Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what KalQSplit ("we," "us"), operated by Mark Agustin as a sole proprietor, collects when you use KalQSplit at kalqsplit.com, why, and who it's shared with. See also our Terms of Service.

1. What we collect

• Account info: name, email address, and a hashed (not plaintext) password, if you create an account.
• Guest info: whatever name you enter when joining a group via an invite link, plus a browser cookie that remembers which group-member you are.
• Expense data: descriptions, amounts, dates, categories, currencies, and how a group splits each expense.
• Receipt images: if you use "scan a receipt," the photo you upload.
• Feedback: anything you submit through the feedback or contact form, plus your name/email if you're logged in when you submit it.

We don't collect payment card numbers or bank details — KalQSplit never processes real payments (see the Terms of Service, "What KalQSplit is — and isn't").

2. How we use it

To run the Service: calculate balances, show your groups and expenses, let you log in, and let AI-assisted receipt scanning pre-fill an expense for you to review. If you accept analytics cookies (see "Cookies" below), we also use aggregate usage statistics to understand which features are used and improve the Service. We don't sell your data. If you accept advertising cookies, Google may use them to show ads on our free public guides and help pages — see "Advertising" below for what that involves and how to opt out.

3. Who we share it with

• Anthropic — if you scan a receipt, the photo is sent to Anthropic's Claude API to read the line items, tax, tip, and total. This runs under Anthropic's commercial API terms (not the consumer Claude.ai terms): it isn't used to train models, and inputs/outputs are retained only briefly by Anthropic for abuse monitoring before deletion.
• GitHub — feedback or contact-form submissions are filed as an issue in our private GitHub repository so they can be triaged. If you're logged in, your name and email are included in that issue so we can follow up.
• Vercel and Neon — our hosting provider and database provider. They store the data described above on our behalf and don't use it for their own purposes.
• Google (Analytics) — only if you accept analytics cookies. Google Analytics collects aggregate, pseudonymous usage data (pages viewed, general device/location info) to help us understand how KalQSplit is used. It does not load at all until you accept — see "Cookies" below.
• Google (Advertising) — on our free public guides, FAQ, and how-it-works pages (never inside your account or group data), Google may serve ads through AdSense. If you accept advertising cookies, those ads can be personalized based on Google's own advertising cookies; if you decline, you'll still see ads, but non-personalized ones. See "Advertising" below.

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it with advertisers or data brokers for their own independent use. Google's advertising cookies (when you accept them) are the one exception, described in "Advertising" below — this may count as a "share" under the California Consumer Privacy Act's definition of cross-context behavioral advertising, which is why it's opt-in and separately controllable from analytics.

International transfers. KalQSplit is operated from the United States, and Anthropic, GitHub, Vercel, Neon, and Google are all US companies — if you're using KalQSplit from the EU, UK, or elsewhere outside the US, your data is transferred to and processed in the US by us and by these providers. Each of them publishes their own data processing terms covering international transfers (standard contractual clauses and/or participation in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, depending on the provider); we haven't independently audited each one, and recommend checking their published terms directly if this matters for your use of the Service.

4. Advertising

KalQSplit's account features (creating groups, adding expenses, settling up) are free and ad-free, full stop — we don't put ads in front of anyone actively using the app. To help cover the cost of running those free accounts, our public guides, FAQ, and how-it-works pages may show ads served by Google AdSense.

If you accept advertising cookies (see "Cookies" below), Google may use its own cookies and similar technologies to show ads based on your interests and prior activity across sites that use Google's advertising products — not based on anything inside your KalQSplit account, which Google never has access to. If you decline, or don't respond, you may still see ads on those pages, but they'll be non-personalized (based only on the page's content, not on you).

You can control Google's ad personalization directly at Google Ads Settings or, in the US, optout.aboutads.info, independent of the cookie choice you make on KalQSplit.

5. Cookies

KalQSplit uses two functional, first-party cookies that are always on and don't require consent: one to keep you logged in, and one (per group) to remember which guest member you are so you're not re-prompted for your name.

Beyond that, we ask separately for two kinds of optional consent, shown on the cookie banner on your first visit: analytics cookies (Google Analytics, e.g. _ga) and advertising cookies (Google AdSense, used only on the public guides/FAQ/how-it-works pages described in "Advertising" above). You can accept or decline each independently — accepting one doesn't accept the other. If you decline (or don't respond), the corresponding script never loads and no cookie of that kind is set. You can change your mind anytime using the "Cookie settings" link in the footer, which reopens the banner — or by clearing your browser's site data for kalqsplit.com.

When you make a choice, we log that a decision was made (which category, the decision itself, which version of this policy was current, and a random id tied only to your browser — never your IP address) so we have a record if a consent decision is ever questioned. This log is kept for up to 24 months.

6. Data retention

We keep your account, group, and expense data for as long as your account is active. On top of that, an automated job runs daily to remove specific categories of data on a schedule (added July 10, 2026):

• Receipt images: removed 90 days after the expense they're attached to for groups created by a Free-tier user, or 365 days for groups created by a Pro or Insider user. The expense record itself (description, amount, split, category, etc.) is kept — only the photo is deleted.
• Rate-limit records (used to blunt automated abuse of invite-code and balance-link lookups): removed after 7 days.
• Cookie-consent log entries: removed after 24 months.
• Sign-in sessions: removed once they expire (30 days after you log in).

You can also ask us to delete a specific receipt image or your account entirely before its scheduled removal — see "Your rights" below.

7. Your rights

Self-serve, from the Account page: review and correct your name, email, and default currency anytime; download a copy of your account, group memberships, expenses, and friends as a JSON file; and delete your account outright, if you haven't created a group or logged any expense history yet (deleting an account with history could corrupt other members' balances, so those go through the manual path below instead).

Everything else — deleting an account with group/expense history, deleting a specific receipt image, or any other request — email hello@kalqsplit.com or use the contact page. We aim to respond within 30 days.

If you're in the EU or UK, GDPR additionally gives you the right to: access the personal data we hold about you; rectification of inaccurate data; erasure ("right to be forgotten"); restriction of processing; data portability; objection to processing based on our legitimate interests; and the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. We process your data on these legal bases: performance of a contract (running the Service you signed up for), consent (analytics and advertising cookies — see "Cookies" above), and our legitimate interests (fraud/abuse prevention, responding to feedback). Depending on where you live, you may have similar rights under other laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act — declining advertising cookies opts you out of any behavioral-advertising "sale" or "share" of your information under the CCPA, and we'll honor applicable requests regardless of residency, not just where a specific law happens to apply.

8. Children's privacy

KalQSplit is not directed at children and isn't intended for use by anyone under 16 (see the Terms of Service, "Who can use KalQSplit," for why we use 16 rather than a lower age). We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 16; if you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the Service changes. We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Email hello@kalqsplit.com or visit our contact page.