Privacy Policy

2.1 Personal Information You Provide

When you create an account or use our Service, we may collect:

• Display name — the name you pick for yourself, shown to friends and club members. We never ask for your legal name.
• Email address
• Phone number (used for phone-based sign-in via SMS one-time passcode, and/or to help friends find you via contact matching)
• Profile picture and club logos (if you choose to add them) — see Section 2.10 for how the camera and photo library are used
• Username
• Authentication information (via Apple Sign In, Google Sign-In, email/password, or phone number verified with an SMS one-time passcode)

2.2 Health and Fitness Data

With your explicit consent, we collect health and fitness data from your device:

• Step count data from Apple HealthKit (iOS) or Health Connect (Android)
• Motion and step-counter data from your device's sensors. When you start a walk, we count your steps in real time using your device's built-in pedometer (Apple's Core Motion on iOS, the step-counter sensor on Android). This is a separate source from HealthKit and Health Connect, and it is what makes the live step count on your Lock Screen and in the walk view update as you move.
• This data is used solely to track your daily step count and enable social features like leaderboards and step sharing with friends

The Steps Club phone app never writes to Apple Health or Health Connect. It only reads the step data you allow. The one exception is our Apple Watch app (Section 2.12): a walk you start on your watch is saved to Apple Health as an Outdoor Walk workout. That adds no steps, so your daily total doesn't change.

2.3 Usage and Analytics Data

We automatically collect certain information about how you use the App:

• App usage data (features accessed, screens viewed)
• Product interaction data for analytics purposes
• Device information (device type, operating system version)
• App version and build information

This section describes analytics collected inside the mobile app. Website analytics (including UTM attribution) are covered in Section 2.9.

2.4 Crash and Error Data

To improve app stability and fix bugs, we collect:

• Crash reports and error logs
• Technical diagnostic information
• Performance data

2.6 Invite Links and Website

When you share a friend or club invite from the App, we create and store an invite record that may include your user ID, username, invite type, and for club invites the club ID. We use this to deliver the invite and measure attribution; we keep invite links for up to a year (see Section 8). When you complete onboarding after arriving from an invite, we also store the inviting user's ID on your account record (as "invitedByUserId") so that referral analytics can credit the correct inviter.

When you open an invite link on our website (e.g. stepsclubapp.com), we may collect your IP address, screen size (width and height), and timezone to associate your device with that invite—for example, so we can recognize you after you install the App. Our servers derive your IP from the request; we do not require you to send it.

When you open the App after installing it, we may send screen size and timezone (and our servers may use your IP address) to match your app session to a prior invite click, so we can attribute the install to the correct invite and show you the right invite in the App.

If you tap "Have an invite link?" in the App, we read the clipboard only to detect Steps Club invite URLs and to open that invite in the App. We do not store or send raw clipboard content; we only use the parsed invite token to fetch and display the invite.

Our website may use cookies or similar technologies (such as session storage) in connection with invite pages to provide invite functionality. For other uses of cookies or similar technologies on our website, please contact us.

2.7 Feedback You Submit

When you submit feedback through the in-app review prompt, we collect the message you write and, if you opt in to a reply, the email address you provide. We also attach basic technical context (your user ID, authentication method, app version and build number, platform, OS version, and locale) so we can reproduce and respond to issues. Feedback is stored in our database and emailed to our team to review.

2.9 Website Analytics and Attribution

When you visit our website (stepsclubapp.com or our blog), we collect aggregate analytics about your visit to understand how people find and use the site. This includes: pages you view, approximate country and device type, the page that referred you, and — if applicable — campaign parameters from links you clicked to reach us (e.g. utm_source=linkedin).

We do not use tracking cookies for website analytics. We use a first-party identifier stored in your browser's localStorage for up to 30 days — it is not shared across sites and is not a tracking cookie — plus attribution data so we can credit the channel that first brought you to the site.

