Privacy policy
Last updated: October 7, 2026
KWAH is your food journal: we keep what the app needs to work, nothing more. We don’t sell your data, we don’t do targeted advertising, and your private notes stay private.
This is a translation. If the two versions ever differ, the French version prevails.
Who is responsible
The controller of your data is Julien Thurnherr, founder of KWAH, Chemin du Port 3a, 1297 Founex, Switzerland.
For any question about your data: confidentialite@kwah.ch. For anything else: hello@kwah.ch.
KWAH applies the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP).
What KWAH collects
| Data | What it is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your email and password, or your Sign in with Apple or Google (Apple and Google may give us your name) | To sign you in |
| Profile | Username, display name, bio, city, profile photo, chosen companion | So your friends can find and recognise you |
| Your KWAHs | The place, the date, your verdict, your public note, your occasions, the people you tag, the visibility you chose | It’s your journal |
| Private notes | The text you write for yourself only | Your journal, visible to you only |
| Photos | 1 to 20 photos per KWAH, your profile photo | Your journal and profile |
| Social | Friends, likes, comments, groups and their messages, questions to your friends, good addresses | Sharing with your friends |
| To Try | The restaurants you save | Your list, visible to you only |
| Home area | Your city, inferred from your KWAHs, your iPhone’s region or what you enter (about 1 km precision) | To suggest things near you; visible to you only |
| Contributions | Cuisines you suggest, places you add, information you report about a place | To improve restaurant pages |
| Safety and feedback | Reports, blocks, feedback you send (with the app version and screen) | To protect the community and fix the app |
| Usage statistics | Events such as “KWAH saved” or “map opened” (see below) | To improve the app; can be turned off |
| Waitlist | Your email, if you sign up on kwah.ch before launch | To tell you when KWAH launches; nothing else |
Your location. KWAH asks for your location only while the app is open, once, to about 1 km, to suggest nearby restaurants. It is used for searches in Apple Maps and is not sent to KWAH’s servers. The location and date stored in your photos are only used on your phone, to suggest the place and the day; they are removed from the photos before upload.
Never collected: your contacts, your photo library (you pick photos one by one; KWAH can only add photos taken in the app to it, if you ask), your background location, the words you type in search, an advertising identifier. KWAH uses no advertising or tracking tools from any other company.
Who sees what
- You: everything about you, including your private notes, your To Try list and your home area.
- Your friends: your profile and your KWAHs set to “Friends” or “Public”. “Friends” is the default; you can change it before each save.
- Other KWAH members: your profile (username, name, bio, city, profile photo) and your “Public” KWAHs. Someone without an account sees nothing, except your profile photo if they know its exact address.
- Nobody but you: your “Private” KWAHs, your private notes, your To Try list, your usage statistics. If you block someone, you no longer see each other’s content, both ways.
- Groups and questions: a group’s messages are seen by its members; a question to your friends is seen by the friends you send it to.
- Restaurant pages show occasion percentages computed from non-private KWAHs, without any names, and only from 5 people up.
The KWAH team (today, Julien alone)
- To moderate, it sees reports, but never the name of the person who reported. It can hide a KWAH; every decision is logged.
- It sees who suggested a cuisine or a place, to judge how reliable suggestions are.
- It reads the feedback you send from the app.
- As technical lead, Julien has full access to the database. He commits to never reading your private notes or private KWAHs, except where required by law or at your request.
Usage statistics
To learn what works in the app, KWAH records events linked to your account: “app opened”, “+ KWAH step viewed”, “KWAH saved”, “friend request sent”, “map opened”, etc. Each event only contains its name, the date and a small detail from a fixed list (for example the number of photos or the tab opened).
- Never recorded: the text of your notes or comments, your photos, your location, your contacts, the words you search, the name of a restaurant or group.
- It all stays with KWAH: no analytics tool from any other company.
- 90 days, then deleted: every night, events older than 90 days are deleted. Only weekly totals remain, without any identifier, where any group of fewer than 3 people is hidden.
- Who sees them: only the KWAH team. Every time a person’s journey is viewed, it is logged.
- You can say no: in the app’s Settings. It is on by default; as soon as you turn it off, nothing more is recorded and the app works exactly the same.
These statistics rely on KWAH’s legitimate interest in improving its app; that’s why they are limited, temporary and can be turned off in one tap.
Where your data lives
Your data is hosted in Switzerland, in Zurich. KWAH doesn’t sell or rent your data, and doesn’t share it with anyone for advertising. It works with these providers:
| Provider | What it does | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase (USA), servers in Zurich | Hosts the database, accounts and photos | The app’s data |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, maps and place search (Apple Maps) | Your sign-in if you choose Apple; your location and place searches |
| Sign in with Google | Your sign-in, only if you choose Google | |
| Infomaniak (Switzerland) | KWAH’s email | The emails you send us |
| Anthropic and Google (AI) | Complete restaurant pages (category, opening hours, description) | Only information about restaurants (name, address, website), never your notes or your account |
| Cloudflare (USA) | Hosts the kwah.ch website | The technical address (IP) of your device when you visit the site; the site has no cookies or tracking tools |
A place you add yourself becomes a shared restaurant page: its name and address may be sent to these tools to complete the page. When a provider is located outside Switzerland, KWAH chooses providers offering recognised protection guarantees.
How long we keep your data
| Data | Duration |
|---|---|
| Account, profile, KWAHs, photos, friends, comments | Until you delete them, or your account |
| KWAH being created (on your phone only) | 24 hours at most, erased when published or abandoned |
| Usage statistics | 90 days |
| Statistics totals without identifiers | No limit |
| Reports, feedback, moderation decisions | 2 years |
| Log of views by the KWAH team | 1 year |
| Technical database backups | 7 days at most, then deleted automatically |
| Waitlist | Until launch, then deleted; sooner if you ask |
Deleting your account. Settings → “Delete Account”. It’s immediate and permanent: profile, KWAHs, photos, private notes, friends, likes, comments and statistics are erased. All that remains is:
- messages you wrote in a group that still has members, without your name;
- restaurants you added, which are shared pages, without your name;
- groups you created, handed to their longest-standing member;
- reports about your account and moderation decisions, kept for 2 years so that abuse can be handled.
Your rights
At any time you can ask to see your data, receive a copy, correct it, have it deleted, or object to a use. Write to confidentialite@kwah.ch: KWAH answers within 30 days, free of charge.
In the app, without asking anyone, you can already:
- edit your profile and the visibility of each KWAH;
- delete a KWAH, a comment, a like, a friend;
- block or report someone;
- turn off usage statistics;
- delete your account.
If you think your data is mishandled, you can also contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).
Minimum age and changes
KWAH is for people aged 16 and over.
If this policy changes significantly, KWAH tells you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top of this page shows the last update.