LightWorks Home Recipes Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 4, 2026

This policy explains how LightWorks Home Recipes processes information when you organize recipes, Kitchens, and Meal Plans; synchronize or share them through Google Drive; create temporary shopping lists; or use the optional AI recipe assistant.

Optional AI connections (WebMCP)

AI connections are off by default. In Profile, you can allow a connected chatbot to read linked recipes, Kitchens and equipment, and Meal Plans, including their text and notes, and separately allow it to propose changes. Authorized content is available to the AI service you choose and is subject to that service's terms. WebMCP operations do not call our built-in OpenAI assistant.

Permissions are remembered locally for your account in this browser and are not synchronized to Drive. Unlinked cached resources are excluded. Revoking permission prevents further tool access; it does not retract content already provided to an AI service. Previews exist in memory until saved or discarded. Home Recipes performs all saving and Drive synchronization. Tool diagnostics contain only operation names, durations, and result categories, not library content, account claims, or credentials.

Application purpose

LightWorks Home Recipes is an offline-friendly household recipe organizer and meal-planning application. Google sign-in enables Drive backup, synchronization, recovery, and user-directed collaboration. Kitchen equipment matching, meal timing, and shopping-list calculations are convenience features and do not prevent you from using a recipe.

Information processed

• Google account information: Google supplies basic OpenID profile claims, such as your account identifier, name, email address, and profile image, to authenticate you and display your profile.
• Google Drive content and metadata: the app processes its app-created folder and profile.json, recipe collections and embedded recipe images, Kitchens and equipment, Meal Plans and completion state, Kitchen copy offers, file identifiers, timestamps, ownership, access capabilities, and sharing permissions. Recipient or collaborator email addresses are processed when you direct the app to share.
• Device-local data: IndexedDB contains offline copies of accessible collections, Kitchens, and Meal Plans; synchronization queues, conflicts, and deletion tombstones; a reusable ingredient-name index; local assignments between recipe equipment instances and active-Kitchen equipment; active cooking timers; and the last synchronization time. Local storage contains your theme, AI Kitchen-context choice, cooking wake-lock choice, timer alarm tone, PWA prompt state, hands-free cooking beta acceptance, optional Getting Started checklist state, and your device-specific Analytics choice, policy version, and decision date. Session storage may contain recipe preparation-group and instruction completion progress for the current browser tab.
• Temporary shopping lists: shopping lists are generated in your browser from current Meal Plan recipes and are not saved to IndexedDB, Google Drive, or profile.json.
• Technical information: Microsoft Azure and the API hosting layer may process ordinary request and diagnostic information, such as IP address, browser or user-agent information, request time and route, response status, errors, and performance data, to deliver, secure, and troubleshoot the service.

Help Center and demo recipes

Help guides, glossary terms, and demo recipes are static application content and remain available offline after caching. Browsing the demo does not create IndexedDB or Google Drive content. If you explicitly copy a demo Recipe into a writable Collection, that independent copy is processed and synchronized like content you create yourself. Help search terms stay in the browser. With optional Analytics consent, the app may report that Help search was used, the selected app-controlled category, and a result-count bucket, but never the search text.

Optional anonymous usage analytics

On the production site, Google Analytics 4 remains completely inactive until you explicitly select Allow anonymous usage analytics. Before consent, the app does not load Google's Analytics tag, contact Analytics, set Analytics cookies, send events, or retain events for later replay. A denial is stored locally so the app can honor it.

After consent, the app sends only allowlisted, sanitized product-usage categories: route templates and page groups; feature actions and typed outcomes; AI conversation, URL-import, or Kitchen-adaptation mode without prompts, URLs, drafts, citations, or content; Help actions without search text; synchronization triggers, resource categories, buckets, and typed issue/operation codes without raw errors or resource identity; display mode and app version; and selection of the external donation link. It never sends Google account claims, authentication state, names/content, Drive or Recipe IDs, collaborators, recipients, dynamic routes, queries, exceptions, stack traces, donor identity, donation amount, or completion.

