Privacy at BeerPal

Current pilot · Updated 28 September 2026

Who we are

BeerPal (beerpal.ai) is a craft beer tasting journal and recommendation app, run by Sam Morgan in Australia during a small pilot. For privacy questions or requests, email sam@beerpal.ai.

What we collect

• Your account: email address, display name and password (held by our authentication provider; we never see it in plain text), and your confirmation that you are 18 or older.
• Your tastings: the beer, your sensory scores, descriptors, ratings, would-buy-again answers, journal notes and any AI summary written for you. Your flavour and preference profiles are calculated from these.
• Scan photos: shelf-scan photos are stored with the scan and what was read from them, plus your confirmations and corrections. Label-scan photos are sent for identification and are not stored by BeerPal.
• Pals and social: pal requests and connections, posts and recommendations you choose to share, reports, blocks, challenges, wishlists, share links you create and event registrations.
• Beer submissions: when you suggest a beer for the catalogue, its details (name, brewery, style, strength and description) and any notes you add for our catalogue team.
• Research choices: if you join or withdraw from a research study, your choice, when you made it and the version of the study notice you saw.
• Email choices: whether you asked for the getting-started guide, when and where you chose, the notice shown and the delivery outcome.
• AI choices: whether you allowed AI features, when, where and under which notice version, with a history of each change.
• Usage and cost records: for each AI request, the feature, time, token counts and outcome, and per-scan statistics such as scan time and image conditions. We use these to control cost and fix problems. We do not use advertising or third-party analytics.

Your browser also keeps your sign-in session (Supabase sign-in cookies, so you stay signed in), your theme, display settings and an unsaved tasting draft on your device.

You can create a share link for a tasting or for your flavour profile. Anyone with a tasting link can see that tasting: the beer, when you tasted it, your scores, descriptors, rating, would-buy-again answer and any AI summary, and your display name. Your journal notes are left out unless you tick “Include my notes” when you create the link; anyone with a link made that way can read them. Only you can open a profile link; anyone else sees nothing from it. Share links expire 30 days after you create them, and you can see and revoke your active links at any time in Settings. A revoked link stops working straight away. A preview a social app has already made of a link (its title, image and summary excerpt) may stay in that app.

Why we use it

To run your journal, build your flavour profile and recommendations, identify beers from photos, run pals features you choose to use, send the one optional guide you ask for, keep the service secure and within budget, and improve beer identification.

AI processing and your consent

AI features only run after you allow them. We ask the first time you use one, and you can turn them off or on at any time in Settings. The change applies to your next request. Saving tastings never needs AI.

When allowed, we send: photos you take for a label or shelf scan; beer names, breweries and styles; and your ratings, sensory scores and chosen descriptors. Your journal notes are never sent to an AI service.

If you turn AI features off, nothing more is sent. Summaries already written stay in your journal. Current notice version: ai-notice-1.

Service providers

• Supabase stores the database, account sign-in and shelf-scan photos.
• Vercel hosts and runs the app, and so handles every request, including photos in transit.
• Anthropic (Claude) receives scan photos to read beer labels and shelves, and tasting and profile data to write summaries, coaching and exercises. Beer insights send only catalogue details of the beer.
• TypeSafe (Jev) receives beer names read from scans with possible catalogue matches, and summary wording with the evidence it must match, to check them.
• Voyage AI may receive shelf-scan photos, or sections of them, to recognise beers: when the photo is scanned, and after you confirm or correct what was read, to create image fingerprints that help recognise beers.
• Resend delivers account emails (sign-up confirmation and password reset) and, only if you ask, the getting-started guide. It receives your email address and the message.

Anthropic, TypeSafe and Voyage AI are only used when AI features are allowed.

These providers use your information only to provide their service to BeerPal, under terms that give it at least the same protection as this policy. We do not sell your information or share it with advertisers.

Beer descriptions you submit can become part of the public catalogue once our catalogue team approves them. Submitted descriptions may be edited with AI help by our catalogue team. Your notes to the team are not published or sent to an AI service.

Overseas processing

Our providers may process your information outside Australia. The database, sign-in records and shelf-scan photos are stored in Singapore, and the app runs on Vercel in Singapore. The AI and email providers above are based in the United States.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account is active. See how BeerPal keeps your data for scan photos, reference samples and recovery copies.

Your choices

• Download an export of your account data from Settings.
• Request confirmed account deletion from Settings. It removes your account data, including your AI and age records; older recovery copies are described on the retention page.
• Turn AI features on or off in Settings.
• Change your email choice in Settings, or unsubscribe from the email without signing in.
• Choose what you share with pals in Settings. Pals never see your journal notes.
• See and revoke your share links in Settings.

Access and correction

You can see everything we hold about your account by downloading your export from Settings. You can change your password in Settings and delete any tasting from your journal. To correct anything else, such as your email address or display name, email sam@beerpal.ai and we will fix it.

Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your information, email sam@beerpal.ai. We will reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Adults only

BeerPal is about beer and is for adults. When you create an account you must tick “I confirm I am 18 or older”; we cannot create the account without it. We record that you confirmed, when, and which version of the wording you saw. The record is included in your export and removed when your account is deleted. We do not check identity documents. Accounts created before 28 September 2026 were not asked for this confirmation.

Changes

We will update this page when what we collect or who processes it changes, and change the date above. If AI processing changes, we will ask for your permission again before AI features run.