Privacy

Useful analytics, not a health profile.

CERNERE is built to learn which parts of the site are useful without building a record of who you are or what health condition you may have. This policy explains exactly what is collected, why, who else touches it, and what you can ask us to do.

Last updated 4 October 2026. CERNERE is run from Australia ("CERNERE", "we", "us"). Privacy questions and requests: privacy@cernere.xyz.

The short version

• You can read, plan, print and save recipes without an account or an email address.
• What you type into the recipe finder, search, planner and nutrition calculator stays in your browser.
• Our own analytics log records page visits, your IP address and one first-party cookie. You can opt out, and Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track is honoured automatically. It is not shared with advertisers, and there are no advertising or cross-site tracking scripts.
• If you join the forum, we keep your email and account details to run your account. We never ask about your health. Your posts are public, so share only what you are comfortable with anyone reading.
• If you email us, we keep the email so we can reply.
• We never sell personal information.

Searches and tools stay in your browser

The recipe finder, site search, seven-day planner and nutrition calculator run in your browser. CERNERE does not send the words you type into those tools to its analytics system or anywhere else. The seven-day planner keeps its recipe choices in local browser storage, on your device only. So does the saved-recipe shortlist, which stores only the recipe IDs you choose to save. The nutrition calculator can save its worksheet there so a reload does not wipe your work, and your measurement preference, reading mode, preferred store and external-link preference are remembered the same way. If you share a plan link, the selected recipe IDs sit in the URL fragment (the part after #), which browsers do not send to the web server. If you tell the planner which condition you are planning for, that choice can reveal a health condition, which is why it is kept on your device only. The full list is on the cookie policy.

Clear local CERNERE data

You can remove everything CERNERE keeps in this browser here, without clearing unrelated browser data.

Clear my CERNERE data

Our own analytics

CERNERE runs its own visitor log on its own server. When you open a page, your browser sends a small message to /track.php on this site with the page path (never the part after ? or #), the referring site's domain (never the full address you came from), and, when you press one of the site's own buttons, a fixed label for it: a print, a share or copy-link, a retailer or book click, or the address of an outbound link.

The server adds the time, your IP address, your browser's user-agent string, a device type (phone, tablet or desktop), whether the visit looks like an automated crawler, and a country worked out from the IP address. It sets one first-party cookie, cnv, holding a random identifier for two years, so the log can tell returning browsers from new ones and the operator can filter out their own visits. No script on the page can read that cookie. Forum pages are logged the same way. Your forum account is never attached to the log, so it cannot connect you by name to the pages you read; forum moderation and private-message pages are not logged at all.

Country lookup. To work out a country, the server sends only the network part of your IP address (the last part is removed), over an encrypted connection, to an IP-location service (ipwho.is). The answer is cached for 30 days per network, so most visits cause no lookup at all.

Opting out. You can opt out of analytics on the cookie policy page, and a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal from your browser is treated the same way. Your visits are then still counted, but with no cnv cookie, no stored IP address and no country lookup. Honouring these signals is voluntary in Australia; under the EU and UK GDPR it is how we respect your right to object. You can also delete or block the cnv cookie like any other and every page keeps working.

The log is read only by the site operator. It is not shared with advertisers or analytics companies. There is no consent banner: analytics relies on our legitimate interest in knowing which free pages are useful, with the opt-out above.

The community forum

The forum at /forum/ is optional. If you register, we keep:

• Account details: your username, email address, a one-way hash of your password (never the password itself), and your account and moderation status.
• What you post: your posts and topics, earlier versions of posts you edit (visible to moderators only), and private messages. Posts, your username, public member number, join date and post count are public and can be indexed by search engines.
• Security records: short, salted, one-way identifiers derived from your IP address, and rate-limit counters, used to fight spam and abuse. The forum does not store your raw IP address.
• Reports: if someone reports a post, message or member, a private copy of what was reported is kept so moderators can review it.
• Help with a problem: to find the fault when something is not working for you, a site administrator can view the site as your account sees it, read-only, for up to 30 minutes. They cannot post, change your settings or mark anything as read, and your private messages are not shown. Every such view is recorded. Moderators cannot do this.
• Cookies: fc_forum keeps you signed in for the session, and fc_forum_remember keeps you signed in for up to 30 days if you tick "remember me".

Health information. CERNERE does not ask about your health, and you never need to share anything about it to use the site or the forum. Some members choose to mention their own health in a post or message. If you do, it is your choice, which you confirm when you join, and posts are public: they can be read, copied and indexed by anyone. So please do not post health details that identify you, and never post anyone else's. Anything health-related you share is never used for advertising or sold. You can delete any of your posts yourself (the Delete link under your post), and you can ask us to remove posts or messages (use Report, or email privacy@cernere.xyz). Deleting your account removes your private details and messages; your posts stay under the name "Deleted member", so ask us too about any that could still identify you by what they say.

