1 Who we are
Makan is run by one person in Singapore. Write to manjeerahmed@straitstone.sg about anything in this policy.
Makan is a mobile app for finding and ranking hawker food. It is made and run by Manjeer Ahmed Mubarak Ali, an individual developer based in Singapore (“we”, “us”). Straitstone is the name of this website and of the project behind Makan. It is not a registered company.
For anything about your personal data, including the requests in section 10, our data protection contact is manjeerahmed@straitstone.sg.
2 What this policy covers
The Makan app and this website. The website itself collects nothing about you.
This policy covers the Makan app for iPhone and Android, and the website at straitstone.sg.
The website has no accounts, cookies, analytics or advertising. Our hosting provider, Google Firebase, receives your IP address and browser details when it serves a page, as every web host does.
Links from Makan to other services, such as Google Maps, take you to services with their own privacy policies.
3 What we collect
Your account details, what you post, your votes, your location while you use location features, and crash and usage data that isn’t tied to your name.
| What | Examples | When |
|---|---|---|
| Account details | Email address, display name, password | When you sign up. Firebase Authentication stores your password in scrambled (hashed) form, and we never see it. |
| Google account details | Name, email address, profile photo | If you sign in with Google |
| Apple account details | Name, and your email address or the private relay address Apple creates if you hide your email | If you sign in with Apple |
| Profile | Display name, profile photo or the avatar you build, privacy settings, who you follow, who follows you, who you’ve blocked | When you set up or change your profile |
| Posts | Food photos, the dish, stall and hawker centre you tag, the place’s location, your comments and likes | When you post, comment or like |
| Stalls and corrections | Stall names, addresses and photos, and your phone’s location when you add a stall | When you add a stall or suggest a correction |
| Votes and progress | Which dish you picked in each match, points, levels, badges, quests, energy, and the dishes and stalls you save | When you use those features |
| Location | Your phone’s precise location | Only while you use the app, and only if you allow it |
| Reports | What you reported and why, and reports about your account | When you report something, or someone reports you |
| Crash reports | Device model, system version, app version, and what failed | When the app crashes |
| Usage statistics | Screens opened, features used, device type, app version, approximate region | While you use the app |
| Messages to us | Whatever you write | When you email us |
We don’t collect your contacts, health or payment information, or your phone’s advertising identifier.
Before a photo is stored, it is saved again as a new image. This removes the hidden details that cameras add to photos, including the location where the photo was taken.
4 How we use it
To run Makan, keep the rankings honest, keep people safe, and fix problems. Nothing is used for advertising.
- To run your account and show your content. Your profile, posts and saved items depend on your account details.
- To count votes and build the rankings. Your votes change dishes’ scores. We also use them to spot manipulation, such as one person voting from many accounts.
- To show what’s near you. Your location is used to find nearby hawker centres and dishes. We don’t keep a history of where you’ve been.
- To place stalls on the map. When you add a stall, your phone’s location at that moment becomes the stall’s location on the map.
- To check photos. See section 5.
- To moderate. Reports, and the content they point to, help us remove posts and accounts that break the community guidelines.
- To fix and improve the app. Crash reports and usage statistics show us what breaks and which features people use. They are tied to a random ID for your copy of the app, not to your name or email.
- To email you about your account. Firebase sends the emails that sign-in needs, such as email verification and password resets. We don’t send marketing emails.
- To reply to you when you write to us.
We rely on the consent you give when you create an account and when you allow permissions such as location and camera. Where Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA) allows it, we also rely on our legitimate interest in keeping Makan secure and free of abuse.
5 Photos and automatic checks
A small copy of each photo you post is checked by Google’s AI service to recognise the dish.
When you post a photo, our servers make a small copy, at most 512 pixels on each side, and send it to Google Cloud’s Vertex AI service (the Gemini model) to recognise the dish and confirm that the photo shows food. We also calculate a fingerprint of each photo to catch duplicates, and check that it isn’t too blurry or dark.
These checks can reject a photo automatically. If you think a photo was rejected by mistake, email us and we’ll look at it ourselves.
Under its terms for business customers, Google doesn’t use the photos we send to train its models.
6 What other people can see
Your profile and posts are visible to other Makan users unless you make your profile private. Nobody can see how you voted.
- Visible by default: your display name, profile photo or avatar, posts, the numbers of followers and people you follow, and the activity shown on your profile.
- Private profile: if you turn this on, people who don’t follow you can’t see your posts or profile details.
- Email address: hidden unless you turn on the setting that shows it on your profile.
- Stalls and corrections you add become part of Makan’s listings.
- Votes count toward the rankings, but nobody can see how you voted.
- Reports are confidential. We don’t tell anyone who reported them.
