Privacy Policy

Effective date: 25 October 2026. This English version is the authoritative one. The Urdu version is a translation.

1. Who we are

KitchenNextDoor is a free app (a web app you can install on your phone) that connects home cooks with buyers in their neighbourhood in Pakistan.

It is run by KitchenNextDoor. Contact: ch.alizain3222@gmail.com.

2. We are a platform only

We do not take payments, deliver food or take a commission. Buyers pay cooks directly (cash, Easypaisa, JazzCash, bank or Raast). The cook is responsible for her food and for any licence she needs.

Because buyers pay cooks directly, a buyer can upload a payment screenshot to an order as proof. We store that screenshot (see section 3), but we never touch the money.

3. What we collect, and why

Data	Why
Google account ID, email, name and photo (from Google sign-in)	To sign you in. We use only the sign-in token. We do not read your Google contacts, mail or files.
Cooks only: phone number	Abuse prevention. It is stored encrypted, plus a scrambled (hashed) copy used to check bans. Buyers never give a phone number. At launch the number is not checked by a code; our team marks it verified by hand.
Cook's kitchen: exact location pin, delivery area, menu, photos, opening hours, payment details she chooses to add	To run her kitchen, show it on the map and in search, and let buyers pay her directly.
Orders, bookkeeping (ledger, expenses), customer counters	To process orders and give the cook her own sales records.
Payment screenshots (prepaid orders)	Proof of payment between buyer and cook.
Delivery pin of the buyer (delivery orders only)	To work out the delivery fee and let the cook deliver.
Chat messages, photos and voice notes (per order)	So buyer and cook can talk about that order.
Ratings, comments, cook replies, and your choice to show your name	Kitchen and dish ratings and public reviews.
Stories and posts (photos, videos up to 60 seconds, captions)	Cooks show their food to followers and people nearby.
Follows, notification settings, push subscriptions	To send you the notifications you chose.
Device token, browser fingerprint, device type, browser, how the app was opened (browser or installed), last seen time	Fraud prevention and ban enforcement, and to count installed versus browser use.
Login and logout records with device token and fingerprint	Security and abuse investigation.
Reports you make or that are made about you; admin actions	Moderation.
Referral code	To credit invitations.
Daily totals (views, follows, orders, link sources)	Statistics for cooks and for us. These are counts, not a record of what each person did.

We use a device identifier and a browser fingerprint for fraud prevention. If someone is banned, these help us stop them returning with a new account. A fingerprint alone never causes a ban; it only flags the account for a person to review. We do not ban by IP address.

4. Storage on your device

We keep a random device token in your browser (IndexedDB, local storage and a cookie that lasts one year). We use a secure sign-in cookie (30 days, renewed while you use the app). Your basket is kept in local storage for up to 24 hours. A referral code is kept for 30 days. Your approximate area is kept on your device only.

If ads are shown, Google (our ad partner) may also set cookies or use similar storage in your browser. In our Android and iOS apps it may use your device's advertising identifier (Android advertising ID or Apple's IDFA). See section 6.

5. Where it is stored and who it is shared with

Cloudflare hosts everything (servers, databases D1, file storage R2, queues, scheduled jobs). Your data is stored there. [OPEN: storage region]
Google provides sign-in. Google knows you signed in to our app, under Google's own privacy policy.
Cloudflare Turnstile is a bot check shown when a cook creates a kitchen and after repeated failures.
OpenRouteService works out the road distance for delivery fees. For delivery orders, we send it the cook's pin and the buyer's delivery pin.
Cloudflare Workers AI checks review comments and cook replies for bad language before they go public.
Google Gemini is used only if a cook uses the optional AI assistant. It is off at launch. When on, only totals about the kitchen's own business are sent (for example sales summaries), never buyer names, phone numbers or addresses.
Your browser's push service (for example Chrome's, which goes through Google's FCM) delivers notifications.
Maps are served from our own storage, not from Google Maps. The "Directions" button opens Google Maps in a new app or tab, under Google's rules.

We do not sell your data. We share it with authorities only when the law requires.

6. Advertising

KitchenNextDoor is free and is paid for by ads. Everyone sees ads, including cooks and buyers who are signed in. Ads are shown in the kitchens list, at the bottom of kitchen pages, in Updates, on some cook screens and on the order-confirmed screen. There are no ads in chat.

