Privacy policy
How Walk With Me handles your information when you use audio-tours.app and our self-guided audio tours.
Effective · Kinetik (Walk With Me) · support@walkwithme.fit
On this page11 sections
The short version
- No account needed to read
- Guides, articles, tools and the 30-second demos need no account, and we set no cookie of our own until you sign in. More about cookies
- Your location stays in your browser
- Maps and lists use it to show where you are and sort by distance, and it is never sent to us or stored. More about location
- Four counts, no tracking
- We count four taps in a tour's quick look, with no cookie, visitor ID or IP address. What we count
- No ads, nothing sold
- The Site loads no advertising or tracking tags, and we do not sell your personal information.
- Card details go to Stripe
- When you pay on the Site, your card number goes straight to Stripe and never reaches us. More about buying
- Questions or requests
- Write to support@walkwithme.fit and we aim to answer within 5 business days.
About this policy
Walk With Me Audio Tours are self-guided audio walking tours that play in the Walk With Me app on iPhone and Android. audio-tours.app is their website, with city guides, articles and pages about the tours.
When we talk about Walk With Me, we mean Kinetik (also known simply as “Walk With Me”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this policy). This policy explains how we process your personal information when you use audio-tours.app (the “Site”) and when you buy and listen to our audio tours, on the Site or in the Walk With Me app (the “App”).
The rest of the App, such as its walking and fitness features and its ads, is covered by the App's own privacy policy at walkwithme.fit/privacy-policy.
We are responsible for taking care of all the personal information we collect and you share with us. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) of 27 April 2016 and other applicable personal data laws, we are the data “controller” for the personal information collected and processed through the Site and our audio tours.
Have any questions about this policy? Just contact us at support@walkwithme.fit and we'll be happy to help.
Good to know: we will need to change this policy from time to time, but the most current version, at audio-tours.app/privacy-policy, controls how we use your information. If you have an account, we will tell you by email or in the App about any material changes.
Audio tours and this website
Most of the Site works without an account and without telling us who you are. We need personal information when you buy a tour, listen to one in the App, or write to us.
Buying tours
You can buy a tour, or a bundle of tours, in two places.
In the App: a one-time purchase through the Apple App Store or Google Play, managed for us by RevenueCat. Apple or Google handle your payment details; we never see them. We receive which tour you bought, the store and the date.
On the Site: when the Site's shop is open, you sign in with your Walk With Me account and pay by card on Stripe's checkout page, which can show the price in your own currency. We send Stripe your account's email address and the order: which tours, how many listeners it covers, and the amount. Your card details go straight to Stripe; we never see or store your card number.
Either way, we keep a record of the tours you own on your account, so you can play them on any phone where you sign in. For a purchase on the Site we also store the amount, the currency, the number of listeners, Stripe's payment references and the date, and we email you a confirmation with the steps to start listening in the App.
Purchase records are financial records, so we keep them after you delete your account, to meet tax and accounting rules and to handle payment disputes.
To stop fraudulent payments, Stripe runs automated checks on each payment and may block one that looks fraudulent. If that happens, you are told the payment could not be completed, and you can contact us to contest the decision.
Listening in the App
To play a tour, the App checks with our servers that your account owns it, or that a seat on someone else's tour covers you, and then gets the recordings for it. Without either, you hear the free part of the tour.
A tour plays on one phone at a time, or one phone per seat you bought. To manage that, the App sends a random ID it creates for your phone, and we keep a short-lived playback record for that phone while the tour plays.
The App uses your phone's location to show you on the tour map and to tell when you reach a stop, so it can play a chime or send you a notification. If you allow location in the background, this keeps working with the screen off. You choose this in your phone's settings.
While a tour is running, the App sends your steps, distance and a compact GPS trail to our servers about every 30 seconds, so the tour can carry on if the App restarts. These live stats are deleted 2 days after the tour. When the tour ends, the App saves it to your walk history, which can include the route you walked.
Listening together
When you start a tour with “With a friend” or “Others can join”, everyone who joins hears every stop at the same moment, each on their own phone.
