Privacy

Last updated 23 October 2026.

Shelfie has no accounts and no servers of its own. Your shelf stays on your phone.

Who we are

Beauty Expiry Tracker: Shelfie ("Shelfie") is made by THE MIT ("we", "us"). You can reach us at hello@themit.ca.

What stays on your phone

Everything you put into Shelfie is stored on your iPhone and nowhere else:

• your products and the dates you opened them;
• your photos, notes, ratings and favourites;
• your shelves and your routine;
• the ingredients you want to avoid;
• your reminder settings.

There is no account, no sign-in and no Shelfie server holding a copy.

If you delete the app, that information is deleted with it, and we can’t restore it, because we never had it. Your iPhone’s own backups (iCloud Backup or a backup to a computer) may include Shelfie’s data. Apple handles those under its own terms.

Photos and reading labels

Reading the label. When you photograph a product, the photo stays on your phone. The text on the label is read by Apple’s text recognition, which runs on the phone itself.

Apple Intelligence. On iPhones with Apple Intelligence turned on, Shelfie also asks Apple’s on-device language model to work out which words are the brand, the product and the dates. That model runs on your phone too. Shelfie does not use Apple’s Private Cloud Compute.

Cutting out the product. "Cut out the product" separates the product from its background using Apple’s on-device image tools.

No photo is uploaded to read a label or to cut out a product.

When Shelfie uses the internet

Shelfie works without a connection. It goes online in three situations, and in none of them does it send anything about you or the rest of your shelf.

1. Looking up a barcode while adding a product.

• When you scan a barcode during adding, Shelfie sends that barcode number to Open Beauty Facts, a free, open product database run independently of us. It asks for the product’s name, category and ingredients.
• If the database has a photo of the product, Shelfie downloads it to use as a fallback picture.
• The request contains the barcode and nothing else. Like any request on the internet, it shows your device’s IP address to their server.
• Open Beauty Facts has its own privacy policy.

2. Checking ingredients in a shop.

• "Already own it?" checks the barcode against your own shelf without going online.
• It looks the barcode up on Open Beauty Facts in one case only: you’ve added ingredients to "Ingredients I avoid" and the product isn’t on your shelf. The lookup lets Shelfie check that product’s ingredient list.
• The request is the same as above: the barcode only.

3. Checking for app updates.

• When you open Shelfie, it asks Expo’s update service (EAS Update, run by 650 Industries, Inc.) whether a newer version of the app’s code is available, and downloads it if there is one.
• That request includes:
  • technical details, such as the platform (iOS) and the version of the app;
  • a random ID that the app creates for this installation.
• The ID is not your name, your Apple Account or any identifier of your device, and we can’t connect it to you. Expo uses it to deliver updates and to count how many installations have received each one. Deleting the app deletes the ID.
• Nothing about your shelf is included.
• Expo’s privacy policy covers its service.

Purchases are handled by Apple (see below). Tapping a link such as this policy opens your web browser.

Reminders

Reminders are scheduled and delivered by your phone. They are not push notifications: no messaging service is involved, and nothing about what you own is sent anywhere to deliver one.

Purchases

Shelfie Plus is a one-time purchase handled entirely by Apple. We never see your payment details, and we don’t receive your name, email address or Apple Account as part of a purchase. Restoring a purchase on a new device is done through your Apple Account.

Exporting your shelf

If you export your shelf (a Shelfie Plus feature), Shelfie creates a spreadsheet file on your phone and opens the share sheet. Where the file goes from there is up to you.

Analytics, advertising and tracking

There are none:

• no analytics or advertising software in the app;
• no advertising identifier;
• no tracking across apps or websites;
• nothing about you is sold or shared with brands, retailers or anyone else.

This website

This website uses no cookies, analytics or trackers. The company that hosts it keeps standard server logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, for security and to keep the site running.

Open data

The list of brand names Shelfie’s label reader recognises is built partly from Open Beauty Facts data, available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). The list ships inside the app, so recognising a brand on a label sends nothing anywhere.

Children

Shelfie is suitable for all ages. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or move personal data an organisation holds about you.

• We hold no personal data about you on any system of ours. Everything you entered is already in your hands: remove a product in the app, or delete the app to remove all of it.
• The installation ID held by Expo can’t be linked to you by us. If you have a question about it, write to us and we’ll help.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will appear on this page with a new date. If a future version of Shelfie collects anything new, this page will say so plainly before that version is released.

Contact

Questions about this policy: hello@themit.ca