Email from the forum. Account emails (verifying your address, resetting your password) are always sent. Notification emails follow your own choices in Notification settings, and every one has a link to stop it. Announcement emails about new meal plans, guides and books are sent only if you opt in. Each one has a one-click unsubscribe that needs no sign-in, and it takes effect straight away (the law allows up to 5 business days). We keep a record of when you opted in. If an email to you bounces because the address does not exist or the mail server refuses it for good, we record the address, the reason the server gave and the date, and send it nothing except account emails until you ask us to try again or we lift the block. That record is kept until then. The forum privacy page has more detail.

Signing in with Google. If you join or sign in to the forum with Google, Google tells us your email address, that Google has verified it, and an account ID Google uses for you. We keep the email address and that ID, and you choose your own username. We do not receive your Google password or anything else in your Google account. You can remove the forum's access in your Google account settings at any time; your forum account stays, and "Forgot password" on the sign-in page sets a password for it.

If you do not give us this information, you can still use everything on the site except posting on the forum, which needs an email address and an account. Opting out of analytics changes nothing about what you can use.

Book waitlists and "I cooked this"

If you ask to be told when a book is out, we keep your email address, the book, and when you confirmed. You get one email when it goes on sale, with a one-click unsubscribe, and nothing else. If you are a forum member and press "I cooked this" on a recipe, we store that against your account; the site shows only the total count, never who.

Email you send us

If you write to any @cernere.xyz address, your message, your address and anything you include are kept in that mailbox so we can read and answer it. Mail is stored with our hosting provider. We may keep correspondence while it is useful for dealing with your question, a correction or a later follow-up, and delete it on request unless we need it to deal with a legal claim.

Who else handles data

• Our hosting and email provider (Namecheap, Inc.) stores the site, the forum database, the analytics log and our mailboxes on servers in the United States. That is storage under our control, and it keeps its own technical and security logs.
• An IP-location service (ipwho.is) receives a shortened IP address for the country lookup described above.
• Cloudflare Turnstile, if we switch it on to stop spam sign-ups, checks that you are not a bot on the forum's registration form. Cloudflare then receives technical information about your browser under its own privacy policy.
• Google, only if you choose to sign in to the forum with Google (what it shares is described above).
• Retailers, including Amazon, when you follow a store link. Many of these links carry our affiliate codes: if you buy after following one, the retailer pays CERNERE a commission, at no cost to you, and pages with these links say so. As an Amazon Associate, CERNERE earns from qualifying purchases. Once you follow a link, the retailer may show you its own content and ads, collect information directly from you, and place or read cookies in your browser, under its own privacy policy.
• Other sites you choose to visit from a link have their own privacy policies. CERNERE does not control them. See Terms of use for external links.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information, and we do not use health-condition browsing or forum activity for advertising.

Why we use it (legal bases)

We use personal information to run the site and forum you asked to use, to keep them secure and free of spam, to answer messages, to understand which pages are useful, and to meet legal obligations. Where the EU or UK GDPR applies, our bases are: performing our agreement with you (your forum account); for any health details you choose to share, your explicit choice to share them, which you confirm when you join (GDPR Article 9(2)(a)), and for public posts, that you made them public (Article 9(2)(e)); our legitimate interests in running, securing and improving a free information site (analytics, security records, moderation), which you can object to, including by automated means such as Global Privacy Control (Article 21); and legal obligation where it applies.

How long we keep it

• Browser-stored data stays on your device until you clear it.
• The analytics log keeps IP addresses, cookie identifiers and browser details for 90 days. After that they are stripped automatically, and only the page, date, country, device type and referring site remain, for counting. Ask and we will delete entries linked to your IP address or cookie identifier sooner.
• Forum accounts are kept until you delete yours (Your account, then Delete my account) or we close it. Deleting closes the account at once, and your data is removed once the deletion has been dealt with; anything needed to deal with abuse may be kept. On deletion, your private details and messages are removed; public posts stay, shown as "Deleted member", so other people's conversations still make sense. You can ask for specific posts to be removed.
• Forum mail-queue records are cleared automatically after 30 days (90 for failures), and spent sign-in tokens within a month.
• Private backups of the forum database may hold older data until those backups are replaced.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Depending on where you live you may also be able to object to or restrict some uses, or ask for your data in a portable form. Email privacy@cernere.xyz. We may need to confirm the request comes from you, and we will reply within 30 days.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, tell us first at the same address. We will acknowledge a complaint within 7 days and aim to resolve it within 30. In Australia you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (oaic.gov.au). In the EU or UK you can complain to your local data-protection authority.

Children

The site is general information for adults and is not directed at children. You must be 16 or older to register on the forum. If we learn that a member is under 16, we close the account. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Private data (the analytics log, the forum's configuration and backups, and mailbox settings) is stored outside the public web folder, and the operator's admin area is password protected. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify affected people and the regulator as the law requires.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Significant changes affecting forum members will also be announced on the forum.

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