- Blocking: if you block someone, their posts no longer appear for you.
- Copies: anything other people can see, they can also screenshot or save. We can’t remove copies made outside Makan.
7 Who processes data for us
Google runs almost everything. We don’t sell personal data, show ads, or share data with advertisers.
| Provider | What they do for Makan | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Google Firebase: Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions | Sign-in, the database, photo storage and server code | The data in section 3, except crash reports and usage statistics |
| Google Cloud Vertex AI | Photo checks (section 5) | Small copies of your photos |
| Google Analytics for Firebase | Usage statistics | Screens, features, device type, app version, approximate region |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Crash reports | Device model, system version, app version, crash details |
| Google Maps Platform | Maps, place search, and turning coordinates into addresses | Map and search requests, coordinates |
| Google Sign-In | Signing in with a Google account | Your Google name, email address and profile photo |
| Sign in with Apple | Signing in with an Apple account | Your Apple name, and your email address or a private relay address |
| Expo (650 Industries, Inc.) | Delivering app updates | Your app version, device type and IP address |
| Apple App Store and Google Play | Delivering the app to your phone | Covered by their own privacy policies |
We may also disclose information when the law requires it, for example to comply with a court order, or when it’s needed to protect someone’s safety.
We don’t sell personal data. We don’t show ads, and we don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
If running Makan passes to another person or organisation, for example a company set up to run it, your data passes with it and stays covered by this policy. We’ll tell you in the app before that happens.
8 Where your data is stored
Most data stays in Singapore. Photos, and some processing, are in the United States.
- Your account, profile, posts, votes and other records are stored in Google Cloud’s Singapore region.
- Photos are stored in Google Cloud’s United States region (Iowa), and the photo checks in section 5 also run there.
- Usage statistics, crash reports, Google Sign-In, Google Maps Platform and Expo’s update service are processed in the United States and other countries where those providers operate.
When data leaves Singapore, we rely on these providers’ contractual commitments, such as Google’s Cloud Data Processing Addendum, to protect it to a standard comparable to the PDPA.
9 How long we keep it
As long as your account exists, with set limits for deleted posts, deleted accounts and diagnostics.
| Data | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Account, profile and posts | Until you delete them, or delete your account |
| A post you delete | 30 days in Recently Deleted, where you can restore it. After that it is deleted for good, with its photo. |
| Your account, after you ask us to delete it | 30 days, then deleted or anonymised as you chose (see Delete your account) |
| Votes | They stay in the rankings after your account is deleted, no longer linked to your name or email |
| Crash reports | 90 days |
| Usage statistics | Up to 14 months |
| Reports and moderation records | As long as we need them to handle disputes and prevent abuse |
| The record that your account was deleted | As long as we need it to show that we carried out your request and to prevent abuse. It includes the email address the account used. |
| Emails you send us | As long as we need them to help you |
10 Your choices and rights
You can see, correct or delete your data. Email us for anything you can’t do in the app.
- See your data. Ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and how it has been used or disclosed in the past year.
- Correct it. Edit your profile in the app, or ask us.
- Delete it. Delete posts in the app, or delete your whole account. See Delete your account.
- Withdraw consent. Turn off location, camera or photo access in your phone’s settings at any time. Some features stop working without them. To withdraw consent for everything, delete your account.
- Control who sees you. Make your profile private, hide your email address, or block people.
Send requests to manjeerahmed@straitstone.sg from the email address on your Makan account, so we can confirm that it’s you. We reply within 30 days and don’t charge for requests.
If you live outside Singapore, the law where you live may give you further rights, such as objecting to how we use your data or receiving it in a portable format. Email us, and we’ll answer under the law that applies to you.
If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission at pdpc.gov.sg, or to the data protection authority where you live.
11 Children
Makan is not for children under 13.
You must be at least 13 to use Makan, and if you’re under 18 you need a parent’s or guardian’s permission. If we learn that a child under 13 has an account, we’ll delete it.
12 Security
Your data is encrypted in transit and in storage, and only the operator has administrator access.
All data travels over encrypted connections. Google encrypts the data it stores for us. Security rules limit who can read and change each record, and only the operator has administrator access.
If a data breach is likely to cause significant harm to the people affected, or affects 500 or more people, we’ll notify the Personal Data Protection Commission and, where the law requires it, the people affected.
13 Changes to this policy
We’ll tell you in the app before an important change takes effect.
When this policy changes, we update the date and version at the top of this page and record the change in the version history below. If a change affects how your data is used, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.
14 Contact
One address for everything.
Email manjeerahmed@straitstone.sg. If your message is about your account, write from the email address on that account.
Version history
Version 19 November 2026
First version.