Know Before — Privacy Policy
Effective date: August 6, 2026 Last updated: August 19, 2026
The short version
Know Before is built so that most of what you tell it never reaches our servers at all. Your health goals, dietary restrictions, and food preferences are stored only on your own device. We do not sell your information. We do not share it for advertising. We never have.
The rest of this page explains exactly what we do hold, why, and how to get rid of it.
1. Who we are
Know Before is operated by ZAHTECH, LLC, located in Florida. You can reach us at support@knowbefore.net.
Know Before is currently offered to users in the United States only.
2. What we collect
Your email address, if you create an account. We use it to sign you in (we send a one-time link rather than storing a password), to reach you about your account or subscription, and to let you return to your saved scans.
Your scan activity. When you send us a menu photo, we store the menu we read, the dishes we found, the scores we calculated, and the date. If we cannot read your photo as a menu, we keep the attempt and the date. When you enter a web address and we already have that restaurant's menu, we do not read anything new — we show you the menu we already have, and we keep a record of the lookup: which menu, and when, tied to your account if you are signed in. This lookup record does not appear in your scan history, and it is deleted with your account. A lookup made while signed out is kept with nothing tying it to you. A camera scan made while signed out is linked to your account when you sign in from the same browser, so your camera-scan count carries over. We also count how many camera scans you have used, because free access includes a limited number — a failed attempt still uses one, and a pasted link never does.
Share links. If you create a share link for a menu, we record when that shared page was last opened — a date and time stored with the menu, and nothing about who opened it.
Technical records of each photographed menu. Reading a menu photo calls an outside model, so we record what that call involved — which model, how much text went in and came out, what it cost us, and when — together with a count of how many nutrition figures the menu printed and how many we could verify against the menu's own wording. These records hold no menu content, no dish names and no account details. They are tied to the scan they came from — and through it to your account — until you delete your account; then that tie is removed, and what remains is a cost and a count with nothing in it that points to you. We keep them to control what the service costs to run, and so that a record exists of whether our reading of menus is getting better or worse.
Emails we send you about your subscription. When we send you one of these, we keep a record of it: which email it was, when we sent it, and what our email provider told us happened to it — delivered, returned undelivered, reported as spam, or that it could not be delivered at all. Some of these emails are notices we are required to give you, and this record is how we know one arrived. We keep this record for one year after we send the email, and it is deleted with your account if you delete your account sooner.
Addresses you enter that we do not cover. When you enter a web address and we do not cover it, we will add one to a monthly count for that address, so we know which restaurants to add next. We record the address, the month and a number — never the full link you pasted, your account, or your device. This count is not tied to your account, so deleting your account does not change it.
Payment information — held by Stripe, not by us. If you subscribe, our payment processor Stripe collects and stores your card details. We never see or store your card number, its expiry date, or its security code. From Stripe we keep only four things: an identifier for your customer record with them, the status of your subscription, the date your current billing period ends, and which plan you are on.
Basic technical information such as your IP address, browser type, and the pages you request, kept in our server logs and used to keep the service running and prevent abuse. These logs record which page was requested — not the information you send us inside a request. A menu link you paste is sent that way, so it does not appear in them. Our hosting provider keeps these logs for a period it sets, not one we control, and we do not copy them anywhere else.
3. What we deliberately do not collect
This is a design decision, not an oversight. The following are stored only in your own browser and are never transmitted to us or tied to your identity:
- Your selected health goal or mode
- Your dietary restrictions and allergen selections
- Your saved preference presets
- Any preference that would suggest a health condition
Because these never reach our servers, we cannot see them, cannot share them, and cannot produce them if someone asks us for them.
4. What we do with what we collect
We use it to operate the service, sign you in, apply your subscription, prevent abuse and fraud, meet legal obligations, and improve accuracy — including improving our menu database from menus that have been scanned.
We do not use your information to advertise to you, and we do not sell it or share it for anyone else's advertising.
