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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 20 July 2026

Watch Walks is built around a simple promise: your data stays yours. Our apps are designed to work without collecting any personal information. This policy explains exactly what that means across Garmin, Wear OS, and Apple Watch.

The short version

No ads, no analytics, and no tracking or profiling. We never sell, rent, or share your personal data. Your step data never leaves your device. Two things do reach the outside world, and both are described below: your trails and medals are backed up so they survive a new phone — into your own iCloud on iPhone, and into a database of ours on Android, where signing in also means we hold your Google account's email address — and buying a paid trail goes through your app store.

Who we are

Watch Walks (the "data controller" for privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA) makes and supports these apps. You can reach us any time at watchwalksupport@gmail.com.

Your step and activity data

To work out how far you've travelled along your chosen trail, Watch Walks reads your daily step and distance data from your watch. It also reads your flights-climbed / elevation-gained figure to award climbing achievements (such as reaching the height of Everest over time). Depending on your device, that reading is handled by:

Your health and activity data is read and turned into trail progress on your own device, and it is used for one purpose only: working out how far along your chosen trail you have walked. It is never sold, never used for advertising, and never shared with any third party.

Your steps and your elevation readings never leave your phone. They are read, converted to a distance, and discarded — deleting the app deletes them. But the distance they produce is your trail progress, and that is the thing the app backs up, so where it goes depends on your phone — and it is worth being plain about this rather than giving you one comfortable sentence that is only half true:

So: no step count of yours, and no elevation reading of yours, is ever uploaded anywhere. On Android, the distance derived from them is — see Cloud backup, which describes exactly what that record holds and how to delete it.

You can withdraw this access at any time, and the app keeps working — it simply stops counting new walks from that source. On Apple devices, in the Health app under Sharing. On Android, in Health Connect (Settings → Health Connect → App permissions) or in your phone's app permissions.

The companion app

The free Watch Walks companion app for your phone (Android or iPhone) reads your trail progress from your watch over Bluetooth and stores it locally on your phone, so it can show your journey and the medals you've earned. It creates no Watch Walks account and asks you for nothing about yourself. The cloud backup below is the one thing that leaves the phone.

Cloud backup

So that your owned trails, progress and finisher medals survive a new phone ("buy once, sync everywhere"), they are backed up. Where that backup lives depends on your phone, and the two are genuinely different — so we describe them separately rather than averaging them into one comfortable sentence.

Here is exactly what the backup holds, on either platform:

That is all. Your raw step data is never backed up: only the distance it has already carried you along a trail. We store no payment details, and we never sell or share any of it with anyone.

To delete your backup, open the app and go to Settings → Start over. It permanently erases your backup and the progress on the device in your hand, and it asks you to type to confirm first, because it cannot be undone. On an iPhone, because the backup sits in your own iCloud, you can also switch it off yourself in iOS Settings → your name → iCloud. On Android there is no equivalent switch in your Google account settings — the data is in our database, not your Google backup — so use Settings → Start over, or email us and we will delete it for you.

Downloading a trail's map

Trail maps are downloaded once, then work entirely offline. On Android some are fetched from a public file store (GitHub's content delivery network) and the rest through Google Play; on iPhone they come from Apple's App Store. As with any download, the service delivering the file can see the request and your IP address. We send it nothing about you: no account, no identifier, and no information about your walking. Once a map is on your phone, nothing further is requested.

Buying a trail

The Inca Trail is free. Any other trail is a one-time purchase, handled entirely by the app store for your device:

The store handles the payment and tells the app which trails you own. We never see your card or billing details.

This website

This website is a set of static pages. We do not set tracking cookies, run analytics, or embed advertising. Our hosting provider may keep basic, anonymised server logs (such as IP addresses) for security and reliability, as is standard for any website; we do not use these to identify or profile you.

How your backup is kept safe

Most of what Watch Walks knows never leaves your phone, so there is nothing to protect in transit. The one exception is the optional Android backup, and this is how it is handled. It travels over an encrypted HTTPS connection, and it is stored in Google Cloud Firestore, which encrypts it at rest. Access is tied to the Google account you signed in with: our rules allow each walker to read and write only their own backup, so no other walker can reach yours. We hold no password of yours, because signing in is handled by Google and we never see it. Your raw step counts are not part of the backup at all, so they are never transmitted or stored anywhere off your phone.

Children

Watch Walks is not directed at children. We ask for nothing about you, and there is nothing in the app that invites you to tell us anything about yourself. The one piece of personal data we ever hold is the email address of the Google account an Android walker chooses to sign in with, and we do not knowingly collect that, or anything else, from a child.

Your control and your rights

You are always in control. By default your data lives only on your own devices. Settings → Start over erases your backup and your progress for good. On an iPhone the backup sits in your own iCloud, so you can also switch it off in iOS Settings → your name → iCloud. On Android the backup is in a database of ours rather than your Google backup, so there is no switch in your Google account settings — use Settings → Start over, or email us and we will delete it. On Apple devices you can withdraw Health access in the Health app at any time; on Android you can withdraw step access in Health Connect or your phone's app permissions. Uninstalling an app removes its stored progress from that device. The only personal data we ever hold is an Android walker's sign-in email, we build no profile on you, and there is nothing for us to sell — and you can email us with any privacy request, including a request to see or delete what we hold.

Changes to this policy

If we ever change how the apps handle data, we will update this page and revise the date above. Material changes will be reflected here before they take effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email us at watchwalksupport@gmail.com.