Privacy Policy

What you'll find in this section

1. Registration Information
2. Linked Social Media Information
3. Profile Verification Information
4. Purchase Information (for premium features)
5. Geolocation Information
6. Device Information
7. Photo Information
8. Link Information
9. Messages
10. Walk History, Surveys, and Other Contributions Information
11. Customer Support Contact Information
12. Cookies and Similar Technology Information

1. Registration Information

When you download the App and create a Walk With Me account, we collect certain information about you to help enhance the App and verify the people using it. This can include:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Username
• Location (city/region)
• Email address
• Date of birth
• Mobile number

After you register, you can change this information at any time through your account settings. You are responsible for making sure your account details are kept up to date, particularly if your phone number or email changes.

2. Linked Social Media Information

We want to help simplify and enhance your walking experience. One way we do this is by making it possible for you to use your other social media accounts during your Walk With Me experience. Just be aware that it means sharing with us some of the personal data you shared with these social networks.

Using social media accounts to register or sign in to Walk With Me

Google: If you choose to register or sign in using your Google account, you give Google permission to share your name, email address, and profile picture with us.

Apple ID: If you choose to register or sign in with your Apple ID, you give Apple permission to share with us:

• your Apple login
• a name (which you can edit)
• an email that will be linked to your Walk With Me account and used to retrieve it

You can choose to use your personal email, or Apple will create and use a random email address so your personal email can stay private.

We will then use the personal information we receive from Google or Apple to form your Walk With Me account. If you remove the Walk With Me app from your Google or Apple ID settings, we will no longer have updated access to this information.

3. Profile Verification Information

We want to ensure the safety and security of everyone on our App and Sites, and give people the best possible user experience. To do this, we require phone number verification for all accounts.

This allows us to make sure the people on Walk With Me are actually people, avoid fake accounts that can be used for malicious activities, and prevent fraud – all of which can threaten the Walk With Me community and spoil things for everyone.

When you verify your phone number, we use SMS verification through our trusted partner Twilio to send you a one-time code. We only keep your phone number for account security and recovery purposes.

4. Purchase Information

If you decide to purchase any of our premium services or features (such as featured walk listings), we will process your payment information through trusted payment processors and securely keep transaction records for audit/tax purposes and to prevent fraud.

To prevent fraudulent payments from being processed, we use automated decisions and our systems check payment information and transactions for behavior that might violate our Terms and Conditions of Use. We may automatically block any transaction that is likely to be fraudulent. If a transaction is blocked, the relevant person will be notified that their transaction cannot be processed and can contact us to contest the decision.

5. Geolocation Information

If you give Walk With Me access to your approximate approximate location in your device settings, we will collect information about your approximate approximate location when you use your mobile device. We do this to personalize your App experience and make it easier for you to discover walks near you and connect with other walkers.

This can include information about WiFi access points and your longitude/latitude, and we can save your device's coordinates to offer certain features to you.

For example:

• Showing you walks happening near your current approximate location
• Displaying your approximate approximate location to other users when you create or join a walk
• Helping you find walking routes and meeting points
• Showing you which friends are walking in your area

6. Device Information

When you use the App, we collect information about your device for the purposes described in this Policy. This can include your device's unique identifier, model, and operating system, as well as log and usage data. This helps us:

• Ensure the App works properly on your device
• Send you push notifications about walk requests, friend requests, and messages
• Troubleshoot technical issues
• Prevent fraud and abuse

7. Photo Information

Your profile photo helps other walkers recognize you and connect with you. We store your photos securely in Supabase cloud storage and display them to other users based on your privacy settings.

We may also collect data about which profile photos are most engaging to help you present yourself in the best way possible, but you can opt-out of this feature through our app settings at any time.

8. Link Information

You might come across some links while using our App or Sites (such as links to walking routes, maps, or external resources). If you use them, we can keep track of how you interact with links, including to third-party services that we are not responsible for, by monitoring redirecting clicks or other methods.

9. Messages

We want to facilitate genuine connections while also maintaining a safe community. Here's how we handle your messages:

Whispers (Direct Messages): Your one-on-one conversations with friends are private. We do not read, monitor, or share the content of your private messages except as necessary to:

• Comply with legal obligations
• Respond to verified reports of harassment or abuse
• Prevent fraud or security threats

WalkChat (Group Chats): Messages sent in walk group chats are visible to all participants in that walk. We may review aggregated, anonymized message data to understand communication patterns and improve the app, but we do not share the content of specific conversations.