These events go to two places: PostHog (see Section 4.7) and our own servers. We send a copy of key events — pageviews, invite views, app store clicks, and blog reading milestones — to our own Google Cloud infrastructure, where they are stored alongside our app analytics so we can see a complete picture of how someone found us. These copies carry the same first-party identifier described above, never cookies or third-party IDs.

Because we do not use tracking cookies or persistent cross-site identifiers for website analytics, no consent banner is required under GDPR or CCPA in our interpretation of those laws.

2.10 Camera and Photo Library

If you choose to set a profile picture or a club logo, the App asks for permission to open your camera or your photo library. We only receive the single image you pick or take — we never browse, scan, or upload your photo library, and we do not read photo metadata such as where a photo was taken. The image you choose is uploaded to our file storage. Your profile picture is visible to anyone who sees your profile, including people you don't know, and a club logo to anyone who sees the club, as described in Section 6.4.

You can also add photos to a walk: one per walk, or up to six with Plus. The App resizes each photo on your phone and strips its metadata, including where it was taken, before uploading it. Who sees a walk's photos follows who that walk is shared with (Section 6.4), and they only ever get a copy we re-encode with no metadata at all.

When you finish a walk you can save a share card — an image summarizing that walk — to your photo library. That asks for permission to add photos. Saving a share card writes to your library; it does not give us access to read anything already in it. Both permissions are optional and you can change them anytime in your device's privacy settings.

2.11 Walks and Social Activity

Steps Club is a social app, so some of what you do is recorded and shown to people you have connected with. We collect and store:

• Your walk history — when a walk started and ended, how many steps it covered, who it was shared with, and any photos or route you added (Sections 2.5 and 2.10)
• Live walk status — while a walk is in progress, the fact that you are walking and your live step count go to the people you shared that walk with (Section 6.4), so they can cheer you on or join in. This stops when your walk ends. It never includes where you are.
• Activity feed entries — milestones and events (finishing a walk, hitting a goal, joining a club) shown to your friends and clubs
• Reactions, messages and cheers you send — emoji reactions, short preset messages (such as "Nice job!") and cheers during a friend's walk, along with who sent them and who received them

Your live walk can also appear on your own Lock Screen, widgets and Apple Watch, and on those of friends who can see it (Section 2.12).

2.12 Apple Watch and Widgets

Widgets. Our widgets on iPhone and Android show your day and the friends you can see in the App. A widget can't sign in, so the App gives each one its own key. That key can fetch what the widget shows and send a cheer, and nothing else. We store only a scrambled (hashed) copy of it, and it is deleted with your account. A widget never shows you anything about a friend that the App wouldn't.

Apple Watch. Our watch app shows friends who are out walking and lets you cheer them on. You can also start a walk on your watch, even with your phone at home. While it runs, the watch reads only your step count from Apple Health (no heart rate, no route), and when it ends the watch saves the walk to Apple Health as an Outdoor Walk workout. To update your walk without your phone, the watch signs in with its own separate identity that can update your walk and nothing else. Signing out, unpairing your watch or deleting your account ends that access right away.

3.1 Core App Functionality

• To provide step tracking and fitness features
• To enable social features (friends, clubs, leaderboards)
• To manage your account and authenticate your identity
• To sync your data across your devices
• To send you push notifications (step reminders, friend requests, club updates, etc.)

3.2 Service Improvement

• To analyze app usage and improve our Service
• To fix bugs and improve app performance
• To develop new features and functionality

3.3 Communication

• To respond to your support requests
• To send you important updates about the Service
• To notify you about friend requests, club invitations, and other social activities

3.4 Subscription Management

• To process subscription purchases and manage your Plus subscription
• To verify subscription status and unlock premium features

3.5 Invite Links and Attribution

We use invite data and the device-matching data described in Section 2.6 to:

• Deliver and display invites (including sender username and profile picture, and for club invites the club name and logo) on the website and in the App
• Attribute app installs to the correct invite link
• Improve invite and referral flows

4.1 Firebase (Google)

We use Google Firebase services for:

• Authentication (Firebase Auth)
• Database storage (Firebase Realtime Database)
• File storage (Firebase Storage for profile pictures, club logos and walk photos)
• Analytics (Firebase Analytics)
• Cloud Functions (server-side processing)
• Push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging)
• Phone authentication via SMS one-time passcode (Firebase Auth)
• Abuse prevention (Firebase App Check). To stop others from impersonating the App and abusing our servers, the App asks Apple or Google to confirm it is a genuine, unmodified copy of Steps Club running on a real device. This uses Apple's App Attest and Google's Play Integrity. It checks the app, not you — it does not identify you and collects no personal information.
• Analytics storage (Google BigQuery). See Section 5.1 for what we keep there and why.

