Privacy policy: Bucketdish

Website forms

A separate note about the forms on this website, bucketdish.com. Added 28 September 2026, updated 3 October 2026. The Bucketdish privacy policy follows it, unchanged.

Get notified. Your email address and, if you pick one, which phone you use (iPhone or Android), so we can tell you when the app is out for it. If you tick the box for Dish of the week and Bucketdish news, we also keep that you ticked it, when, and which version of the box’s wording you saw. Without the tick you get the one email and nothing else. Every news email has a one-click unsubscribe, and the link in it lets you change what you get.
Which link brought you. If the web address of the page you signed up on carried campaign tags (the utm_ parts of a link we shared, like utm_source=instagram), we save those tags with your sign-up, along with the name of the website that sent you there, if any (just its name, like instagram.com, never the page). We keep the first ones only, so we can tell which of our posts and emails bring people. They’re read from the address itself: nothing is stored in your browser.
Restaurant waitlist. Closed on 28 September 2026, when the restaurant portal opened. It asked for your name, your email address, your restaurant’s name, its town or city and, if you added one, a Google Maps link to it. We use what it sent to let you know the portal is open and to match you to the right place on Bucketdish.
Contact form. Your name, your email address, the topic you pick and your message, so we can read it and reply.
No IP addresses. To stop spam, each form, and the restaurant lookup, counts how often it’s used from the same connection. For that we keep a scrambled code (a hash) made from your IP address (for a newer, IPv6 address, only its first half, which belongs to your whole connection), a secret key and the date. We never store the IP address itself, the code changes every day so one day can’t be linked to the next, and codes older than a day are deleted.
Restaurant lookup. Look yourself up shows what diners have posted about a place in the app: their dishes, ratings, notes, prices and photos, never their names, handles or profile pictures. Photos come through this website, so their addresses don’t show who took them. When a diner deletes a Bite, a lookup page can still show it for up to 15 minutes, and its photo for about a day, while saved copies run out.
Where it’s kept. In the same database as the app, in London. We don’t sell it, and we don’t use it for anything else. We keep it until you ask us to delete it.
No cookies. Anonymous visit counts. This website sets no cookies and runs no advertising or third-party trackers. To count visits we use Vercel Web Analytics, run for us by our host, Vercel: for each page you open it records the page, the site that sent you, any campaign tags in the link, your country, and the type of device, browser and operating system. It stores nothing in your browser and never keeps your IP address. To count each visitor once a day, Vercel makes a scrambled code from your connection and browser that changes every day and is thrown away after 24 hours, so we can’t tell who you are, or link one day to the next.

To see or delete what a form sent us, send us a message or email hello@bucketdish.com from the address you used, and tell us which form it was.

Bucketdish is a diary of what you have eaten. This page says, in plain English, exactly what we keep, why we keep it, where it sits, and how to make us delete it. There is no longer version and no small print elsewhere.

Bucketdish was called Forkhop until September 2026.

What we collect

Your account. An email address, a display name, a handle, and a password we only ever store as a scrypt hash. Optionally a short bio, a home city and an avatar.
Your bites. Every meal you log: the place, the dish, your verdict (older Bites: your star rating and the eight flavour sliders), whether you loved it, what stood out and why, any tags, your note, the price you paid, the course and meal, and the date you ate it.
Your photos. The pictures you attach to a bite. They are uploaded straight from your device to our storage; we keep the image and its pixel dimensions.
Location, only while you are using the map or logging a bite. We ask your device for a coarse position so we can show what is near you and suggest the place you are standing in. We do not store your device’s position. What we do store is the location of the restaurant you chose, because that is part of the bite.
Who you follow, which lists you make, and which bites you have liked or saved.
Bug reports. If you send us a bug report, we keep:
- what you wrote;
- any screenshot you chose to attach;
- if you leave “Include technical details” on, the details the form shows you: app version and build, platform and system version, device type (phone, tablet or computer), screen size, time zone, whether usage statistics are on, the id of your current usage session, and the codes of up to five recent errors on your device.
We use them to find and fix the problem, and to reply to you in the app. We keep a bug report for up to 2 years after we close it. We keep a screenshot for 90 days after we close the report. If you send a new screenshot for the same report, the old one is deleted.
Messages to us. If you use Contact us, report a safety concern or ask for a copy of your data, we keep what you wrote, the topic you picked, the Bite, comment, person or place it was about (if any), your email address if you were signed out, and, if you leave “Include app details” on, your app version, platform and system version. We use them to reply to you: in the app, in Your messages, or, if you were signed out, at the email address you gave us.
Which terms you agreed to. When you create an account, agree to updated terms, or read an updated version of this page in the app, we record which version it was, when, and on which app version and platform.

What we do not do

There are no ads in Bucketdish, and no third-party trackers or analytics companies. We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.
We never make automatic decisions about you from how you use the app. Anything that affects your account, like a warning or a pause, is decided by a person.
We do not track you in the background, and we do not keep a history of where you go.

Who can see what

Your bites, your photos, your ratings and your public lists are visible to other people in Bucketdish — that is the point of a shared food map. Your email address is not: it is only ever used to sign you in and to reach you about your account. Your “Want to try” list is yours alone.

Messages to us

Messages you send us through the app or this website are read by Bucketdish staff and nobody else. Safety messages are read first. If a message describes something that could be a crime or a risk to someone’s safety, we may keep it for longer (see “How long we keep it”) and, where the law requires or allows it, share it with the police.

