Privacy

Last updated November 1, 2026

Back for Seconds has no account, no ads and no analytics. There is no Back for Seconds server holding your restaurants. Here is everything the app keeps, and everything it sends.

What the app keeps

• Your restaurants, verdicts, notes, dishes, visits and the people you list on them, and the results of your Restaurant Drafts (kept so the next draft can be fair). These are kept on your device and, if you're signed in to iCloud, in your own private iCloud database, so they're the same on your iPhone and iPad. That database belongs to your Apple Account: we can't see it, and nobody else can either.
• Menu photos you take or add, and the words read from them. These stay on the device that took them: reading the words happens there, and the photos are never uploaded, not even to iCloud.
• Your Friday reminder. It's a notification scheduled on your device.

What the app sends, and to whom

• Your iCloud (Apple), if you're signed in. Your restaurants and drafts sync through Apple's CloudKit to your private database, protected by your Apple Account. Turn it off for the app in Settings › your name › iCloud. Apple's privacy policy applies.
• Apple Maps. When you search to add a restaurant, what you type goes to Apple Maps, along with your approximate location if you've allowed it, so the results are near you. The app asks for location only when you add a restaurant, and only while you're using it. Apple's privacy policy applies.
• Restaurants' own websites. To find a menu, the app opens the restaurant's website, the same as visiting it in a browser, and reads its links. When you open a menu or browse a site in the app, that site sees an ordinary visit.
• The Restaurant Draft server, only during a draft. When you start or join a draft, the names people type, the restaurants in the draft and each round's strikes and votes go to our draft server, which runs on Cloudflare. Nothing else is sent: no contacts, no location, no list of your other restaurants. A draft is deleted automatically six hours after it starts.

Links that open other apps

Directions open Apple Maps (or Google Maps from the draft page), and Call opens your phone app. Those are links you choose to tap; nothing is sent until you do.

Permissions

• Location, while adding a restaurant, to search near you.
• Camera, when you photograph a menu.
• Photos: the photo picker shows only the photos you choose; the app can't see the rest of your library.
• Notifications, only if you turn on the Friday reminder.

Deleting your data

Remove a restaurant from its page and its notes, dishes, visits and photos go with it. Deleting the app removes everything it stored.

Children

Back for Seconds isn't directed at children and doesn't knowingly collect anything from them.

Questions

Use the support page.

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