SMS messages for phone sign-in are delivered by Firebase Auth's upstream SMS carriers. Standard message and data rates from your mobile carrier may apply.

Your data stored with Firebase is subject to Google's Privacy Policy.

4.2 Sentry

We use Sentry for error tracking and crash reporting. Sentry collects technical diagnostic information to help us identify and fix bugs.

When you are signed in, we attach your user ID to the errors we send to Sentry, and whether it is a guest account. Sentry also receives your device's IP address. Without the ID, an error is an anonymous stack trace and we cannot tell whether one person hit a bug a hundred times or a hundred people hit it once — or follow up with you if you report a problem. Errors from our servers carry your user ID only. Versions of the App from before October 14, 2026 also sent your email address or username; Sentry now removes those before it stores anything.

Sentry's Privacy Policy

4.3 RevenueCat

We use RevenueCat to manage subscriptions and verify your subscription status. RevenueCat works with Apple App Store and Google Play Store payment systems. We do not receive or store your payment card details; all payment processing is handled by Apple or Google.

RevenueCat's Privacy Policy

4.4 Apple and Google

• Apple HealthKit (iOS): Your health data is accessed through Apple's HealthKit framework, which provides privacy controls built into iOS
• Health Connect (Android): Your health data is accessed through Google's Health Connect platform
• Apple Sign In: If you use Apple Sign In, your authentication is handled by Apple
• Google Sign-In: If you use Google Sign-In, your authentication is handled by Google, which confirms your identity and shares your email address with us. Your display name and username are still the ones you choose in the App.
• Device motion sensors: Real-time step counting during walks uses Apple's Core Motion (iOS) or the Android step-counter sensor, as described in Section 2.2
• Maps: Drawing a walk route uses Apple Maps on iOS and Google Maps on Android. They see the area of the map being drawn.
• Payment Processing: Subscription payments are processed through Apple App Store or Google Play Store

4.5 Resend

We use Resend to deliver transactional emails (such as account-related emails) and to route feedback you submit through the in-app review prompt to our team. When you submit feedback, the contents of your message and any reply email you provide are transmitted through Resend.

Resend's Privacy Policy

4.6 Vercel Analytics

We use Vercel Analytics to count pageviews and measure Core Web Vitals (page performance) on our website. Vercel Analytics is cookieless and collects aggregate, non-identifying visit data.

Vercel's Privacy Policy

4.7 PostHog (Analytics)

We use PostHog to understand how visitors move through our website — which pages they view, which calls-to-action they click, and which campaigns drive the most app installs. Our PostHog configuration does not use cookies and does not record session replays. Events are associated with a first-party identifier stored in your browser's localStorage for up to 30 days (see Section 2.9); we do not use cross-site identifiers or sell this data. Event data is stored on PostHog Cloud (US region).

We send these events to hop.stepsclubapp.com — a subdomain of this site — which forwards them to PostHog. Routing through our own domain means ad blockers and privacy extensions drop fewer events, so our numbers are more accurate. It does not change what we collect or who we share it with. PostHog runs this forwarding on Cloudflare's infrastructure, so events pass through Cloudflare in transit.

PostHog's Privacy Policy

4.8 Linear

When you report a person or a photo (Section 7.7), we file the report as a ticket in Linear, the tool we use to track our work, so a real person reads it. The ticket holds the reason you picked, the user IDs of you and the person you reported, and which photo, if it's a photo. Tickets filed before October 31, 2026 also hold both display names. We keep reports and their tickets, even after either account is deleted, so we can act if someone causes trouble again.

