Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

AllerWatch ("AllerWatch", "we", "us") provides a food allergen screening tool for schools, childcare providers, community integrated living arrangements (CILAs), IDD service organizations and similar facilities. AllerWatch is not a medical service and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

You can contact us at info@allerwatch.com or at 4422 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago, IL 60640.

2. Information we collect

Account and organization information: your name, email address, password, organization name, organization type, plan and the role you hold within an organization (administrator, staff or parent/family).

Screening records: for each item checked, we store the product name, barcode (UPC) when scanned, the screening result, the allergen evidence used to reach that result, who submitted it, the person it was checked for when applicable, and the time of the check.

Label images: when you photograph a product label, the image may be processed to extract ingredient text. Extracted text is used to produce the screening result.

Product data: barcode lookups consult third-party product databases such as Open Food Facts and USDA FoodData Central. Information returned by those databases is processed to produce your screening result.

Alert settings: the email addresses and webhook URLs your organization designates to receive allergen alerts.

Usage data: standard technical information such as browser type, device type and pages visited, used to operate and improve the service.

3. How we use information

To provide the screening service, including barcode lookups, label scanning, screening history and arrival queues.

To send allergen alerts to the quality and compliance contacts your organization designates when a restricted allergen is detected.

To manage accounts, organizations, invitations, roles and subscriptions.

To produce aggregated reports about screening activity for organization administrators and platform operators.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use screening records to train machine-learning models without consent.

4. Important limitation of the service

AllerWatch is a screening tool and is not a guarantee of allergen absence. Results depend on the accuracy of ingredient information from product databases, label photographs and text recognition, which can be incomplete, out of date or unreadable. Always check the physical package and follow each person's care plan, allergy action plan and your facility's allergy policy.

5. Sharing of information

Within your organization: administrators and staff of your organization can see screening records submitted by members and visitors checking in under your organization's code.

Service providers: we use trusted providers to host the service and process data, including our cloud database provider, our AI text extraction provider and third-party product databases queried during barcode lookups.

Legal requirements: we may disclose information when required by law, regulation or valid legal process.

We do not share screening records with advertisers or data brokers.

6. Children and vulnerable individuals

Organizations using AllerWatch serve children and adults with disabilities. We do not ask visitors or parents to create accounts to submit a check, and we collect only the minimum information needed for a check: a name the submitter chooses to give, the food item and its result.

Administrators are responsible for obtaining any consents required before entering allergy profiles for the individuals they serve, and for using AllerWatch in accordance with applicable laws including FERPA, HIPAA where applicable, and state privacy laws.

7. Data retention and security

Screening records are retained while your organization subscribes to the service and for a reasonable period afterwards, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.

We protect data with industry-standard measures, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls and per-organization row security so that one organization's records are not visible to another.

8. Your choices and rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information by contacting info@allerwatch.com. Organization administrators may also request deletion of their organization's records when ending their subscription.

If you are a parent or guardian and want information removed that relates to a child, contact us at info@allerwatch.com.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. Material changes will be posted on this page with a new effective date.