- To keep everyone in sync, the phone of the person who started the tour tells our servers what is playing: the stop, whether it is playing or paused, the position in the recording, and the narration language. We keep one current state for the tour, pass it to everyone on it, and delete it when the tour ends.
- The seats you bought cover people in the order they join, so we record who joined and in what order.
- If someone's App is in the background when a new stop starts, we send them a notification with the stop's name.
- People on the same tour see each other's name and profile photo, and the steps and distance each person has walked on it.
The tour screen also offers some of the App's walking features, such as a walk chat, sharing your location with the people on your tour, and showing the tour on the map for walkers nearby. They are optional, and the App's privacy policy at walkwithme.fit/privacy-policy describes them.
Your location on this Site
Some pages can use your location: maps show where you are, the toilets and water lists and the tour lists sort by distance from you, and the home page can show the tour that starts nearest to you.
Your browser asks for your permission first, and the Site only asks after you tap a button such as “Use my location”, “Near me” or a map's locate button. If you have already allowed this Site in your browser, it uses your location without asking again.
Your location stays on your device. The Site works out distances in your browser and never sends your position to our servers, and we do not store it. So that it does not ask on every page, your browser keeps your last position and your answer for this visit only, in session storage, and clears them when you close the tab.
Two things do reach other companies. When you tap Directions, Google Maps opens with your position as the starting point, so Google receives it. And when a map moves to where you are, Google or Mapbox loads the map for that area, as it does for any area you look at.
You can turn location off for this Site at any time in your browser's settings.
City guides, articles and tools
The city guides, the articles and the tools in them (such as the money slider, the weather chart, the toilets and water finder, the walk time estimator and the ticket listing decoder) run in your browser. What you type or pick in them is not sent to us or stored, apart from a few display choices your browser keeps for you, such as °C or °F.
The toilets and drinking water on our maps come from OpenStreetMap. We download that data in advance, so your browser never contacts OpenStreetMap.
When you play a 30-second demo, your browser loads the recording from Supabase, which stores our tour audio. The maps come from Google Maps, and the globe of city guides from Mapbox. When they load, Google, Mapbox and Supabase receive your IP address and browser details, and they handle them under their own privacy policies.
What else do we collect?
Your Walk With Me account
Tours belong to a Walk With Me account, the same one you use in the App. You can create it in the App or on the Site's web player at listen.audio-tours.app.
When you sign in on the Site, you enter your email address and password. The Site passes them to our servers to check them and does not keep them. Our servers store your password only as a one-way hash, never in readable form. Once you are signed in, the Site keeps a sign-in token in a cookie (see Cookies and browser storage) and reads your name, email address and the tours you own, to show them to you and to start a checkout.
What else your account holds, and how to change it, is described in the App's privacy policy.
Device and usage information
Like every website, the Site receives some technical information with each request: your IP address, your browser and device type, the page you asked for and the page that sent you. Cloudflare, which hosts the Site, uses it to deliver pages and protect the Site from attacks, and our hosting keeps short-lived technical logs so we can fix problems.
In the App, we receive your phone's model and operating system, a push notification token and your IP address, so the App works on your phone, can send you notifications about your tours, and stays secure.
Site statistics
We count four actions in a tour's quick look on the Site: opening it, playing a demo, tapping buy, and tapping an app store button. Each count records the action, the tour, which version of the quick look you saw, the page, and your country, which Cloudflare works out from your connection. It carries no cookie, no visitor ID and no IP address, so it cannot be tied to you. We use the counts to learn which version helps people decide.
To stop your browser being counted, open any page of the Site with ?notrack=1 at the end of its address. Your browser then keeps a small note that says so.
We do not load Google Analytics, advertising pixels or other tracking scripts on the Site.
Links to other sites
The guides and articles link to official sites, sources, Google Maps and the app stores. The download buttons and the QR code take you to the App's page in the App Store or Google Play, chosen from your type of phone. Apart from the app store taps counted above, these are plain links that we do not track. Once you leave the Site, the other site's privacy policy applies.
Customer support
If you email us at support@walkwithme.fit, we receive your email address and whatever you share with us, and use it to help with your request. We keep records of our emails with you for up to 6 years after your account is deleted, to stay accountable and improve our service.