After consent, Google Analytics sets a pseudonymous client identifier in first-party _ga cookies. Those cookies and the device's consent decision expire after a fixed 12 months and are not extended on each visit. GA event- and user-level data is configured for 14-month retention. Ordinary connection metadata may be processed by Google when the browser contacts its service. The app disables Google Signals, advertising personalization, Ads links, User-ID, cross-domain tracking, and server-side GA collection. Analytics reports represent consenting devices only.

Google sign-in and Drive access

The app requests OpenID profile and email scopes and the Google Drive drive.file scope. That Drive scope permits access to files the app creates and files you explicitly open or select for the app through Google Picker. During library bootstrap, the app looks for accessible app-tagged folders and profiles; it does not request broad Drive access to enumerate unrelated files.

The browser's OIDC library stores the signed-in user and token information needed for the current browser session in session storage and may use other temporary browser storage for OAuth state and PKCE. The app's token service holds the active Google access token in memory only for Drive and Picker requests. The Azure OAuth relay handles the authorization code and Google's token response transiently, sends no-store responses, and does not intentionally retain the code or token. After validating the identity in Google's direct response, it issues a signed, HttpOnly, SameSite application-session cookie containing only a pseudonymous account identifier plus issue, expiry, and token identifiers. This essential cookie expires after 12 hours, is cleared during normal sign-out, and protects AI requests without sending the Drive token to the AI API.

Google data is used to provide sign-in, synchronization, backup, recovery, import, and collaboration. Recorded file IDs let the app refresh known resources without scanning Drive. The synchronized profile records collection, Kitchen, and Meal Plan references, the active Kitchen, measurement preference, and pending Kitchen-copy offers.

Legacy recovery previews selected files first. After confirmation, a source collection you own is copied privately without inheriting its sharing permissions; a collection owned by someone else remains linked to the owner's file. Recovery does not edit or delete the selected source file.

Sharing and collaboration

When you share a collection, Kitchen, or Meal Plan, the app sends the recipient's email address, selected Drive role, and an invitation message to Google Drive at your direction. Live shared files remain governed by the owner's Drive permissions. Collection files may also contain the collaborator email addresses shown in the app.

A Kitchen copy offer creates a read-only snapshot transfer file containing the offered Kitchen data and grants the named recipient access. If accepted, the recipient creates an independent private copy that does not inherit the source permissions or receive later source changes. Meal Plan sharing can check whether a named recipient appears to have access to referenced collection files, but it does not share those collections automatically.

Removing a shared reference from your profile does not delete the owner's file. Deleting or revoking a Drive permission does not erase copies already made by another person or data already cached on that person's device.

Optional AI recipe assistant

After you accept the in-product disclosure and submit a request, the app sends your prompt, bounded conversation history, and current recipe draft through the Azure API to OpenAI. For a URL import, it also sends the public HTTPS URL and instructs OpenAI's hosted web-search tool to consult the source page. Consulted source links are displayed in the preview.

If you opt in to Kitchen assistance, the request may also include available equipment type keys, additional equipment types, capabilities, quantities, comparable specifications, and a bounded vocabulary of normalized ingredient names. The vocabulary contains names only; the current recipe draft may separately contain its own ingredient quantities and equipment requirements. Kitchen names, equipment display names, locations, manufacturer/model, Kitchen and equipment identifiers, sharing information, Google tokens, email addresses, and Drive metadata are not sent to OpenAI.

The API sends OpenAI a pseudonymous safety identifier derived from your application-session identity, not the identifier itself. Requests set store: false. LightWorks Home Recipes does not intentionally log or persist prompts, recipe or Kitchen content, URLs, raw model responses, or transient citations. Operational AI logs contain a correlation ID, pseudonymous user identifier, operation type, model, latency, token usage, and typed outcome. Conversation state, citations, and a newly imported unsaved draft are held only for the current in-app editing session; no imported Recipe is written to IndexedDB or Drive until you explicitly save it. Content you accept and save becomes part of the recipe, and a verified source URL may be saved.