Linear's Privacy Policy

5.1 Data Storage

Your data is stored on secure servers provided by Google Firebase (Google Cloud Platform). Data is stored in the United States, but may be processed in other locations where Google operates data centers.

Our analytics copy. Once a day we copy account records into Google BigQuery, a Google Cloud analytics database, so we can understand how Steps Club is being used and how it changes over time. That copy includes your user ID, display name, username, profile picture link, step history, daily goal, friend and club counts and IDs, subscription status, platform, and account dates. It does not include your email address, your phone number, or your contacts.

Because this copy is taken daily and kept as a dated history, it holds snapshots of your account as it looked on past days. This is our own infrastructure, not a third party's — the data stays inside our Google Cloud project, is not sold, and is not shared with anyone. See Section 7.2 for what happens to it when you delete your account.

5.2 Security Measures

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your information:

• Data encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS)
• Salted hashing for phone numbers used in contact matching, with the salt held in Google Secret Manager (see Section 5.3)
• Device attestation to block impersonated copies of the App (see Section 4.1)
• Secure authentication methods
• Access controls and authentication requirements

However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

5.3 Hashed Phone Index

To enable privacy-preserving contact matching, we maintain a server-side index of SHA-256 + salted hashes of Steps Club users' phone numbers. The salt is stored in Google Secret Manager and is never exposed to clients. When you delete your account or remove your phone number, your entry is removed from this index.

6.1 With Your Consent

• When you explicitly consent to sharing (e.g., sharing your step count with friends or club members)
• When you share a walk card or invite link to another app you choose

6.2 Service Providers

With third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf (Firebase and Google Cloud, Sentry, RevenueCat, Resend, Vercel, PostHog, Cloudflare, and Linear, each described in Section 4) and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep your information confidential.

6.3 Legal Requirements

• When required by law, court order, or governmental regulation
• To protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, or that of our users
• In connection with any legal investigation

7.1 Access and Correction

You can access and update your profile information directly within the App's settings, including your display name, username, profile picture, and phone number. To remove a phone number entirely, use the App's settings or contact us.

7.3 Analytics Opt-Out

You can opt out of analytics data collection through the App's privacy settings. This will disable Firebase Analytics for your account.

7.4 Health Data Access

You can revoke access to your health data at any time through your device's privacy settings:

• iOS: Settings > Privacy & Security > Health > Steps Club
• Android: Settings > Apps > Steps Club > Permissions > Health data

7.5 Push Notifications

You can manage push notification preferences through your device settings or within the App.

7.6 Location, Motion, Camera, Photos, and Contacts

Every one of these is optional, and you can grant or revoke each one independently in your device's settings — on iOS under Settings > Privacy & Security, on Android under Settings > Apps > Steps Club > Permissions.

• Location — declining it means you can't record a route, and on iOS your step count pauses while your screen is locked during a walk (Section 2.5)
• Motion — declining it means walks fall back to HealthKit or Health Connect and your live step count won't update in real time
• Camera and photos — declining them means you can't set a profile picture or club logo, or save walk share cards (Section 2.10)
• Contacts — declining it means we can't tell you which of your contacts already use Steps Club; you can still add friends by username or invite link (Section 2.8)

Revoking a permission stops future collection. It does not by itself remove data we already hold — use account deletion (Section 7.2) or email us for that.

7.7 Blocking, Reporting, and Muting

Block. Blocking someone ends your friendship and takes each of you out of the other's feed and walks. They can't send you a friend request or a club invitation, and they aren't told. If you're both in a club, they still see the always-shared part (Section 6.4) on that club's board; leaving the club is how you stop that. You can unblock someone in Settings, but the friendship doesn't come back on its own.

Report. You can report a person or a photo, picking from a short list of reasons. They won't know it was you. A real person reads every report within one business day. We keep reports so we can act on repeat abuse (Section 4.8).

Mute. Muting a friend stops their push notifications to you. Nothing else changes, and they aren't told.