Cookies and browser storage
A cookie is a small file a website places in your browser so it can recognize you. Browser storage is similar, but it stays in your browser and is not sent with each request. Here is how the Site uses them:
- Sign-in cookie
- Only if you sign in. A strictly necessary cookie that keeps you signed in for up to 60 days, or until you sign out. Scripts on the page cannot read it.
- Stripe
- The checkout is Stripe's own page, and Stripe sets the cookies it needs there to process payments and prevent fraud.
- Local storage
- Your basket, your currency choice, °C or °F, whether a tour's quick look opens on its photos or on listening, and the ?notrack note. They stay in your browser until you clear them.
- Session storage
- Your location and your answer to the location question for this visit, and whether you folded the download bar. Cleared when you close the tab.
- Maps
- Google Maps and Mapbox may use their own cookies or browser storage when their maps load, under their own privacy policies.
None of the browser storage is sent to us. The Site sets no advertising or tracking cookies.
How do we use your information?
Our main goal: give you a good audio tour, from choosing it to the last stop.
Using your information
Provide and improve our services:
- Keep your account and sign you in
- Process your purchases and give you the tours you bought
- Play tours on your phone and keep everyone on a shared tour in sync
- Send you notifications about your tours
- Show maps, distances and places near you
- Learn which pages and tools help people, from counts that cannot identify you
- Provide customer support
Keep the service safe:
- Prevent fraudulent payments and abuse
- Make sure each purchase plays on the phones it covers
- Protect the Site from attacks
Communicate with you:
- Send purchase confirmations and important updates about your account and your tours
- Answer your messages
Comply with legal obligations:
- Keep financial records required by tax and accounting law
- Respond to law enforcement requests
- Enforce our legal rights
- Comply with applicable laws and regulations
Lawful basis
We process your personal information on these legal bases:
- Performance of contract
- We need your information to provide our services: your account, your purchases, playing your tours and keeping a shared tour in sync.
- Legitimate interests
- We process some data to keep the Site secure, prevent fraud, and improve the Site with counts that cannot identify you. We believe these interests are balanced with your privacy rights.
- Consent
- We ask for your consent before using your location, in your browser or on your phone, and before sending notifications. You can withdraw it at any time in your browser or phone settings.
- Legal obligations
- We process data to comply with applicable laws, keep required financial records and respond to legal requests.
What are your rights?
With all of this in mind, here is how you can take control of your privacy.
- Right to be informed
- You have the right to know how we collect, use and share your personal information. This policy is written to tell you that clearly.
- Right to access
- You can see your account details and the tours you own in the App. For a complete copy of your data, write to support@walkwithme.fit.
- Right to rectify
- You can correct your account details in the App's settings at any time. If you need help, contact us.
- Right to data portability
- You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used format and to pass it to another service. Write to support@walkwithme.fit to ask for a copy.
- Right to erase
- You can delete your account in the App, under Settings, with Delete Account. Deleting it is permanent and cannot be undone: your profile and personal information are removed, and the tours you bought belong to the account, so you can no longer play them. Some information is kept for legal, financial or security reasons, as described under What happens when you delete your account?
- Right to restrict or object
- You can unsubscribe from any marketing email with the link in it, object to other uses of your data by writing to support@walkwithme.fit (we answer within 30 days), turn off location in your browser or phone at any time, and ask us to restrict processing while we check the accuracy of your information.
- Right to complain
- If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal information, contact support@walkwithme.fit first so we can try to put it right. You can also complain to your local data protection authority; in the EU you can find yours at edpb.europa.eu.
- Rights related to automated decisions
- Stripe's automated checks can block a payment that looks fraudulent, and our servers decide automatically which phones a purchase may play on. You can ask for a human review of an automated decision that significantly affects you by writing to support@walkwithme.fit.
How do you enforce your rights?
- In the App: many settings can be changed directly in the App's Settings
- Email: write to support@walkwithme.fit with your request
- Include: your name, your email address and a clear description of your request
- Verification: we may ask you to confirm your identity before we act on your request
We aim to answer every request within 30 days. Some requests take longer, and if yours does, we will keep you informed.
