Privacy Policy

01Summary in plain words

Bharat Food Verity evaluates user-provided labels and publicly available reference data. This policy describes exactly what the app does with information, as built into the app itself.

02Who we are

Bharat Food Verity (Android application ID com.linaapps.BharatFoodVerity) is published by LINA Apps, India (linaapps.in). For this policy, LINA Apps is the Data Fiduciary within the meaning of India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 for any personal data the app processes.

Contact for all privacy questions, requests and grievances: hello@linaapps.in · WhatsApp / Phone +91 78933 39960.

03What stays on your device

The following is stored only in the app’s private storage on your phone. None of it is transmitted anywhere by the app.

• Your name and city / district / state, if you enter them at onboarding (used only for PDF reports you choose to create).
• Location coordinates and their capture time — only if you explicitly grant location permission and choose “Use device location”. If you decline, the typed location is used instead.
• Photographs of labels you capture or import, held in app-private storage.
• The full text read from those labels (the OCR transcript), including any corrections you make.
• Your scan history and its results.
• Every nutrition figure, allergen declaration and assessment generated by the app.
• Your acceptance of the in-app legal notices, with the notice version you accepted.

This data stays on the device unless you deliberately export or share a result.

04What leaves your device

Two limited requests go to two different services. Neither request carries the other’s data, and neither carries an account, device identifier, location, scan history or label photograph. Both use HTTPS only — cleartext traffic is disabled in the app.

4.1 The barcode number → Open Food Facts

When a barcode is read, it is sent to Open Food Facts (world.openfoodfacts.org) to retrieve the product’s name, pack size and the additive and allergen lists that open directory holds for it. The request carries the barcode and a fixed, allowlisted list of requested fields — and nothing else: no label image, no ingredient text, no profile name, no scan history, no device identifier, no location.

A barcode identifies a product, not a person, and it is not combined with anything else in the request, so the service receives no information about who is scanning or what else they have scanned. Data from this community-contributed catalogue is labelled as such on every screen that shows it.

4.2 Unfamiliar ingredient names → Wikipedia

The app’s bundled regulatory data covers additives by INS code. So that ordinary ingredients — maida, palm olein, maltodextrin — do not reach you with no explanation, names the app could not classify offline are sent to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) to fetch a plain-language description.

• Only names the bundled packs could not classify; an ingredient the app already has evidence for is never looked up.
• At most 12 names per scan, in a single request.
• Cleaned first: brackets, percentages and footnote marks are removed, so POTATO (87.49%) is sent as potato.

Not sent: the barcode, the label photograph, the full ingredient list, any nutrition figure, your allergen declarations, your name, your scan history, a device identifier or your location. The request is not linked to the Open Food Facts lookup in any way.

4.3 If a lookup fails

The app says so and continues. The label analysis is unaffected, because it never depends on the network.

05What decides the health information you see

The assessment of which declared ingredients are worth limiting or avoiding is computed entirely on your device, from the label you photographed plus regulatory data bundled inside the app — FSSAI food-additive provisions (Appendix A) and the WHO / JECFA additive evaluations. No online service influences it.

Wikipedia descriptions can say what an ingredient is; they can never band it, contradict a bundled finding or change a verdict. The screen names Wikipedia as the source wherever such a description appears, so an encyclopaedia entry is never mistaken for a regulator’s.

06Exports, PDFs and sharing

• Your reporter name, typed location, permitted coordinates, device model and Android version are placed at the end of a PDF only when you deliberately prepare that export.
• When a saved scan has your package photographs, the complete PDF export offers them as image evidence and enables that option by default. The export screen tells you this before the PDF is created and lets you choose an image-free export.
• Social-media share images never include reporter identity or location.
• Preparing, saving or sharing a PDF is always your deliberate action. Images are never attached to an internet lookup or uploaded by the app itself. Once you share a file with another app or person, that recipient’s own privacy practices apply.

07Permissions the app asks for

08What we never do

• No advertising, and no use of your data for advertising.
• No profiling, and no sale or rental of data to anyone.
• No use of your photos or scans for AI training.
• No analytics, crash-reporting or tracking SDK inside the app.
• No account, no sign-in, no cloud sync and no payment of any kind.

Google Play, which distributes the app, may independently collect installation and diagnostic information under Google’s own privacy policy.

09Retention and deletion

Because everything is stored on your device, you control how long it is kept. Data remains until you delete it.

• Delete a scan from History at any time.
• “Delete all app data” in Settings erases the local database, stored label images, cached product records, reporter profile and the stored legal-notice acceptance.
• Uninstalling the app, or clearing its storage in Android settings, also removes all of it.

LINA Apps holds no copy of your scans on any server, so there is nothing for us to retain after you delete.

10Your rights under Indian law

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025 you have the right to:

• Information about the personal data processed and the processing (this page, and the in-app notice).
• Correction, completion, updating and erasure — you can edit or delete everything directly in the app; you may also write to us.
• Withdraw consent — decline or revoke location/camera permissions in Android settings, or delete all app data. Withdrawal does not affect processing already done.
• Grievance redressal — contact us using the details below; we will acknowledge your grievance and respond within the time period required under the DPDP Rules.
• Nominate another person to exercise these rights in case of death or incapacity, by writing to us.
• If you are not satisfied with our response, you may approach the Data Protection Board of India.

11Children

Bharat Food Verity is a general-audience tool for families and does not knowingly collect children’s personal data. A family profile you create for a child stays on your device only and is used solely to add a suitability note on top of a label reading. It is never used for advertising, tracking or behavioural monitoring. A parent or guardian should set up and supervise any use by a child.

12Security

Data is kept in the app’s private storage, which other apps cannot read on a normal Android device. Network requests are HTTPS-only. Because nothing is uploaded, there is no server-side database of your scans to be breached. Keep your phone protected with a screen lock for the best protection of the data stored on it.

13Changes to this policy

If the app’s data practices change — for example a new type of lookup — this page and the in-app notice will be updated before the change takes effect, and the in-app notice will ask for your acknowledgement again. The effective date at the top of this page always shows the current version.

14Contact & grievance officer

LINA Apps — Privacy & Grievance
Email: hello@linaapps.in
WhatsApp / Phone: +91 78933 39960
Web: linaapps.in

Please mention “Bharat Food Verity” in your message. See also the Terms of Use & Legal Notices.