Privacy policy

TrailSync, in the United Kingdom, is the controller of your personal data. Contact: privacy@trailsync-app.com.

Your account: name, email address, password (stored scrambled by our database provider), and optionally a username, photo, cover photo, bio and location you type in. If you sign in with Apple or Google, they confirm who you are and give us your name and email. Your activity: the walks you record or import (the GPS line, times, distance, height, summits, and heart rate when a watch or file carries it), photos you add, peaks you tick off, routes you save, places you pin, and the posts, comments, likes and follows you make. Your year of birth: the sign-up form asks for your date of birth to check you're 13 or over and keeps only the year (accounts made with Apple or Google are asked for the year, optionally). We use it to understand who uses TrailSync — only ever in totals — and to make under-18s' profiles private by default. It's never shown on your profile. If you allow notifications, your phone's push token. Messages you send through Have your say, with the type of phone or browser you used. If a walk doesn't upload, the error code and counts (never its places, name or photos).

TrailSync uses your phone's GPS, with your permission, while you use the map or record a walk. When you save a walk you recorded, it's posted to the community feed with its distance, times, splits and elevation: everyone signed in to TrailSync sees it if your profile is public, only the followers you approve if it's private. You choose which when you join (a new account is private until you do), and can change it in Settings → Privacy. The posted line leaves off as much of its start and end as you choose (500 m unless you change it in Settings → Privacy or as you save the walk), and times show as how long the walk took, not the time of day. Walks you import aren't posted. Photos have their location and camera details removed on your phone before upload.

To run the service you signed up for — recording and showing your walks, your stats and the community features (lawful basis: contract). To keep TrailSync secure and deal with abuse, and to read your messages and fix walks that don't upload (legitimate interests). Usage analytics, crash reports and screen recordings only if you opt in (consent — Settings → Privacy, where you can withdraw it at any time). We don't sell your data, show ads, or use it to train AI models.

Supabase (database, sign-in, photo storage and email, hosted in London). Vercel (hosts the TrailSync website, where it also counts visits and measures page speed without cookies). PostHog (analytics in the EU, only if you opt in). Apple (push notifications). Map tiles come from MapTiler, Mapbox and Ordnance Survey; weather from Open-Meteo; live cloud pictures from EUMETSAT; route photos from Geograph — these receive your device's internet address and the area or place you're looking at, but not your account. Mapbox also draws the map image when you share a walk. The Mountain Analyst sends the hill's name, position and forecast to Anthropic through our server — nothing about you.

Some of these providers are in the EU, Switzerland or the USA. Transfers rely on UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge) or the ICO's international data transfer agreement and addendum.

Your account and everything in it until you delete it (Settings → Account & Security → Delete Account), which removes it straight away; our database provider's encrypted backups expire on their own schedule. Analytics you opted into: events for up to 12 months, screen recordings for up to 1 month. Our providers keep short-lived technical logs, including internet addresses, for security.

Your profile: other signed-in TrailSync users. Walks you record: in the community feed, with their distance, times, splits and elevation — to everyone signed in if your profile is public, only to the followers you approve if it's private — without as much of their start and end as you choose to hide (500 m unless you change it). Your heart rate: only you, unless you turn on “Show my heart rate on posted walks” in Settings → Privacy, which you can turn off again at any time (that takes it back off your posts). Walks you import, the full record of each walk (its whole line and the times of day) and the peaks you've ticked off: only you. Posts, comments and likes: other signed-in users. Photos are stored at unlisted web addresses — anyone given an address can open that image.

TrailSync stores your sign-in session, settings, maps and walks waiting to upload on your phone so the app works offline. Analytics storage is only used if you opt in. We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

You can ask for a copy of your data, have it corrected, deleted or exported, object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw consent at any time. Delete Account in Settings deletes everything straight away; for anything else email privacy@trailsync-app.com and we'll reply within one month. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113.

TrailSync is for people aged 13 and over. If you're under 18, your profile is private by default.

If we change how we use your data we'll update this page and tell you in the app.