Who serves them: Google AdSense on the website and Google AdMob in the Android and iOS apps.
What Google may collect when an ad is requested: your IP address, device and browser information, cookies or similar identifiers on the web, and the advertising identifier in the apps. Google uses this to show and measure ads, prevent fraud and, where allowed, personalise ads. This happens under Google's own policies: How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.
What we never give ad networks: your name, email, phone number, address or delivery pin, your orders, or your chats.
Your choices: where the law requires consent (for example in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland) we ask before personalised ads are shown, and you can change your choice later ("Privacy choices" in the app). You can turn off personalised ads for your Google account at adssettings.google.com, and reset or limit your advertising identifier in your phone's settings. [OPEN: consent message on the website not built yet]

7. What the other side sees

Cook's phone number: never shown to buyers. Buyers and cooks talk through in-app chat. Only our team can see it (hidden by default; each reveal is logged). One exception: if a cook adds her own Easypaisa or JazzCash number as a payment detail and it is her phone number, then it is public on her kitchen page. That is her choice.
Buyer's phone: we do not ask for it.
Cook's location: public pages show only an approximate circle or area name (about 300 to 500 m) for home cooks. Her exact location is shared with a buyer only after she confirms an order, or if she chooses to show it. Shops and registered businesses may show an exact pin. A delivery area is public on her kitchen page, so it can hint at where she lives.
Buyer's delivery pin and payment screenshot: seen by that buyer, the cook (and staff she allows) and our team. Our team's views of private data are logged with a reason.
Reviews: anonymous by default. A buyer can choose, per review, to show her name. The cook sees public reviews like anyone else, and only learns what a buyer gave if that buyer chose to show her name. Cooks get no private per-buyer scores; on her orders a cook sees only that a buyer rated.
Blocking: a cook can block a buyer from ordering at her kitchen. Only that buyer sees it.
Cook's payment details (QR images, account title, account number or IBAN) are shown on her kitchen page and her orders if she adds them.

8. Location

Approximate location on first open: when you first open the app we read the city and rough point that Cloudflare derives from your connection. It is used to show "Kitchens in your city". It is kept on your device, not on our servers. It can be wrong; you can change your area by hand.
Precise location: only if you tap Show nearest to me, and your browser asks permission. It works only while the app is open. We do not track you in the background, and we do not store this location long-term.
Cooks set their kitchen with a map pin (GPS reading, which she can adjust). The exact pin is stored but not shown publicly for home cooks.
Delivery buyers drop a pin at checkout. It is stored on the order and shared with the cook.

9. Notifications

We ask for push permission right after you tap Follow, not when a page loads. We store your push subscription so we can send them, and delete it when the browser says it is no longer valid. You can turn notifications off in the app or in your phone settings. The reminder to rate a completed order cannot be turned off, but it is sent only if you have allowed push.

10. Chat

A chat opens with each order. Only the buyer and that cook (and her staff) can use it. It supports text, photos and voice notes. It closes when the order is completed, rejected, cancelled or expires, and 3 hours after a no-show. Either side can report the other from the chat; reports go to our moderators, who can then read the chat. Closed chats: [OPEN: retention]

11. Stories and posts

Cooks can post stories and posts. They are public. Stories are deleted automatically after about 2 days. On the free plan, the latest 30 or so posts per cook are kept and older ones are deleted.

12. Bans and abuse prevention

If a user breaks the rules, we can ban the Google account, email, device token, fingerprint and (for cooks) phone number. We keep those identifiers so a banned person cannot simply come back. A ban has a reason and may have an end date. Ban records retention: [OPEN: retention]

13. How long we keep data

Data	Kept
Finished orders, order items, status history, ledger and expenses	Live for 7 days, then moved to private archive storage. We have not set when the archive is deleted: [OPEN: retention]
Per-customer counters and daily totals	Kept (they power loyalty and statistics).
Stories	About 2 days.
Sign-in sessions	Until they expire (30 days of inactivity).
Login and logout records	90 days.
Admin action records	1 year, then archived. [OPEN: retention] for how long the archive is kept.
Backups of our databases	30 days.
Cook's data exports	7 days.
Unfinished uploads	24 hours.
Payment screenshots	[OPEN: retention]
Chat messages, photos and voice notes	[OPEN: retention]
Server logs	[OPEN: retention]
Account and profile data	While your account exists. See section 15.

14. Children

[OPEN: children] Our design documents do not yet set a minimum age. Until this is decided, the app is not intended for children.

15. Your rights and account deletion

You can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct it, or delete your account. Email ch.alizain3222@gmail.com. Our team can delete an account on request from the admin console. Exactly what is deleted and what must be kept (for example ban records, and orders the other person needs) is not yet decided: [OPEN: account deletion details]. You can change your profile, notification settings and kitchen details inside the app.

16. Security

Connections use HTTPS. Phone numbers are encrypted and hashed. Payment screenshots are stored privately and shown only through short-lived links. Views of private data by our team are logged. No system is perfectly secure.

17. Pakistani law

We operate in Pakistan and try to follow its laws, including the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, which can require us to remove content or share information with authorities. This is context only. We do not claim any compliance certification.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will change the effective date above and, for big changes, tell you in the app.

19. Contact

KitchenNextDoor
ch.alizain3222@gmail.com