We use automated tools to detect and prevent spam, harassment, and other prohibited content. If harmful content is detected, we may review the messages and take appropriate action, including account suspension.

10. Walk History, Surveys, and Other Contributions Information

We keep track of your walking activity to provide you with meaningful statistics and help you track your progress. This includes:

• Walks you've created and hosted
• Walks you've joined
• Total distance walked
• Walking streaks
• Preferred walking times and locations

From time to time, we may contact you to see if you would like to take part in a research survey, provide feedback or a testimonial, or be part of a marketing campaign. For example, if you've had a great experience building a walking community, we might ask if you want to be featured in Walk With Me advertising. We will provide you with more information when we contact you with any such request.

You can always say no and your participation is completely optional, but if you don't want to be contacted regarding these requests, just tell our Customer Support Team via our support email.

11. Customer Support Contact Information

If you contact our Customer Support team via email or in-app support, we will receive your email address and the information you share with us to help resolve your request. We may also track your IP address for security purposes.

We keep records of our communications with you for 6 years after your account is deleted, including any complaints from you about other people using the App or Sites. This helps us maintain accountability and improve our services.

12. Cookies and Similar Technology Information

When you use our App or visit our Sites, we collect personal data from you automatically by using cookies or similar technologies.

Some cookies are necessary for the App and Sites to function and cannot be switched off, but you do have choices for others. Check out our Cookie Policy to learn more about cookies, how we use them, and your options for these technologies.

What's a cookie?

A cookie is a small file placed on your device or internet browser that allows us to recognize and remember your preferences. Cookies generally help us better personalize and improve your experience on our App and Sites.

What you'll find in this section

1. Using Your Information
2. Our Walk Matching and Discovery System
3. Moderation Practices
4. Lawful Basis

1. Using Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Provide and improve our services:

• Create and maintain your account
• Enable you to create, discover, and join walks
• Connect you with other walkers based on location, preferences, and availability
• Process your walk requests and manage your walking groups
• Send you notifications about walk invitations, friend requests, and messages
• Track your walking statistics and streaks
• Provide customer support

Keep our community safe:

• Verify your identity and prevent fake accounts
• Detect and prevent fraud, spam, and abuse
• Enforce our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service
• Respond to reports of inappropriate behavior

Communicate with you:

• Send you important updates about your account
• Notify you of new features and improvements
• Share tips for getting the most out of Walk With Me
• Request feedback and participation in surveys

Personalize your experience:

• Show you walks that match your preferences
• Suggest walking times based on your activity patterns
• Recommend friends who share your walking interests

Comply with legal obligations:

• Respond to law enforcement requests
• Enforce our legal rights
• Comply with applicable laws and regulations

2. Our Walk Matching and Discovery System

Walk With Me uses your location, preferences, and activity patterns to show you relevant walks. Here's how it works:

Location-based discovery: We use your GPS approximate location to show you walks happening nearby. You control how far you're willing to travel by adjusting your search radius in settings.

Preference matching: Based on your stated preferences (pace, terrain, walk duration, interests, gender preferences), we prioritize walks that align with what you're looking for.

Social connections: We may suggest walks hosted by your friends or people in your network to help you build meaningful connections.

Activity patterns: Over time, we learn when you prefer to walk and what types of walks you enjoy, helping us surface the most relevant opportunities.

You have control over your discovery settings and can adjust your preferences at any time. If you prefer not to be discovered by others, you can set your profile to "friends only" mode.

3. Moderation Practices

We take safety seriously. Our moderation practices include:

Automated monitoring: We use automated tools to detect spam, harassment, and prohibited content in messages and profiles.

User reports: When someone reports inappropriate behavior, our team reviews the report and takes appropriate action, which may include warnings, account suspension, or permanent bans.

Human review: Serious violations are reviewed by our safety team to ensure fair and accurate enforcement of our policies.

Appeals: If your account is suspended or restricted, you have the right to appeal the decision by contacting our support team.

4. Lawful Basis

We process your personal information under the following legal bases:

Performance of contract: We need your information to provide you with our services, including creating your account, connecting you with other walkers, and processing your walk requests.

Legitimate interests: We process your data to improve our services, prevent fraud, and maintain a safe community. We believe these interests are balanced with your privacy rights.

Consent: For certain activities like marketing communications or optional data processing, we ask for your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

Legal obligations: We may process your data to comply with applicable laws and respond to legal requests.

