Privacy Policy

1. About This Policy

Frances Anderson Inc. (“Frances,” “we,” “us”) provides a meal-planning marketplace that connects families with personal cooks. This Privacy Policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. It applies to our website (meetfrances.com), our messaging service (SMS and WhatsApp), and any related features.

Frances Anderson Inc. is incorporated in Delaware and operates from California. By using Frances, you agree to the practices described here. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the service.

2. Who This Policy Covers

Frances has two kinds of users:

• Clients — families who use Frances to plan meals and book cooks.
• Cooks (providers) — home cooks who run their own meal-preparation businesses and use the Frances platform to reach clients.

Both kinds of users are covered by this policy. Some sections describe data that only applies to one role, and we say so where that’s the case.

3. Information We Collect

From all users

• Account info: name, email, password (handled by our authentication provider), and phone number when you provide one.
• Communications: the content of messages you send to or receive from Frances (web chat, SMS, WhatsApp), plus delivery metadata.
• Device info: IP address, browser, device type, and basic usage analytics.
• Cookies and similar tech: session cookies for login and minimal analytics.

From clients (families)

• Dietary preferences: dietary tags, allergies and restrictions, dislikes, favored cuisines and proteins, household size, budget preference, and kitchen equipment.
• Household members: names (or nicknames), age category (adult or child), and individual preferences you choose to enter for each member.
• Goals: nutrition or eating goals you choose to share (e.g., “trying to eat less sodium”). This is not medical data; we do not provide medical advice and you should not treat us as a health service.
• Recipe activity: recipes you save, import, rate, or reject; meal plans we generate; grocery lists.
• Booking activity: cooks you book, dates, addresses for service, special instructions, and reviews.
• Payment info: processed by Stripe. We don’t store full card numbers on our servers — only the customer ID and limited token data Stripe returns to us.

From cooks

• Profile info: name, contact info, photo, bio, service area, menu, and availability.
• Verification and payout info: identity and tax info collected by Stripe for our payout product (not by us directly), and bank account info held by Stripe.
• Performance info: booking history, client ratings, and cancellation history.
• Service info: menu items, pricing, and scheduling.

From everyone who messages Frances

When you message Frances — whether by SMS, WhatsApp, or web chat — we record:

• Your phone number (for SMS and WhatsApp)
• The message content
• The channel and timestamp
• Delivery status (delivered / read / failed)

We use this conversation history to maintain context and respond well in future messages. We may also keep an internal note about the relationship that records observations about your preferences over time. This note is private to Frances; it is not shown to you, other users, or anyone else.

4. How We Use Information

We use what we collect to:

• Run and improve the service.
• Personalize meal recommendations, recipes, and grocery lists.
• Match clients with cooks and coordinate bookings.
• Process payments and pay cooks.
• Send you messages you’ve asked for or that are necessary to operate the service (booking confirmations, recommendations, replies, account/security alerts).
• Detect fraud, abuse, and safety issues.
• Comply with our legal obligations.
• Improve our AI features by reviewing aggregated, anonymized usage patterns. We do not train third-party AI models on your personal data, and we do not sell your data.

5. SMS and WhatsApp Messaging

What we send and why

When you provide your phone number and opt in, Frances may send you messages including:

• Conversational replies (you text Frances; Frances replies)
• Weekly recipe recommendations
• Recommended grocery lists
• Booking confirmations and cook coordination
• Account and security alerts

Cooks who use the platform may also receive booking notifications, payout updates, and conversational replies from Frances.

Frequency and rates

Message frequency varies based on how you use the service. Message and data rates may apply — check with your mobile carrier.

Opt-out and help

You can opt out of SMS or WhatsApp at any time by replying STOP to any message from us. You can reply HELP for help, or contact us at frances@meetfrances.com.

If you opt out, we’ll stop sending messages to that number, but you may still receive transactional messages required for your account or active bookings until those are resolved.

We do not sell or share phone numbers

We do not sell or share mobile phone numbers, SMS opt-in data, or message content with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Phone numbers and message content are shared only with the service providers we use to deliver and operate the messaging service (e.g., our messaging-delivery provider; our AI providers for generating replies).

6. AI Features

Frances uses AI to recommend recipes, generate meal plans, write replies in our messaging service, generate recipe images, and improve recipe data quality. To do this, we share necessary context (e.g., your dietary preferences, recent conversation, current request) with our AI service providers. These providers process your data on our behalf under enterprise / data-processing terms; they are not permitted to train their public models on your personal data through our integrations.

AI output may be incomplete, outdated, or wrong. Always verify allergens, ingredients, and food safety before preparing or eating food.

7. How We Share Information

With cooks

You stay in control. Information you enter into Frances flows to a cook only after you choose to book one. If you never book a cook, cooks do not see anything about you.

When you do book a cook, we share what the cook needs to do the job — typically dietary restrictions and allergies, household size, the address for service, your contact info, and any special instructions you’ve added. Cooks are required to use this information only to perform your booking.

With service providers

We rely on third-party providers to run Frances. They process data on our behalf, only to the extent needed to support the service:

• Database, authentication, and infrastructure providers — to host the website, store your data, and manage account sign-in
• Payment processor (Stripe) — to process client payments and cook payouts, and to handle related identity and tax verification
• Messaging-delivery providers — to send SMS and WhatsApp messages
• AI service providers — to power recipe recommendations, conversation, and image generation
• Email delivery providers — to send transactional and account email

We require these providers to handle your data only as needed to support Frances and to protect it appropriately. If you would like more specific information about the providers we use, contact us at frances@meetfrances.com.

For legal reasons

We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or other valid legal process; to protect our rights, users, or the public; or to investigate fraud or security issues.

In a business transfer

If Frances is acquired, merges, or sells assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We’ll notify you of any change in ownership or control of your personal information.

What we don’t do

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share your phone number or SMS opt-in data with third parties for marketing.

8. Data Retention

We keep your data while your account is active and for a reasonable period after, so we can comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and operate the service. You can request deletion of your account at any time (see Your Rights below).

We may retain anonymized or aggregated data (data that no longer identifies you) for analytics and service improvement.

9. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights including:

• Access — see what we have about you.
• Correction — fix inaccurate information.
• Deletion — ask us to delete your account and personal data.
• Portability — receive a copy of your data.
• Objection or restriction — limit how we process certain data.
• Withdraw consent — for processing based on consent (including SMS opt-in, via STOP).

California residents have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to know what personal information we collect and disclose, the right to delete, the right to correct, and the right to non-discrimination. We do not sell personal information.

To exercise any of these rights, email frances@meetfrances.com. We’ll respond within the timeframes required by law.

10. Security

We use industry-standard measures to protect your data: encryption in transit (HTTPS), access controls, row-level security on our database, and trusted vendors for sensitive processing (Stripe for payments, Supabase for auth). No system is perfectly secure; if you become aware of a security issue, please contact us at frances@meetfrances.com.

11. Children

Frances is intended for adults (18+). Adult account holders may add household members who are children — including their preferences and dietary needs — to plan meals for the family. We treat any information about children entered by an adult account holder as part of the account holder’s data. We do not collect data directly from children, and a child should not create their own Frances account.

If you believe a child under 13 has created an account or provided us data directly, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. International Users

Frances is operated from the United States. If you use Frances from outside the U.S., your data will be transferred to and processed in the U.S. By using Frances, you consent to that transfer.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We’ll update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. For material changes, we’ll provide additional notice (e.g., email or in-app notice).

14. Contact

Questions about privacy, data, or this policy?

Frances Anderson Inc.
Email: frances@meetfrances.com