for your precise position. It is used on your phone to surface nearby dishes. It leaves your phone in two cases, each started by you: when you confirm a visit at a venue, it is sent to our servers to check that you are there (we keep the fact of the visit, not the coordinates); and when a Concierge Hunt finds fewer than five dishes in our catalog, the area you searched, or your approximate location, is sent to our servers and to Google Places to find venues nearby. We do not record precise location history.
The city you are browsing. To show the weather on the Hot page, the app sends Open-Meteo, a weather service, the fixed center point of that city — the same point for everyone browsing it, never your location. Like any website, Open-Meteo receives your device’s IP address with the request. If you are signed in, the city is also saved to your account so we can tell you when a new dish lands there.

User submissions

Dish photographs, votes, ratings, and other Submissions you choose to share through the Services, as described in our Terms of Service.
What other members can see. Circles is off until you turn it on. Circle-only, the default, shows your activity to people in your circle; Private shares nothing; Public lets anyone on theBEAT see your picks, ratings and profile. If you turn on a public profile, it is shown at thebeatedit.com/u/<your handle>, and your name and handle can appear under “Spotlighted by” on a dish you Spotlight. If you join the Founders wall, members see your handle and member number. In a Group Hunt, the others see the name you join with, your picks and your vote; your dietary needs are not shown with your name but join one combined list the hunt filters by.

Payment information

Subscriptions (Plus and Priority) are billed by Apple through In-App Purchase, and a one-time Lifetime membership, where offered, is billed by Stripe through web checkout. theBEAT does not collect, see, or store your full payment card number, card verification code, or other full payment credentials — those are collected and processed directly by Apple or Stripe, respectively. theBEAT may receive limited transaction metadata from Apple or Stripe (for example, that a purchase was completed, its tier, and its date) to activate and manage your Membership.

Information we do not collect

We do not set advertising cookies on this website.
We do not run cross-site tracking, advertising analytics, or behavioral profiling.
Browser local storage on this website remembers your theme (light/dark) and the billing period you last looked at. If you sign up or vote on this website, it also keeps the email address you typed, on your own device, so the page knows you already did. An invite link you arrive by remembers its invite code, and /c/ invite links also set a 30-day first-party cookie holding that code. None of this is advertising or cross-site tracking data.
We do not collect microphone data, and we do not use facial recognition or biometric identification.
theBEAT may use your camera and photo library on your device to read a receipt you choose to scan for visit verification; that scan is processed on your device and is never uploaded. A photo leaves your phone only when you choose to send one: a dish photo you submit, or a screenshot you attach to feedback, which is stored with that submission. Your contacts are read on your device only if you tap “invite friends,” and are never uploaded to, stored on, or collected by our servers.
We do not collect medical records, diagnoses, or biometric identifiers. Dietary and allergen preferences you choose to set are account information, described above.

N° 003How we use it

We use the information described above to:

Operate, secure, and improve the Services.
Create and maintain your account, and activate and manage your Membership.
Send transactional messages, such as receipts and account notices.
Provide editorial recommendations, the daily verdict, and personalized features such as Next Eats.
Generate AI-assisted suggestions and recipes through Concierge Hunt and Make It At Home, using a third-party AI provider as described in How we share it and AI data processing.
Respond to correspondence with the support and editorial team.
Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and security incidents.
Comply with legal obligations.

We do not use your account information — your email address, name, payment details, or precise location — to train any AI model, ours or a third party’s.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not share it with advertisers or data brokers, and we do not exchange it for any value. We share information only with the sub-processors and in the narrow circumstances described below.

Service providers & sub-processors. A small number of vendors process data on our behalf, each bound by written agreements limiting their use of it to providing services to theBEAT. They include:

Cloud infrastructure — Google Firebase (authentication, including the one-time code for phone sign-in; database; account storage; crash reporting with Crashlytics; push notifications with Cloud Messaging; app-integrity checks with App Check; app-usage measurement with Google Analytics for Firebase)
Maps & places — Google Places (finds venues near the area you search, or near your approximate location, when a Concierge Hunt looks beyond our catalog; and looks up the venue named in a post you share into the app)
Payments — Apple (subscriptions via App Store) and Stripe (one-time Lifetime memberships via web checkout); see Payment information
App installs — Apple TestFlight (when you ask for a free invite on this website, buy a Lifetime membership, or are given one, we send Apple your email address so Apple can send the install invitation)
AI features — Anthropic (processes the text you submit to Concierge Hunt; the dietary needs and short note you send, after you allow it, when you ask Make It At Home to adapt a recipe; dish/restaurant details from our own catalog; a nearby venue’s published menu text; and — when you share a social post into the app — the shared link and its public caption, solely to generate the suggestion, recipe, or prefill you requested; we do not send your name, email, payment information, or precise location to Anthropic as part of this — see AI data processing)
Email — Loops.so (account emails such as sign-in verification and password resets; on this website, the waitlist and member communications). An email address you give us in the app is used for account emails only; the app does not add it to a marketing list.
Team notices — Postmark (delivers notices to our own team, such as a report you file, which can include what you wrote)
Website hosting — Cloudflare (page delivery, email routing)

Beyond our sub-processors, we share information only:

For legal process. When required by valid legal process, such as a subpoena or court order, and only to the extent required, or where necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of theBEAT, our users, or the public.
In a business transition. In the event of a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction, with notice to affected users.
With your consent. For any other purpose disclosed to you at the time you provide the information, or with your consent.