What you'll find in this section

1. Important things to know when sharing information
2. Walk Privacy Settings

1. Important things to know when sharing information

Your profile information:
Other users can see your profile picture, name, username, bio, interests, and walking preferences. You control what you include in your bio and interests.

Your location:
When you create or join a walk, your approximate approximate location is shared with other participants. The exact approximate location of walk meeting points is visible to all participants. You can control who sees your walks through privacy settings.

Your walking statistics:
Your total walks, kilometers, and streaks are visible on your profile to help other walkers understand your activity level. You can hide these statistics in your privacy settings if you prefer.

Your friends list:
By default, your friends list is visible to your friends. You can change this to private in your settings.

Walk participation:
When you join a walk, other participants can see that you're attending. Walk hosts can see your profile when you request to join their walk.

2. Walk Privacy Settings

You have three privacy options for walks you create:

Public: Anyone can discover and request to join your walk. This is great for building community and meeting new people.

Friends Only: Only your friends can see and join your walks. This is perfect for organizing walks with people you already know.

Private: Only people you specifically invite can join. Use this for intimate walking groups or one-on-one walks.

You can also set gender preferences for your walks:

• Everyone Welcome
• Women Only
• Men Only
• LGBTQ+ Only
• Non-Binary Only

These preferences help create safe, inclusive spaces for all walkers.

What you'll find in this section

1. Our commitments to you
2. Service providers we work with
3. When we may share your information

1. Our commitments to you

We do not sell your personal data. Walk With Me will never sell your information to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes.

We limit data sharing. We only share your information when necessary to provide our services, comply with the law, or protect our users.

We vet our partners. We work only with trusted service providers who agree to protect your data and use it only for the purposes we specify.

2. Service providers we work with

To operate Walk With Me, we share data with these trusted partners:

Infrastructure and hosting:

• Neon (PostgreSQL): Securely hosts your account data, walk history, and app information
• Supabase: Stores your profile photos and other images

Communication services:

• Twilio: Sends SMS verification codes for account security
• Resend: Delivers important emails about your account
• Firebase Cloud Messaging: Sends push notifications to your device

Maps and location:

• Google Maps Platform: Provides mapping services, route planning, and approximate location search

Authentication:

• Google/Apple: If you choose to sign in with these services, they provide authentication

Payment processing:

• TBA

These service providers have access only to the information necessary to perform their specific functions and are contractually obligated to protect your data.

3. When we may share your information

Beyond our service providers, we may share your information in these limited situations:

Legal requirements:

• To comply with valid legal processes (such as search warrants, court orders, or subpoenas)
• To protect the rights, property, or safety of Walk With Me, our users, or the public
• To detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical issues

Business transfers:
If Walk With Me is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred. We will notify you before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

With your consent:
We may share your information for purposes not described in this Policy if we obtain your explicit consent.

Aggregated or anonymized data:
We may share aggregated, anonymized data that cannot identify you personally (such as "50% of walks happen on weekends") for research, marketing, or business purposes.

What you'll find in this section

1. Right to be informed
2. Right to access
3. Right to rectify
4. Right to data portability
5. Right to erase
6. Right to restrict or object
7. Right to complain
8. Rights related to automated decision-making
9. How do you enforce your rights?
10. Do you live in California?

1. Right to be informed

You have the right to know how we collect, use, and share your personal information. This Privacy Policy is designed to give you that information in a clear and transparent way.

2. Right to access

You have the right to access the personal information we hold about you. You can view and update most of your information directly in the app through your profile settings. For a complete copy of your data, you can submit a data access request to privacy@walkwithme.app.

3. Right to rectify

You have the right to correct inaccurate or incomplete information. You can update your profile information, preferences, and settings at any time through the app. If you need assistance, contact our support team.

4. Right to data portability

You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used format and to transmit it to another service. Contact privacy@walkwithme.app to request a copy of your data for portability purposes.

5. Right to erase

You have the right to request deletion of your personal information. You can delete your account directly in the app under Settings > Account > Delete Account.

When you delete your account:

• Your profile and personal information are permanently removed
• Your messages are deleted
• Your walk history is anonymized (we keep aggregated statistics but remove your personal identifiers)
• You will no longer appear in other users' friend lists
• Active walks you've created will be canceled

Important: Account deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Some information may be retained for legal or security purposes as described in the "How do we handle and store your personal information?" section.

6. Right to restrict or object

You have the right to restrict or object to certain processing of your data:

Object to marketing: You can opt out of marketing emails by clicking "unsubscribe" in any marketing message or updating your preferences in Settings > Notifications.

