Privacy Policy

BarcodeVibe is published by Applications Ben Cool. We are the party responsible for the personal information described in this policy.

For any privacy question or request, write to support@barcodevibe.com. We answer privacy requests within 30 days.

We collect the following categories of information. Some of it you give us directly, some is generated as you use the app, and some comes from your device once you grant permission.

• Account information — your email address, display name, account identifier, and which sign-in method you used (email, Google, or Apple). Handled by Firebase Authentication.
• Profile and progress — your avatar, experience points, streaks, badges, and in-app points balance.
• Scans and shopping activity — the barcodes you scan, your scan history, products you track, grocery lists, loyalty cards you save, price alerts, and store reminders you create.
• Community contributions — price observations, Spotted posts, comments, reactions, and the photos attached to them. This content is visible to other BarcodeVibe users. Treat everything you post as public.
• Camera and photos — barcode and text recognition runs on your device and the camera frames are not uploaded. Product photos you deliberately choose to upload are stored on our image hosting.
• Location — precise and approximate location, used to show nearby stores, deals, and price observations. If you turn on store reminders, the app also monitors your location in the background so it can notify you when you arrive near a store you saved.
• Push notifications — a device token from Firebase Cloud Messaging, used to send price alerts and store reminders.
• Device and diagnostic data — device model, operating system version, app version, language, and crash reports. Handled by Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics.
• Website data — pages viewed and traffic measurement through Google Analytics 4, plus preferences stored in your browser. See our Cookie Policy.

We do not ask for and do not want government identifiers, health information, or payment card data. Do not put sensitive personal information into product fields, photos, or community posts.

Location is optional. BarcodeVibe works without it, with fewer nearby results.

Foreground location is used while the app is open, to sort stores and deals by distance and to attach a store to a price observation you submit.

Background location applies only if you create a store reminder and grant the "always" or "allow all the time" permission. The app then watches for you entering a zone around a store you chose, so it can send the reminder you asked for. We use it for nothing else — not advertising, not profiling, and not tracking your movements between those zones.

You can withdraw location access at any time in your device settings. Existing store reminders stop firing when you do.

We use the information above to operate your account, run the scanning and price-tracking features, show community price context, deliver the alerts you asked for, keep the service secure, fix crashes, and understand which features are worth improving.

Where Canadian privacy law requires it, we rely on your consent, and on the necessity of processing to provide the service you requested. Location, push notifications, and camera access are each requested separately and can each be refused or withdrawn without losing access to the rest of the app.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising or cross-context behavioural advertising.

We use the following service providers to run BarcodeVibe. Each one processes data only on our instructions:

Every third party listed above is bound by contract to protect your data to a standard at least equivalent to the one described in this policy and required by the app stores we distribute through.

BarcodeVibe also queries public data sources to enrich product pages — Open Food Facts, Flipp, Statistics Canada, Health Canada recall notices, and OpenStreetMap. These requests carry your device IP address to those services but no account information. The app also performs a one-time country lookup at startup, which discloses your IP address to that lookup service.

We may disclose information if the law requires it, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

Our providers process data in the United States and in the European Union. When data leaves Canada it may be accessible to the courts and law enforcement of the country where it is stored. We use providers that offer contractual protections, including standard contractual clauses where applicable.

• Account, profile, scans, tracked items and reminders — for as long as your account exists.
• Community contributions — for as long as your account exists. After deletion they are either removed or detached from your identity so they no longer point to you.
• Crash reports — up to 90 days.
• Analytics data — up to 14 months.
• Backups — residual copies are purged within 90 days.

We keep the minimum records we are legally required to retain for fraud prevention, security, and accounting, for the period the law requires.

You can delete your account from inside the app: open BarcodeVibe, go to Settings, tap "Delete My Account", and confirm. The deletion is permanent.

If you can no longer sign in, email support@barcodevibe.com from the address linked to your account with the subject "Delete my account". We complete the deletion within 30 days.

Full details, including exactly what is deleted and what is retained, are on our account deletion page.

Under Canadian privacy law you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to withdraw a consent you previously gave, and to ask how it has been used and disclosed.

To exercise any of these rights, write to support@barcodevibe.com. We may need to verify that you control the account before we act.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca, or to the privacy regulator of your province.

BarcodeVibe is not directed to children. You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has created an account, write to support@barcodevibe.com and we will delete it.

Data is transmitted over encrypted connections and stored with providers that encrypt data at rest. Access to production data is restricted to the people who need it to operate the service.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal information and creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.

We update this policy when our practices change. The revision date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. For a change that materially affects your rights, we will give notice in the app before it takes effect.

Applications Ben Cool. Email: support@barcodevibe.com.