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Privacy: what stays where

On the phone, in your iCloud, and what Power sends.

Forma keeps your data on your phone, with a backup copy in your own iCloud. This page lists every place your data can go, so you know what leaves the phone, when, and why.

When to use it

  • You want to know where your meals, workouts and weigh-ins are stored, and who can see them.
  • You are wondering what a food search or barcode scan sends out.
  • You are deciding whether to switch on the optional Forma Power extras, and want to know what they send.
  • You want to check that nothing tracks you or feeds advertising.

What stays on the phone

Everything you enter or connect stays in the app's database on this phone: your profile (height, birth date, sex, goal), weigh-ins, body measurements, meals and foods you saved, workouts and sets, supplements, injuries you log, check-in notes, targets and settings. The developer cannot see any of it and does not receive it.

That includes Apple Health. Forma reads your weight, body fat and lean mass from Health only if you allow it, so a smart-scale reading arrives without typing. Forma never writes to Health, and Health data is never sent to Forma, to anyone else, or to the online AI service.

Barcode scanning also runs on the phone, using Apple's scanner. The camera is used only while the scanning screen is open; nothing is recorded or kept.

What goes to your iCloud

In Forma Core, the only copy of your data that leaves the phone is the backup. It goes to a private area of your own iCloud, tied to your Apple Account, so only you can read it. Forma keeps the latest backup and the one before it, so an earlier copy always remains.

If you allow Apple Health, your weigh-ins can arrive on the phone by themselves. They are still stored only on the phone and in that backup.

What a food lookup sends

Looking up a food sends the words you typed, or the barcode digits, to Open Food Facts, a public nutrition database, over a secure connection. No name, account or device identifier goes with it. The bundled USDA table works entirely on the phone, with no connection at all.

What Forma Power sends

Forma Power is optional, and nothing goes online until you allow it. Two things use Forma's own server:

  • Watch connection (Garmin). Your watch's sleep, heart-rate variability, activities and weight arrive from Garmin through Forma's server. Watch data is never sent to the AI service.
  • Online AI help. The meal photo or typed meal description you send to be read, the text you type when you ask the coach, and any exercise-substitute request go through Forma's server to an online AI service. Your watch data is never sent to it. Forma keeps none of what you send: no photo, no text.

To confirm your subscription, the server also receives the signed purchase record from Apple, together with the device token it issued when Forma registered this phone. These are used only to keep Power working. They are never used for tracking, and the same is true of everything above: the App Store's own privacy summary lists them because they leave the phone. Each one exists to provide the feature you asked for; nothing is used for any other purpose.

Good to know

  • Turning off online AI help stops the sending at once, even for photos still waiting to be read.
  • You can see and change what Forma may read from Apple Health at any time in the Health app.
  • Settings > Data & backup shows the state of the backup in a few words, and offers Back up now, Export all my data and Delete all my data.
  • Deleting all your data removes it from the phone, and offers to delete the iCloud backup too.

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