Privacy Policy

What we process, and why

Your location

Used to find the places around you and to time the show. While a walk is on, your phone sends its position, speed and direction of travel to our server every few seconds so the narrator knows what is at hand and what is ahead. It is held in memory for the length of the walk and then dropped; it is not written to a database or a log. A walk's record keeps the city, the country and the title of the last story, never the route.

Before a walk starts, the app may send a position rounded to about 100 m so the first stories are ready when you press play. The narrator remembers the last places it told you about (up to 40, with the places' own map positions) so an interrupted walk can pick up again and it does not repeat itself. That list is replaced when a new walk starts and erased when you delete your data.

To look up places, the phone also sends coordinates rounded to about 100 m to Apple Maps, Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons and Wikivoyage, and to our own table of plaques, memorials and heritage sites. The names of nearby places and streets are used to write the show.

Motion and head tracking

With AirPods that support head tracking, and with your phone's motion sensors, the app notices on your phone when you stop, turn to look at something, climb stairs or turn back. The direction your head faces and your altitude never leave the phone. Only the conclusion is sent to the show (the place you looked at, or "climbing" or "turned back"), and it is not stored. You can turn Motion & Fitness off for the app in iOS Settings at any time.

Buildings around you

To tell which building you are looking at, the phone asks our server for blocks of about 600 m by their number. That says roughly where you are, like the rest of a walk, and is not stored. The outlines come from OpenStreetMap.

The street right beside you

So the narrator can talk about what is right next to you, the phone asks Apple Maps what is at street level nearby and sends our server only the kinds of place and how far they are ("a bakery, 10 m"), with a name only for a public place such as a museum or a park, never a business's name. Our server matches your position during the walk against OpenStreetMap's details of the buildings, streets and trees around you. None of this is stored.

The weather

During a walk our server asks MET Norway, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, for the current weather with your position rounded to about a kilometre and no identifier, so the narrator can mention it. Answers are cached for twenty minutes and shared by everyone nearby.

Holidays and what's on

So the narrator can mention a holiday or a festival, the phone tells our server which country you are in, and our server looks up that country's public holidays (it sends only the country and the year) and the events we list for your city. Nothing about you is sent or stored for this.

The show's memory of you

So the narrator can greet you as a regular, our server keeps, until you delete your data: how many walks you have taken, when the last one ended, the neighbourhood it ended in, the last few subjects the narrator talked about, and which shows you have heard. A walk in progress is saved for 15 minutes so it can pick up again after a dropped connection, then deleted. Each walk leaves a short record of how it went (its length, its cost, any errors) and a quality check of what the narrator said, which keeps only the problems it found. These are deleted after 30 days.

Listening outcomes

After each stretch of the show, the app sends an anonymous record of how it went: the place it was about, what kind of stretch it was, and whether it was finished, skipped, paused or replayed. These records carry no device identifier and no route. Each night they are summed into counts per kind of stretch, which help choose better stories for everyone, and the raw records are deleted after 90 days. A small summary of what you tend to enjoy is kept on your phone only.

A random device identifier

Created when the app first opens and kept in your phone's keychain. It keeps the show's memory of you, your listening time, and the fair-use limits. It is not linked to your name, email or Apple ID.

Usage and cost records

How much of the show was produced for your device, in which language, with which app version, and what it cost us to run. We need these to keep the service within budget. They are kept for up to 24 months, or until you delete your data.

Crash and performance reports

If the app crashes, hangs or a sound fails to play, the app sends a short technical note: the kind of problem, a one-line message and the app version. Apple's own crash and battery reports for the app are passed on the same way. They never include your position, the places around you, or what you heard.

Purchases

When you buy listening time, Apple processes the payment. We keep only the transaction identifier Apple gives us, to add the time to your device and to restore it. We never see your payment details.

Who else handles data

We use service providers to run the show. They process data for us under their terms and are not allowed to use it for anything else.

• The narrator's voice and words: OpenAI (and, in some test sessions, Google). They receive the show's notes: the names of nearby places and streets, the neighbourhood, what you looked at, and the conversation so far. They never receive your device identifier or your coordinates.
• Story writing and the narrator's voice: Anthropic and ElevenLabs. They receive the text of the stories and the names of places, never your identifier.
• Hosting: Cloudflare runs our servers and storage.
• Maps and the App Store: Apple, under Apple's privacy policy.
• Weather: MET Norway receives a position rounded to about a kilometre, with no identifier.
• Holidays: Nager.Date receives a country code and a year, nothing else.
• Public sources: Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage and OpenStreetMap receive rounded coordinates or place names when the app or our server looks something up.

Generated audio may be cached on our servers so the same line is not made twice. It contains no personal data.

What we do not do

We do not sell or rent data, show advertising, track you across other apps or websites, or build a history of where you have been. The app does not use the microphone or the camera.

Your choices and rights

Settings → More → Delete my data erases the show's memory of you, your device record and its usage records on our server, and the app's data on your phone. We keep only a one-way hash of the old identifier, so that limits cannot be reset by deleting. Forget previous stories clears only which stories you have already heard. Deleting the app removes what is on your phone.

You can turn off location or Motion & Fitness for the app in iOS Settings; the show then works with less to go on. Depending on where you live, you may have further rights to access, correct or object to processing of your data. Write to us and we will help.

Children

By the way is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If we change how we handle data in a way that matters, we will update this page and say so in the app before it takes effect.