5. Menu photos
When you send us a menu photo, that image is sent for text extraction and then discarded. We do not retain your menu photos. If that ever changes, this section will say so — and will tell you how long an image is kept and when it is deleted — before the change takes effect.
Menu information itself — dish names, descriptions, and prices — is factual information about a restaurant, and we may keep it and use it to improve results for other users. That information is not personal to you.
6. Who else touches your information
We use a small number of service providers. Each receives only what it needs:
| Provider | Purpose | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Reads the text on menu photos | The menu image or its text. Not your name, email, goals, or restrictions |
| Railway | Hosting and database | Everything stored server-side, as our infrastructure provider |
| Stripe | Payments and subscriptions | Your email and payment details, held by Stripe |
| Clerk | Sign-in emails | Your email address |
| Resend | Sends emails about your subscription | Your email address and the contents of those emails |
We may also disclose information if required by law, or in connection with a sale or transfer of the business — in which case this policy continues to apply until you are told otherwise.
7. How long we keep things
We keep your account information while your account exists.
You can delete your account from your profile in the app, and you do not have to ask us. When you confirm, we cancel your subscription if you have one, delete your customer record at Stripe, delete your sign-in identity, and then delete your account together with the scan history, saved menus and share links stored with it. We work through those steps in that order and stop at the first one that fails, so a deletion can end up part-finished — the app tells you when that happens, and you can email support@knowbefore.net and we will finish it. You can also ask us by email instead of using the app. We honor deletion requests within 30 days, including finishing one that did not complete.
Deleting your account does not reach everything. Stripe keeps its own record of your payments and invoices, and we cannot delete it — it is required to keep those records for its own tax and financial-compliance obligations, and deleting your customer record there does not remove them. Deletion also does not erase our server logs, which hold technical information such as IP addresses. It also does not erase the technical records described in section 2: the cost and quality record of each photographed menu stays, with the link to your account removed, and the count of restaurants people asked for never held anything about you to remove. We may keep limited records where the law requires it, such as transaction records for tax purposes, and we may keep menu information that is not personal to you.
When you agree to subscribe we keep a record of that agreement — the date and time, and the version of the terms shown to you. If you do subscribe, the law requires us to keep that record for three years, or one year after your subscription ends, whichever is longer, and it survives deleting your account. If you do not end up subscribing, the law does not require it and we do not keep it that long: we delete it after one year, or sooner with your account if you delete your account. Emails we send you about your subscription are handled by our email provider, which keeps a copy of each message for a period it sets, not one we control.
Your goal, restrictions and preferences never reach us at all, so there is nothing for us to delete. To remove them, clear this site's data in any browser where you used them.
8. Your choices and rights
You can, at any time: see your scan history in the app; delete individual scans from your history in the app; delete your account and its data from your profile in the app, or ask us to by emailing support@knowbefore.net, which we honor within 30 days; clear on-device preferences by clearing this site's data in your browser; and email us at support@knowbefore.net with any request.
If you subscribe: Cancelling takes one step from your profile — no call, no email, no explanation. It will never be harder than subscribing was.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights to access, correct, delete, or obtain a copy of your information, and to be free from discrimination for exercising them. We honor these requests regardless of where you live.
9. Health information — stated plainly
We do not sell or share your health information. We do not collect health information on our servers at all. Your goals, restrictions, and preferences stay on your device by design.
Know Before is a general wellness product. It does not diagnose, treat, or manage any medical condition, and it is not a medical record.
10. Children
Know Before is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, email support@knowbefore.net and we will delete it.
11. Security
We protect information in transit and at rest using industry-standard measures, limit who can access it, and use established providers for hosting and payments. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app or by email. Continuing to use Know Before after a change means you accept the updated policy.
13. Contact
Questions, requests, or complaints: support@knowbefore.net ZAHTECH, LLC · 1791 Bobtail Drive, Maitland, FL 32751