N° 005AI data processing

Concierge Hunt, Make It At Home, and shared-link details (when you share a social post into the app) are powered by a third-party AI provider, Anthropic. When you use an AI Feature:

The free-text prompt you type (for Concierge Hunt) and relevant dish, restaurant, or catalog metadata theBEAT already holds (for both features) is sent to Anthropic to generate a response.
If you ask Make It At Home to adapt a recipe to your dietary needs, the needs you have saved in your Profile, and any need the board you came from is filtered by, that the adaptation supports (gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, halal, kosher, vegetarian, vegan, low-sodium, GLP-1-conscious, low-FODMAP) are sent with that request so the recipe can be adapted, together with any short note you type for that adaptation. Your dietary needs are sent only when you ask for an adaptation, and only with that one request. The base recipe request sends only the dish and catalog information described above.
When you share a post into the app, the shared link and its public caption are sent to Anthropic to prefill the save form; for TikTok links, we also fetch the post’s public caption and creator name from TikTok and send those. Nothing is saved as fact until you review and confirm it.
When a Concierge Hunt finds fewer than five dishes in our catalog, we look up nearby venues with Google Places and send a venue’s published menu text to Anthropic to read it. None of your data is sent to Anthropic in that step.
We ask first. Before the Concierge or a shared link sends anything for the first time, the app shows what leaves your phone and asks. Before your first recipe adaptation, a one-time card asks whether your needs may go with the recipe to Anthropic (Allow / Not now). Change either answer any time in the app under Profile › Settings › AI features & your data.
We do not send your account email address, real name, payment information, or precise location to Anthropic. Only what this section names is sent: the text you type, the dietary needs and note an adaptation request carries, a shared post’s link, caption and creator name, a venue’s published menu text, and theBEAT’s own catalog data.
Make It At Home responses are cached per dish and may be reused for other users who view the same dish; Concierge Hunt responses are generated per request and are not shared with other users.
Anthropic processes this data under its own data-handling and retention terms as our sub-processor, and does not use data submitted through theBEAT’s API integration to train its models, consistent with Anthropic’s standard commercial API terms as of the effective date above.
You should not type sensitive personal information, health information, or another person’s personal information into an AI Feature’s prompt field; see AI features in our Terms of Service.

N° 006Your privacy rights

Access and export. Write to [email protected] and we will send you a copy of the information associated with your account within thirty days.
Correction and deletion. You may edit profile fields in the app at any time. To delete your account, open Profile › Account › Delete account in the app, or write to us at the address above. Verified deletion requests are honored within thirty days for our live systems; copies in encrypted backups are purged on the normal backup rotation shortly after. Aggregate data that no longer identifies you — such as a dish’s overall score — is unaffected by deletion.
Location. Granted and revoked at any time in the iOS Settings app.
Notifications. Granted and revoked at any time in the iOS Settings app, or by section within the app.
App tracking. theBEAT does not track you across other apps or websites. We do not use the iOS Advertising Identifier (IDFA) and do not request App Tracking Transparency permission, because we have nothing to track.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), gives you the following rights with respect to your personal information, subject to certain exceptions and verification requirements:

Right to know / access. You may request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources, the purpose for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it.
Right to delete. You may request that we delete personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions (for example, information we must retain to comply with a legal obligation).
Right to correct. You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.
Right to opt out of sale or sharing. You may direct us not to sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Right to non-discrimination. We will not deny you goods or services, charge you a different price, or provide a different level of service because you exercised a CCPA/CPRA right.

theBEAT does not sell your personal information, and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA. Because we do not engage in either practice, there is nothing to opt out of.

To exercise any right described in this section, write to [email protected] from the email address associated with your account. We will verify your request before acting on it and will respond within the time required by applicable law. You may also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, subject to our ability to verify that authorization. All the rights described in this section are available to every theBEAT user, regardless of state of residence, by writing to the address above.

N° 007Data retention

We keep account information for as long as your account is active and as reasonably necessary to provide the Services. When you delete your account, we delete or anonymize associated personal information within thirty days, except where retention is required by law, to resolve a documented dispute, to enforce our agreements, or where information has already been aggregated or de-identified such that it no longer identifies you. AI Feature prompt text is retained only as long as necessary to generate and, for Make It At Home, cache the requested response, and is not retained by theBEAT as part of your account profile.

Deleting your account in the app removes your profile and what you created automatically, including a dietary tag you suggested for a dish and a concierge request sent from your account’s email address. One kind of record stays: a report you filed that a dish’s dietary tag was wrong. We keep it as you wrote it, without your account ID or contact details, because it is evidence about that dish. A concierge request sent from a different email address is not matched automatically; write to [email protected] and we will delete it within thirty days.

N° 008Security

We protect information in transit using industry-standard encryption, and apply reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. No system is ever perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we discover a material incident affecting your information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.

N° 009Children

The Services are not directed to children under thirteen, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them; see Eligibility in our Terms of Service. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information to us, write to [email protected] and we will promptly investigate and delete it as appropriate.

If you are a parent or guardian and your child under 13 has an account, write to [email protected] with the email address, phone number or handle on the account. We switch the account off when we log your report, and once we have checked it, we delete the account and its data. If the date of birth entered at the app’s first screen is under 13, the app turns off its usage analytics and crash reporting on that phone and sends none of the events it was holding.

N° 010Third-party links

The Services contain links and deep-links to third-party sites and services we do not control, including Apple, Stripe, and restaurant reservation platforms. This policy does not apply to those third parties. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any third-party service before providing it with information.

N° 011Changes

We will update this policy as our practices evolve. The "last updated" date at the top of this page will change with each revision. For material changes, we will provide additional notice — for example, by email or an in-app banner — before the new policy takes effect. Your continued use of the Services after a revised policy takes effect constitutes your acceptance of it.

N° 012Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns about this policy go to [email protected] or [email protected]. General questions can also go to [email protected]. Postal mail may be addressed to theBEAT LLC, 306 W Redwood St #4870, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Privacy Policy.