Last updated: 26 July 2026. Next review due July 2027.
The short version
The app has no account, no login and no server. Everything you enter stays in storage on your own iPhone or iPad. None of it is transmitted to us, and we have no way of seeing it.
There is no analytics, no tracking, no advertising and no third party software development kit of any kind in the app. Its App Store privacy label is Data Not Collected, and that is a literal statement rather than a marketing one.
Who publishes the app
The Kidney Food Plan app is published by Patient Thread Ltd (registered in England and Wales, Company No. 17167409), which is the data controller for it. Patient Thread Ltd is a subsidiary of Lawrence Medical Ltd and is covered by its registration with the Information Commissioner's Office.
The clinical content is written by Dr Christopher Lawrence, Consultant Nephrologist, of Herts Kidney Care.
Contact: info@hertskidneycare.co.uk
What the app stores, and where
To build your plan and remember it between sessions, the app saves the following on your device:
- Your profile: age, sex at birth, height, weight, activity level, whether you are on dialysis or have a transplant, whether you have diabetes and which diabetes medicines you take, the dietary restrictions your kidney team has given you, your protein level, the other medicines you take, and how you eat
- Your favourite recipes and any notes you add to them
- Your shopping list and weekly meal plan
- Any food labels you have photographed, held as the text read from the packet and, where you scanned one, the barcode used as a key to find it again
- Whether you have accepted the disclaimer, and which version of it
Some of this is information about your health, which data protection law treats as a special category of personal data. That is precisely why the app is built so that none of it ever reaches us.
These items are written to the app's own private storage area on your device, which other apps cannot read. They are not backed up to any service of ours. If your device backs itself up to iCloud or to your computer, the app's data is included in that backup in the ordinary way, under Apple's terms rather than ours.
What leaves your device
Nothing that you enter. The app makes no network connection of its own. It has no server to contact, and there is no account for it to sync to.
The only network activity is with Apple, and only in two circumstances:
- If you buy Premium. The purchase is handled entirely by Apple's App Store. We never see your name, your payment card or your Apple ID. All we receive back is Apple's confirmation that this device is entitled to the unlock
- If you tap a link to an outside website, such as a recipe site or a kidney charity, which opens in your browser as normal and is then governed by that site's own privacy policy
The camera and your photos
The label checker can read the ingredients panel on a food packet. If you use it, the app asks permission to use the camera, or to open a photograph you have already taken.
The image is analysed on your device using Apple's Vision framework, which converts the picture into text so it can be checked against a list of additives. The photograph is never uploaded and is not saved by the app. Only the text read from the packet is kept, so that scanning the same barcode later brings it straight back.
Those saved panels are yours alone. They are never pooled with other users, because serving one person an ingredients list transcribed from somebody else's camera would be both a privacy problem and a safety one. You can see everything the app has cached, and delete any of it, from within the app.
Analytics, tracking and advertising
There are none. The app contains no analytics, no crash reporting service, no advertising, no tracking pixels and no third party SDKs. It does not use the advertising identifier and will never ask permission to track you across other apps and websites, because it does not.
Children
The app is written for adults living with chronic kidney disease and is not directed at children. The equation it uses to estimate energy needs is not validated below 18. Children and young people with kidney disease should be assessed by a paediatric kidney team.
Your rights
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data an organisation holds about you, and to have it corrected, erased or restricted.
Because we hold nothing, there is no record here for us to give you, correct or delete. You are in complete control of the app's data:
- Change anything by editing your plan in the app
- Delete individual cached food labels from the scanned products list
- Delete everything at once by deleting the app from your device, which removes all of its stored data with it
If you have a question about this policy, or you are unhappy with how your personal data has been handled, please contact us at info@hertskidneycare.co.uk. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Not a medical device
The app provides general dietary information. It does not diagnose, monitor or treat any condition, it does not replace advice from your own kidney team, GP or dietitian, and it is not a regulated medical device. It is mentioned here because people reasonably ask what happens to health information they type into an app. The answer is that it stays on the device.
Changes to this policy
If the app ever changes in a way that affects any of the above, this page will be updated and republished at this address with a new date at the top, and the change will be described in the App Store release notes. It is reviewed at least once a year.
Contact
Patient Thread Ltd
Registered in England and Wales, Company No. 17167409
Email: info@hertskidneycare.co.uk
Support: hertskidneycare.co.uk/kidney-diet-app-support