OpenAI states that API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default unless the API account opts in. Its default abuse-monitoring logs may retain customer content for up to 30 days, or longer when required by law or reasonably necessary to protect services or others. See OpenAI API data controls.

Optional hands-free cooking beta

After you accept the device-local disclosure and start a session, the app uses the browser's speech-synthesis and speech-recognition features to narrate recipe instructions and match a limited set of cooking commands. Home Recipes does not record audio, retain recognized transcripts, or send audio or transcripts to the Home Recipes API, OpenAI, Gemini, or Google Drive. Depending on your browser, device, and operating system, its speech provider may process microphone audio under that provider's terms and privacy policy.

Hands-free progress for marked instructions and preparation groups is held in this tab's session storage. The feature stops listening when the recipe is closed or the page becomes hidden and requires an explicit action to resume. No Gemini integration is enabled in this release.

Shopping-list sharing and external links

The app sends a temporary shopping list outside the app only when you choose Share, Copy, or Email. Native Share passes the selected text to the operating system's share sheet and the destination you choose; Copy places it on the device clipboard; Email opens your configured mail application. The selected destination processes that data under its own terms and privacy policy.

The “Buy me a coffee” link opens Buy Me a Coffee only when you select it. No Buy Me a Coffee script, tracker, or cookie is loaded inside LightWorks Home Recipes. With Analytics consent, the app reports only that the footer support link was selected; it does not track the destination URL, transaction, donor, or amount. Once you follow the link, Buy Me a Coffee processes the resulting visit and any transaction under its own policies.

Service providers and disclosure

Google processes identity, Drive, Picker, permissions, notification-email data, and—only after separate Analytics consent—sanitized GA4 usage events and pseudonymous identifiers; Microsoft Azure hosts the application and API; and OpenAI processes optional AI requests. A browser or operating-system speech provider may process microphone audio only when you start hands-free cooking. User-selected mail, messaging, clipboard, and sharing applications process shopping-list text only when you invoke them. LightWorks Home Recipes does not sell personal information or Google user data and does not use recipe, Kitchen, or Meal Plan data for advertising.

Storage, retention, and security

Drive content remains in the relevant owner's Google Drive until an authorized person deletes it. Local data remains until you clear it, the browser evicts it, or the app replaces it during synchronization. Pending offline work remains queued and is retried after reconnection. Clearing local application data does not delete Drive files; deleting Drive files does not necessarily clear browser caches or another collaborator's copies.

Application assets may remain in a service-worker cache until it is cleared or replaced by an update. Theme and other device preferences remain in local storage until changed or cleared. Authentication session data remains according to browser session-storage behavior and sign-out. Analytics consent and first-party GA cookies expire after 12 months; GA event- and user-level data is configured for 14-month retention.

The app uses HTTPS, narrow OAuth scopes, server-held provider secrets, and capability checks. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so keep independent backups of content you cannot replace.

Your choices

• Choose what to create, import, share, copy, send to the AI assistant, or send through a shopping-list share target.
• Change Drive permissions or delete app-created files in Google Drive. Owners control permanent Drive deletion; removing a shared reference affects only your profile.
• Use Delete Local Data on the Profile page to clear the app's IndexedDB content. Use browser site-data controls to also clear local preferences, authentication storage, and service-worker caches.
• Disable AI Kitchen assistance without disabling ordinary recipe editing, and do not invoke AI if you do not want the disclosed content sent to OpenAI.
• Allow, decline, or withdraw anonymous usage analytics from Profile. Withdrawal immediately stops future app events and removes this site's first-party GA cookies, but it does not erase data already aggregated by Google.
• Revoke LightWorks Home Recipes in your Google Account's third-party access settings. Revocation stops future access but does not delete existing Drive files or local copies.
• Contact support@lightworks.app with privacy questions. Because primary content is stored in your Drive and browser rather than a central LightWorks account database, you may need to delete it through those controls.

Google API Services User Data Policy

LightWorks Home Recipes' use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Changes

Material changes will be posted here with a revised effective date and, when required, an in-product notice or renewed consent.

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