Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 12, 2026

GlucoHelm is a blood-glucose diary, and a glucose diary is health data — we treat it accordingly. GlucoHelm is built local-first: your readings and meals live on your phone, not on our servers. This policy explains what data the GlucoHelm app and this website handle, what leaves your device and why, and the controls you have. If anything here is unclear, email support@glucohelm.com.

Health data comes first

Your glucose readings, and the meal, medication-free treatment context and A1C entries around them, are health information — in many places a specially protected category of personal data (for example under GDPR Article 9). Our design rule for it is simple: health data is stored on your device, is sent off it only when a feature you invoked needs it for the moment of processing, is never retained on our servers, and is never used for advertising or sold — to anyone, ever. The sections below spell out exactly where that rule applies.

Data that stays on your phone

The app stores the following in a database on your device only:

• Your glucose readings — value, date and time, context tag (fasting, after a meal, …), notes, and their pairing to meals — plus any lab A1C results you enter.
• Your profile: date of birth, sex, height, weight, diabetes status and how it's managed (for example "lifestyle only" or "insulin" — never specific medications or doses, which the app does not collect), your glucose target ranges and unit, and optional carb budget. Targets are applied on your phone.
• Your logged meals (with their carb and glycemic estimates), weights, water intake, exercise entries, kitchen ingredients, saved recipes and coach chat history.
• Meal photos. Photos are kept on your device; they are transmitted only at the moment you request AI analysis (see below) and are not stored by us afterwards.
• Settings, including your language choice and reminder times. Reminders — including the post-meal check nudge — are scheduled locally on the device; no push-notification service is involved.

Deleting the app, or using Profile → Clear all data, removes this local data.

AI features: what is sent, and what happens to it

When you use an AI feature, the app sends the minimum needed to our server, which forwards it to an AI provider (Google Gemini, with OpenAI as an automatic fallback) to produce the result:

• Meal photo analysis / fridge scanning: the photo you chose and an optional note you typed.
• Quick text estimates: the food description you typed.
• Recipes: your ingredient list, food preferences, diabetes status, and remaining carb/calorie budget for the day.
• Coaching (tips and chat): your target ranges and unit, diabetes status and management type, today's readings with their context tags, recent glucose trends (averages, readings in range, lows and highs), carb totals, recent meal-impact summaries, activity summaries, and your chat messages. This is health data, and it is sent only when you open the coach or ask for tips — never in the background.
• Language: the app's display language, so answers come back in your language.

Our server processes these requests in memory and does not store their contents — no photos, descriptions, readings or coaching context are retained after the response is returned. Nothing identifying you travels with the request either: the providers receive the content only, never your email address, your account or a device identifier. They process it under their paid commercial API terms, under which your prompts and responses are not used to train or improve their models and are retained only briefly, for detecting abuse of the service. We do not use your data for advertising and we do not sell it to anyone.

The app asks for your permission before the first of these requests is sent, names the providers at that moment, and lists what each feature sends. You can withdraw the permission at any time in Profile → AI features; with it off, no AI feature sends anything off your device.

Optional cloud backup

Cloud backup is off until you sign in and use it. If you enable it:

• Account: we store your email address (verified by a sign-in link, or provided via Sign in with Apple / Google) and a sign-in token so your backup is yours.
• Backup contents: a snapshot of your glucose readings, A1C entries, profile and targets, meals, weights, water, exercise, ingredients and settings, plus your profile photo if you set one. Meal photos and your coach chat are not included in backups. Because the snapshot contains your health data, enabling backup is the one place you choose to put that data on our server — it stays encrypted in transit, is used for nothing except restoring your own data, and you can remove it at any time.
• Storage: one snapshot per account, kept on our server (hosted on Railway) and replaced each time you back up.
• Deletion: in the app, Delete cloud backup removes the snapshot, and Delete account & all cloud data removes the snapshot and the account, immediately. Signing out revokes the device's token.

Subscriptions and purchases

GlucoHelm offers an optional Premium subscription, purchased through the Apple App Store or Google Play. Payments are handled entirely by the store: we never see or store your card number or billing details.

• RevenueCat: the app uses RevenueCat, a subscription-management service, to check whether your subscription is active. RevenueCat receives the store's purchase receipt and, when you are signed in, your GlucoHelm account id (a number — not your email, and never any health data), so an active subscription can follow your account onto a new phone. See the RevenueCat privacy policy.
• What we store: nothing. Our own server holds no record of your subscription — entitlement is checked in the app.
• Cancelling: subscriptions are managed and cancelled in your App Store or Google Play account settings, and deleting your GlucoHelm account does not cancel a subscription — see our account deletion page.

Apple Health and Health Connect

With your permission, GlucoHelm reads from Apple HealthKit or Android Health Connect: blood glucose readings that your meter or CGM app has written there, plus steps and workouts. Everything read is stored on your device like data you typed yourself. GlucoHelm never writes to your health store, and health-platform data is never used for advertising or sold — on Android we additionally comply with the Health Connect permissions policy, which prohibits exactly that. Summaries of this data (for example today's readings or step count) reach our server only inside the coaching requests described above, when you invoke them.

This website

glucohelm.com is a static site. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics or third-party trackers.

The contact form is the one exception, and only when you choose to use it. The name, email address and message you type are passed to Web3Forms, a form-delivery service, which forwards them to our support inbox. We use them only to reply to you, and we never add you to a mailing list. If you would rather not use the form, write to support@glucohelm.com instead.

What we don't do

• No advertising, and no advertising SDKs in the app.
• No selling, renting or sharing of your data — health data explicitly included.
• No third-party analytics or tracking SDKs.
• No collection of medication names or doses: the app records only a broad management category you choose, and its coach refuses medication questions by design.

Children

GlucoHelm is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

This policy may be updated as GlucoHelm evolves; the date above always reflects the current version, and material changes will be noted in the app.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: support@glucohelm.com.