Privacy policy

This translation is provided for convenience. In case of discrepancy, the French version prevails.

1. Data controller

Teddy Verneuil EI, 14 bis rue Magellan, 69005 Lyon, France.
Contact: support@hikez.app.

2. In short

• Without an account, your journal never leaves your iPhone, except to your own iCloud if backup is turned on. We have no access to it.
• With an account, only what you choose to post, and the figures of the hikes recorded for the leaderboard, is sent to our servers.
• No advertising. No advertising trackers. No resale of data.

3. What stays on your iPhone

Your journal is stored on the device:

• your hikes, with their GPS tracks, their photos, your notes and their sounds;
• the movement data of your hikes (steps, cadence);
• your waypoints and your route library;
• your offline maps.

We have no access to this data.

• Location. It is recorded only during a hike that you start. To keep recording when the screen is off, the app asks for “Always” access the first time you record. It never tracks your position outside a hike in progress.
• Microphone. It is used only for the sounds you record yourself during a hike.
• Photos. Their location (EXIF) is used to place them on the hike’s map.
• Health app. Only if you turn it on: your completed hikes are written to it as workouts (duration, distance, elevation gain, track). Hikez does not read any health data.

4. Backups

• iCloud. Backup is free and turned on by default. Your data is copied to the private database of your iCloud account, subject to Apple’s terms. We have no technical means of reading it. You can turn it off in the app’s Settings.
• Backup folder (optional). A full copy of your journal is written every week to the folder you choose: on the iPhone, in iCloud Drive or with another file service. This folder remains under your sole control.
• Export. The files you export (journal, GPX) are shared using the means provided by iOS (AirDrop, Files, Mail…), under your sole control.

5. With an account (social mode)

Data	Why	Legal basis
“Sign in with Apple” identifier. No email address is requested.	To sign you in	Performance of the contract
Username, display name, bio, profile photo, public or private account	Your profile	Performance of the contract
Hikes posted to the feed: title, date, distance, elevation gain, duration, country, simplified track, GPX file, the chosen photo	To show them to your followers or to everyone	Performance of the contract
Hikes recorded with the app, even if not posted: the same figures and the recording (positions, altitudes, times)	To check their plausibility and calculate the leaderboard. No one else sees them; only your monthly totals appear.	Performance of the contract (taking part in the leaderboard)
Following, likes, comments, blocks	The feed and interactions	Performance of the contract
Tracks shared on the map (without timestamps), with their rating and the chosen photos (without metadata)	The community map	Consent, hike by hike and photo by photo
Reports: the item, the reason, the reporting account. Moderation decisions on your content: the date and the reason, which are shown to you.	Moderation	Legal obligation (DSA) and legitimate interest

Never sent:

• your notes and your sounds;
• the photos you do not choose;
• manually added or imported hikes that you do not post;
• your physical profile (height, weight, sex, which are used to estimate calories);
• your health data.

On the community map, no track or photo is associated with your username. Other users see “Shared by a hiker”.

6. Recipients and processors

Your data is neither sold nor rented. These service providers are involved:

Provider	Role	Data	Location
Supabase, Inc.	Database and files for social mode	Social mode data (article 5)	London, United Kingdom (country recognised as adequate by the European Commission)
Resend, Inc.	Sending the email for each report to the moderation team	The reported item (text or photo), the username of its author, the reason	United States
Apple	Sign-in, iCloud backup, purchases, MapKit maps, 3D flyover	Depending on the services used, subject to Apple’s policy	N/A
Cloudflare, Inc.	Server for offline maps and for the hikez.app website	IP address and area of the downloaded maps, not linked to your account	Global network
OpenWeather Ltd (Hikez Pro)	Weather on the day of a hike	Coordinates and date of the hike, nothing else	United Kingdom
Gravitystorm Ltd (Thunderforest)	“Outdoor” base map	Tile requests (IP address, area displayed)	United Kingdom
Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière (IGN)	Maps and aerial photos of France, as a fallback for our server	Tile requests (IP address, area displayed)	France
TelemetryDeck GmbH	Anonymous usage statistics	See article 7	Germany

7. Usage statistics

Hikez measures app usage with TelemetryDeck, anonymously.

• What is sent: events, with values grouped into ranges (“10–20 km” rather than an exact distance). For example: a hike started, a GPX file imported, the subscription screen displayed.
• What is never sent: no location, no name of a trail, hike or waypoint, no notes, no photos, no sounds.
• Turning it off: Settings › Usage statistics.

No advertising identifier is used.

8. Retention

• Journal on the iPhone and in iCloud: for as long as you keep it. Only you can erase it, with “Delete all my data” in Settings.
• Social mode data: for as long as your account exists.
  • When the account is deleted, it is erased immediately.
  • It disappears from the host’s technical backups within 7 days.
• Map tracks: after they are removed or the account is deleted, they are kept in anonymised form (article 5 of the terms of use). With no link to you, they are no longer personal data.
• Reports and moderation emails: 1 year after the decision, then deleted, unless they must be passed on to the authorities.

9. Security

• Social mode is closed by default: each table and each file can only be read by authorised people.
• Communications are encrypted (HTTPS).
• The start and end of published tracks are hidden.

10. Your rights

You have the following rights over your data:

• access;
• rectification;
• erasure;
• restriction;
• portability;
• objection;
• withdrawal of your consent, at any time.

In the app:

• your data can be viewed and edited;
• export gives you back your entire journal;
• a track or a photo can be removed from the map;
• your account can be deleted from Settings;
• access to location, the microphone and photos can be turned off in the iPhone settings.

For anything else, write to support@hikez.app. You can also lodge a complaint with the CNIL (www.cnil.fr), the French data protection authority.

11. Minors

• You must be 15 to create an account.
• The app is not intended for children under 13.
• A parent who believes their child has sent us data can write to us: we will delete it.

12. Changes

Any significant change to this policy is announced in the app. The date of the last update appears at the top of the page.