Do you live in California?
If you are a California resident, you have extra rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA):
- Right to know
- You can ask for details of the personal information we have collected, used, disclosed or shared in the past 12 months.
- Right to delete
- You can ask us to delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
- Right to opt out of sale or sharing
- We do not sell or share your personal information, including for advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of on the Site.
- Right to non-discrimination
- We will not discriminate against you for using your CCPA rights.
- Shine the Light
- California residents can ask about our disclosure of personal information to third parties for direct marketing.
To use your CCPA rights, write to support@walkwithme.fit. You may name an authorized agent to make requests for you by giving written authorization.
How do we handle and store your information?
We only keep your personal information as long as we need it for the purposes in “How do we use your information?”, and never longer than the law allows.
What happens when you delete your account?
Deleted:
- Your profile and profile photo
- Your sign-in sessions, in the App and on the Site
Kept for legal, financial or safety reasons:
- Purchase records, for tax, accounting and payment disputes
- Records of finished tours, including the names and photos of the people on them at the time
- Emails we have already sent you, and customer support emails
- Data required by law enforcement or legal processes
Stripe, RevenueCat, Apple and Google keep their own records of your payments under their own privacy policies. What your browser stores for the Site, such as your basket, stays there until you clear it in your browser's settings.
You can ask for every piece of your data to be deleted by writing to support@walkwithme.fit with “Complete Data Deletion Request” in the subject line. We will delete everything we are not legally required to keep and answer within 30 days.
Connecting you around the world
Walk With Me is available worldwide, so your data may be transferred to and stored in countries other than the one you live in. It may be processed in the United States or other countries where our service providers operate, which may have different data protection laws from yours.
When we transfer data internationally, we use safeguards such as:
- Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission
- Making sure service providers meet adequate data protection standards
- Technical and organizational security measures
By using the Site and our audio tours, you consent to the transfer of your information to countries outside your own for the purposes in this policy.
Data security measures
Technical safeguards:
- Passwords stored only as salted, one-way hashes (scrypt)
- Secure HTTPS connections for all data
- The Site's sign-in cookie cannot be read by scripts on the page and is sent only over HTTPS
- Card details handled only by Stripe
- Regular security updates and secure cloud infrastructure with established providers
Organizational safeguards:
- Access to personal data only for those who need it
- Incident response procedures for data breaches
No system is 100% secure, so we encourage you to use a strong, unique password, keep your email address up to date (that is how you reset your password), keep your phone and apps updated, never share your sign-in details, and tell us about anything suspicious straight away.
Retention periods
Here is how long we keep each type of information:
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Account information | Until you delete your account |
| Tours you own and purchase records | As long as tax law requires (typically 7 years), including after you delete your account |
| Your location on this Site | Not stored by us. Your browser keeps it until you close the tab |
| The Site's sign-in cookie | Up to 60 days, or until you sign out |
| Preview counts on the Site | Up to 3 months, with no visitor ID |
| What is playing on a shared tour | Until the tour ends |
| Playback records for your phone | While a tour plays, and a few minutes after |
| Live tour stats (steps, distance, GPS trail) | 2 days |
| Records of finished tours | Indefinitely, including after you delete your account |
| Customer support emails | Up to 6 years after you delete your account |
Changes to this privacy policy
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements or other factors.
- Material changes
- If you have an account, we will tell you by email or in the App at least 30 days before they take effect.
- Minor changes
- We will update the effective date at the top of this policy.
- Continued use
- If you keep using the Site and our audio tours after changes take effect, you accept the updated policy.
- If you disagree
- You can delete your account before the changes take effect.
The current version is always at audio-tours.app/privacy-policy.
Contact us
We're here to help with any privacy questions or concerns.
- Privacy requests, including our data protection contact
- support@walkwithme.fit
- General support
- In the App: Settings, then Help & Support. By email: support@walkwithme.fit
- Response time
- We aim to answer within 5 business days and to complete formal requests within 30 days.
Children's privacy
Walk With Me accounts, including buying and playing audio tours, are not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has given us personal information, contact us at support@walkwithme.fit and we will delete the information and close the account.