Object to data processing: You can object to certain uses of your data by contacting privacy@walkwithme.app. We will evaluate your request and respond within 30 days.

Restrict processing: You can request that we temporarily restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances, such as while we verify the accuracy of your information.

7. Right to complain

If you're unhappy with how we handle your personal information, you have the right to file a complaint with:

Our team: Contact privacy@walkwithme.app first so we can try to resolve your concern.

Data protection authority: You can file a complaint with your local data protection authority. In the EU, you can find your authority at https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en

8. Rights related to automated decision-making

Walk With Me uses automated systems for:

• Suggesting relevant walks based on your approximate location and preferences
• Detecting spam and abusive content
• Preventing fraudulent transactions

You have the right to request human review of automated decisions that significantly affect you. Contact privacy@walkwithme.app if you believe an automated decision was made in error.

9. How do you enforce your rights?

To exercise any of these rights:

1. In-app: Many settings can be changed directly in Settings > Privacy or Settings > Account
2. Email: Contact privacy@walkwithme.app with your request
3. Include: Your name, email, and a clear description of your request
4. Verification: We may ask you to verify your identity before fulfilling your request

We aim to respond to all requests within 30 days. Some requests may take longer depending on complexity, but we will keep you informed of our progress.

10. Do you live in California?

If you're a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA):

Right to know: You can request details about the personal information we've collected, used, disclosed, or sold in the past 12 months.

Right to delete: You can request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.

Right to opt-out: While we do not sell personal information, you have the right to opt out if we ever begin doing so.

Right to non-discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights.

Shine the Light Law: California residents can request information about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes.

To exercise your CCPA rights, contact privacy@walkwithme.app. You may designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf by providing written authorization.

What you'll find in this section

1. What happens when you delete your account?
2. Connecting you around the world
3. Data security measures
4. Retention periods

1. What happens when you delete your account?

When you delete your Walk With Me account:

Immediately deleted:

• Your profile information (name, bio, photos, preferences)
• Your active friend connections
• Your pending walk requests
• Your private messages (Whispers)

Anonymized and retained:

• Walk history data (used for aggregate statistics like "total walks completed in our community")
• General approximate location data (city-level, not precise GPS coordinates)

Retained for legal/security purposes:

• Customer support communications (6 years)
• Transaction records for tax/audit purposes (as required by law)
• Records of account violations or bans (to prevent abuse)
• Data required by law enforcement or legal processes

You can request complete deletion of all your data by emailing privacy@walkwithme.app with "Complete Data Deletion Request" in the subject line. We will evaluate your request and respond within 30 days.

2. Connecting you around the world

Walk With Me is available globally, which means your data may be transferred to and stored in countries other than where you live.

Data transfers: Your information may be processed in the United States or other countries where our service providers operate. These countries may have different data protection laws than your country.

Safeguards: When we transfer data internationally, we use appropriate safeguards such as:

• Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission
• Ensuring service providers meet adequate data protection standards
• Implementing technical and organizational security measures

Your consent: By using Walk With Me, you consent to the transfer of your information to countries outside your residence for the purposes described in this Policy.

3. Data security measures

We take your security seriously and implement multiple layers of protection:

Technical safeguards:

• Encrypted passwords using bcrypt hashing (industry-standard)
• Secure HTTPS connections for all data transmission
• Session-based authentication with 7-day token expiration
• Optional two-factor authentication (2FA) for enhanced account security
• Regular security updates and patches
• Secure cloud infrastructure with leading providers

Organizational safeguards:

• Limited employee access to personal data (only those who need it)
• Background checks for employees with data access
• Regular security training for our team
• Incident response procedures for data breaches

Important: While we implement strong security measures, no system is 100% secure. We encourage you to:

• Use a strong, unique password
• Enable two-factor authentication
• Keep your device and apps updated
• Never share your login credentials
• Report suspicious activity immediately

4. Retention periods

Here's how long we keep different types of information:

How we notify you:

• Material changes: We will notify you by email or prominent in-app notification at least 30 days before changes take effect
• Minor changes: We will update the "Last Updated" date at the bottom of this policy

Your choices:

• Continued use: If you continue using Walk With Me after changes take effect, you accept the updated policy
• Opt-out: If you don't agree with changes, you can delete your account before they take effect

For privacy-related requests:

• Email: privacy@walkwithme.app

For general support:

• In-app: Settings > Help & Support
• Email: support@walkwithme.app

For data protection officer (if applicable):

• Email: dpo@walkwithme.app

Mailing address: