Privacy Policy

The Pizza Review (TPR)  ·  Last updated: July 26, 2026

Overview

The Pizza Review ("TPR", "we", "our", or "the app") is a pizza rating and discovery application available on iOS and as a web app at thepizzareview.pizza. We are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what information the app collects, how it is used, and your rights regarding that information.

Information We Collect

The Pizza Review collects the following information when you use the app:

• Account Information: Your chosen reviewer name (not your real name unless you choose to use it), a unique account identifier, and — if you sign in with Apple — your email address.
• Review Data: Restaurant names, addresses, cities, states, pizza style selections, category ratings (crust, sauce, cheese, toppings), the overall score, cost ratings, personal notes, and any photos you voluntarily submit.
• Profile Photo: If you choose to upload a profile picture, it is stored in our cloud database and visible on your public profile.
• Push Notification Token: If you grant notification permission, a device token is collected and stored in our database to deliver notifications about likes, comments, and follows on your reviews.
• Social Activity: Likes you give to reviews, users you follow, and comments you post are stored in our database.
• Saved Restaurants ("Want to Try"): Restaurants you save to your personal list are stored privately in our database and are not visible to other users.
• App Preferences: Settings such as location permission preference and onboarding completion status. These are stored locally on your device only.
• Newsletter Subscription: If you subscribe to The Pizza Post newsletter on our website, your email address is stored in our Firebase database. We use it solely to send the newsletter. You may request removal at any time by emailing us.

Cloud Storage & Sync

The Pizza Review uses Google Firebase (Firestore) as its cloud backend. When you create an account (via Apple Sign-In or as a guest with a username), your reviews and profile information are synced to Firebase so they are accessible across devices and backed up in the cloud. Specifically:

• Your reviews — including restaurant name, location, ratings, notes, and reviewer name — are stored in our Firebase Firestore database and are visible to other users of the app as part of the community feed.
• Your profile information (username, profile photo, account ID) is stored in Firebase.
• Review photos you attach are uploaded to Firebase Cloud Storage and linked to your review. They are visible to other users as part of your review.
• Firebase is a Google service. Google's privacy practices apply to data processed through Firebase. See firebase.google.com/support/privacy.

Sign-In Methods

TPR supports several sign-in methods depending on platform:

• Sign in with Apple: Apple provides your email address and a unique account identifier to the app. You may choose to hide your email using Apple's private email relay. We do not receive your Apple ID password. Apple's privacy policy applies.
• Sign in with Google (web app): Google provides your email address and a unique account identifier. We do not receive your Google password. Google's privacy policy applies.
• Email & Password: Your email address is stored in Firebase Authentication and our Firestore database solely to identify your account. We do not share it with third parties.
• In all cases, your email address is stored in Firebase and locally on your device solely for account identification purposes.

Location Data

The app requests access to your device's location only when you explicitly use a "Near Me" feature to find nearby pizza restaurants. Location data is:

• Used solely to search for pizza restaurants near your current position.
• Sent to Apple's MapKit service as geographic coordinates to perform the search.
• Not stored permanently by the app.
• Not associated with your account or reviews.
• Never accessed in the background. The app only reads your location when you actively tap a "Near Me" button.

On iOS, you can change location permission at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → The Pizza Review. On the web app, you can manage location permission through your browser's site settings.

Push Notifications

The app requests permission to send push notifications. If you grant permission:

• A push notification token (FCM token) is stored in your account record in our database.
• Notifications are sent when other users like your review, comment on your review, or follow your profile.
• Occasional notifications may be sent to inform you of new app versions or features.

You can revoke notification permission at any time in iOS Settings → The Pizza Review → Notifications (iOS) or through your browser's notification settings (web). Revoking permission stops future notifications but the token remains in your account record until it expires or your account is deleted.

Third-Party Services

The app communicates with the following third-party services:

• Google Firebase: The app uses multiple Firebase services including Authentication (account management), Firestore (database), Cloud Storage (photo storage), Cloud Messaging (push notifications), and Analytics (anonymous usage data). Your account data, reviews, photos, and notification tokens are stored in our Firebase project. Google's privacy policy applies.
• Apple MapKit JS: Used for the Discover feature to find nearby pizza restaurants, to geocode city names, and to provide address autocomplete when submitting a review. Apple's privacy policy applies.
• Foursquare Places API: When viewing a review or a restaurant card, the app queries the Foursquare Places API with the restaurant name and city/state to look up a website or phone number. No personally identifiable information about you is sent to Foursquare — only the restaurant name and location. Foursquare's privacy policy applies.
• Google Fonts: The app loads display fonts from Google's font service. No personal data is sent.

We do not use any advertising networks. We do not sell your data or share it with data brokers.

Analytics & Cookies

We use Google Analytics to understand how the app and this website are actually used — how many people open the app, which screens they visit, where they give up partway through writing a review, and which pages of the website they read. We use this to find and fix the places where the app is confusing or broken. We do not use it for advertising.

• What is recorded: app opens, screen views, and product actions — starting a review, moving between the steps of the review form, abandoning it, and submitting it. These records include which step you reached and why the form stopped you (for example, a rating you had not filled in yet). When you submit a review we also record its score, the pizza style, and the city and state of the restaurant.
• What is never recorded: any text you type. Your review notes, your search terms, your photos, your email address, your password, your street address and your precise location are never sent to analytics. We record that you ran a search, but not what you searched for.
• Identifiers: analytics events are associated with your TPR account identifier and with an app-instance identifier generated on your device. They are not linked to your name or your email address. We do not use Apple's advertising identifier (IDFA), and advertising features are disabled in our analytics configuration.
• Cookies: our website at thepizzareview.pizza — both the marketing pages and the web app at /app, including when the web app is installed on Android — uses Google Analytics, which sets cookies named _ga and similar to recognise returning visitors. On the marketing pages this records only which pages are visited; no account is involved, because you do not need one to read them. The iOS app does not use cookies. You can block or clear these cookies in your browser settings; the site and the app work normally either way.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites, and we do not build or sell advertising audiences.
• Analytics is a Google service, and Google's privacy practices apply to data processed through it. See firebase.google.com/support/privacy and policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Data Shared Publicly

The Pizza Review is a community app. The following information is visible to all users:

• Your reviewer name
• Your pizza reviews (restaurant name, city/state, style, ratings, notes, and date)
• Your reviewer rank and earned badges
• Your profile photo (if you choose to upload one)
• Your username and review count on the community leaderboard
• Likes you give to other users' reviews (count visible; your identity as a liker is not shown publicly)

Reviews are identified by your username, not your email address or real name (unless you chose to use your real name as your username).

Data We Do Not Collect

• We do not collect your real name (unless you voluntarily use it as your reviewer name).
• We do not collect payment information of any kind.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites, and we do not build advertising profiles. We do measure how this app itself is used — see Analytics & Cookies.
• We do not serve advertising.
• We do not sell or share your data with data brokers or advertisers.

Children's Privacy

The Pizza Review does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information through the app, please contact us so we can remove it.

Your Rights & Account Deletion

You have full control over your data:

• Delete individual reviews: Tap any of your reviews and select Delete. The review is permanently removed from our cloud database.
• Change your username: You can update your reviewer name at any time from the Profile page.
• Delete your account: Profile page → scroll to bottom → Delete Account. This permanently deletes all of your reviews, your user profile, your Firebase authentication account, and all locally stored data. This action cannot be undone.
• Note on account deletion: Comments you posted on other users' reviews, likes you gave, and notifications already delivered to other users' inboxes are not automatically removed. Profile photos may persist in cloud storage briefly before cleanup.
• Guest users: If you use the app as a guest, your reviews are stored locally on your device only and are not synced to the cloud. If you later sign in with Apple, your local reviews can be migrated to your account.

Data Security

We use Google Firebase, which implements industry-standard security measures including encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest. Access to your data in Firestore is governed by security rules that prevent other users from modifying or deleting your content.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the app's features or applicable law. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. Continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to request deletion of your data:

Email: thepizzareviewtpr@gmail.com
Website: thepizzareview.pizza