Staff access

A small number of Bucketdish staff can see account information when they need it: to help you, to keep Bucketdish safe, or to answer a legal request.

Email addresses and similar details are hidden until a staff member reveals them. That needs a second check of their identity.
When staff open, reveal, search for or export your information, we record who did it, when and why. We check those records every month. We keep them for 2 years.
Staff sessions end after 30 minutes without use.

How we measure and fix the app

We measure how Bucketdish is used so we can make it faster and fix what breaks. We do this ourselves. Our hosting providers (Vercel and Neon) store it for us; no other company sees it.

What the app sends us.

Which screens you open and for how long, and how quickly they load.
How long you used the app in a visit, and how quickly it started.
A few steps you take, like starting or finishing a Bite, or finishing the palate quiz. These are counts and choices from a fixed list, never what you typed.
Error reports when something goes wrong.
Your app version, platform, system version and device type.

Each note carries your account id (if you’re signed in) and a random id for your device. The app makes that device id only once we’ve turned measurement on. It never makes one while Share usage statistics is off, or if your browser sends Global Privacy Control.

We never collect anything you wrote, searched for or photographed, and never your IP address. We record only the country a request came from.

What our servers note.

The days you used Bucketdish. For each account we keep a record of which days it was used (the app, and separately the business portal). It holds dates only. We keep 25 months of it.
How quickly our servers answered. This is kept without any account id.

Your engagement score. Each night we work out a score for your account from the last 28 days:

how many days you used Bucketdish;
how many Bites, photos, comments, likes, follows and saves you added;
how long you spent in the app.

We use it to place accounts in broad groups, from most to least active, so we can see how Bucketdish is used and whether changes help. Only our staff see it. It never changes what you can do or what others see, and it is never used to make a decision about you. We keep only the latest score, with the platform, app version and country of your latest visit, and replace it every night.

How long we keep it.

Detailed notes (visits, steps and error reports with your ids): 7 days. If we give measurement its own database, at most 30 days.
The days you used Bucketdish: 25 months.
Your engagement score: only the latest one, replaced each night.
Error descriptions, with personal details removed and no account or device id: until 180 days after the error last happened (or after we marked it fixed, if that is later).
Totals that include no id: up to 3 years.

Your choice. Turn off Share usage statistics in Settings at any time.

That device stops sending usage notes and deletes its device id. Any error report it sends after that carries no account, device or session id.
If you’re signed in, it also applies to your account. Your other devices stop too, the next time they send. We delete your engagement score and stop working it out.
What continues: our servers still note which days your account was used, because that’s how we count how many people use Bucketdish. Anonymous error reports also continue.
Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends it, we treat that browser as if the switch were off. That doesn’t change your account’s setting. To stop the engagement score for your account, turn the switch off while signed in.

Where it is stored

Your account, bites, lists and follows live in a PostgreSQL database run by Neon in the EU (London, eu-west-2).
Your photos live in Vercel Blob storage and are served over Vercel’s CDN.
The app and the API run on Vercel, with the API functions pinned to the London region.
Restaurant data comes from OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database Licence.

Our hosting providers process your data for us, under contract, and for nothing else: Vercel (our servers and file storage) and Neon (our database).

How long we keep it

Your bites stay until you delete them or delete your account. Sign-in sessions expire after 90 days. Failed sign-in attempts are kept for 24 hours so that a guessed password slows down, then discarded.

Messages to us: 2 years after we close the conversation. Safety messages: 6 years after we close them, in case they are needed for a legal claim. Records of which terms you agreed to: for as long as you have an account, and 6 years after you delete it, for the same reason; after your account is deleted they are kept under a scrambled code instead of your account id.

Bug reports: up to 2 years after we close them. Screenshots: 90 days after we close the report. Records of what our staff did and looked at: 2 years. A copy of your data you asked for: available to download for 7 days, then deleted.

When you delete your account, or ask us to delete your data, it is removed from our live systems straight away, including everything in “How we measure and fix the app”. Bug reports and messages you sent are kept without your name, your email address, your contact permission or any screenshot, until they expire. Our database provider keeps short-term backups for disaster recovery. Those roll off within 7 days, are never searched, and if one were ever restored we would delete your data again before using it.

User content and moderation

Photos, dish names, notes and list names are written by people, not by us. We review content that is reported and remove anything unlawful, abusive, sexual, or obviously not food. We review every report within 24 hours. A dish name you add becomes part of that restaurant’s shared menu and stays even if you delete your bite, because other people’s bites may point at it. Report anything that should not be there to hello@bucketdish.com and say what and where.

Your rights, and deletion

You can edit your profile in the app at any time, and delete any bite from its own page. You can delete your account yourself in Settings › Delete account: it is removed straight away (see “How long we keep it” for what stays, and for how long). Or email hello@bucketdish.com from the address on your account and we will do it within a month and confirm when it is done. To get a copy of everything we hold about you, use Request a copy of your data in the app’s Help, or email us the same way. Deleting your account removes your bites, your photos, your lists, your follows and your sessions.

Under UK GDPR you also have the right to correct your data, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you think we have got this wrong.

You can ask for a copy of everything we hold about you by writing to hello@bucketdish.com. We reply within a month.

You can object to how we use your data. For usage statistics and the engagement score, turning off Share usage statistics does that straight away. For anything else, write to hello@bucketdish.com.

Children

Bucketdish is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep data about them.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.

Bucketdish · hello@bucketdish.com

Earlier versions

Privacy policy