Privacy policy

Last updated 26 October 2026

Stride is a running app. This page says what it stores about you, who can see it, and how to get rid of it. The short version: your activities are private until you choose otherwise, we don't sell your data, and there is no advertising or tracking in the app.

What we store

• Your account: email address, display name, username, an optional short bio, and a salted hash of your password (never the password itself), and whether you have confirmed your email address. To confirm it we email you a 6 digit code, stored only as a hash and deleted once used or after 30 minutes. Until you confirm, you can use the app but can't share activities or take part in comments and clubs.
• The early-access waitlist: if you join it on our website, your email address is delivered to our waitlist inbox and kept until launch, or until you ask us to remove it.
• Your activities: the GPS points, times, heart rate and cadence of runs you record, upload or import (including from Apple Health or a Strava export), and what we work out from them (distance, pace, splits, segment results).
• Things you add: routes, gear, a training plan, privacy zones, club memberships, group run sign-ups, races you list or enter, comments, posts on club noticeboards, cheers, who you follow, and the song you pick for an activity (its title, artist and Apple's links for it).
• Photos you add to activities: stored as new copies made from the pixels alone, so the location, time and camera details a photo file carries are removed before anyone else can see it. A photo you take with the camera on the run screen also keeps the time you took it, so the activity's map can show it where you were on your route; it waits on your phone until the run is saved. The app uses the camera only when you tap to take a photo.
• Stories: a photo you choose to share with your followers, stored the same way as activity photos. It is shown for 24 hours and then deleted, or sooner if you delete it. A story that has been reported is kept until we have dealt with the report.
• Voice notes: if you record one for someone you follow, the app uses the microphone only while you are recording it. We keep the sound alone (up to 30 seconds), rebuilt so nothing else the file carries is kept, for 7 days after you send it; then it is deleted, played or not. A note that has been reported is kept until we have dealt with the report. Notes sent to you are kept on your phone until you have heard them.
• Your profile photo, if you add one: cropped to a small square and stored as a new copy made from the pixels alone, so nothing else the file carries is kept. Anyone signed in can see it, like your name, except people you have blocked. You can remove it any time.
• Optional profile details: birth year, weight, gender, heart rate limits, threshold pace and a goal race. They are used for your own zones, predictions and training plan. They only affect leaderboard filters if you turn on sharing for that, and they are never shown to anyone.
• Your inbox: notifications of what happened (who cheered or commented, who took a segment crown or passed you this week). They are kept for 90 days. To alert you, the app checks your inbox now and then in the background; nothing is sent through a push service.
• Safety check-ins: if you set one, your contact's name and email address, the time you said you'd be back, and your live location link if you chose to include it. We email your contact when you set it, if you're late, and when you're back after that. It is deleted when you check in, or a day after you were due.
• Crash reports, only if you turn them on in Settings (they are off until you do). Once a day, and after a crash, the iPhone app sends Apple's own report of crashes, freezes and battery and processor use: what the app was doing, your iPhone model and iOS and app versions. The same switch sends the app's own error notes: that an upload or a request failed, with the app version, iOS version and iPhone model, never where you were, your email address or what you wrote. Reports are kept for 30 days and error notes for 7 to 14, and both are deleted with your account. They aren't in your export, as they are about the app rather than your activities.
• Reports and moderation: if you report something, your reason and a copy of what it said. If something you shared is reported, or we act on your account (a warning, a suspension, removing something), we keep a record of what was done and why. Your export includes what was done to your account and what you reported, never who reported you. A report is deleted a year after we have dealt with it. The record of what was done to an account stays as long as the account does.
• A list of deleted accounts: when you delete your account we keep only its id number, for 35 days, so that if we ever restore a backup we can delete you again. It holds nothing else.
• Your username, which you choose and can change. Anyone signed in can search for it. Using someone's username as an invite asks to follow them, the same as the follow button.

Who can see it

• Every activity starts private. You can make it visible to followers or to everyone, per activity.
• Privacy zones hide the start and end of your activities around places you choose, such as home, from everyone but you. They also keep those places off heatmaps, segment results and live sharing.
• Photos and the song on an activity are seen by exactly the people who can see that activity. A photo taken during the run is shown on the map only along the part of the route that person can see, never in the hidden start and end.
• A story is seen only by followers you've approved, while it lasts, and never by anyone you have blocked or who has blocked you.
• A voice note is heard only by the person you sent it to, and only while you still follow them and neither of you has blocked the other. Only followers you've approved can send you one, and you can turn them off in Settings.
• Your profile shows other people your display name, username, bio and profile photo, how many people follow you and you follow, and totals and personal bests counted only from the activities that person can already see. Never your email, gear, privacy zones, goals or profile details. Anyone you block can't open it at all.
• Races you list are public (name, date, town and distance). Which races you enter is shown only to your followers and to members of clubs you're in; everyone else sees a count. Your target time is only ever shown to you.
• The global heatmap uses public activities only and hides any area fewer than three different people have used.
• Club challenge totals count private activities, because only totals are shown, never activities or places.
• Monthly challenges are open to everyone, so joining one shows anyone your display name and total, which counts private activities, as it is only a total. The territory challenge counts only public runs, never their first and last 200 m or anywhere near a privacy zone, and your map of the streets you ran is shown only to you.
• People who follow you see your weekly total on their friends leaderboard, and are told when you pass them. Anyone who can see one of your activities is told if it takes their segment crown or Local Legend title. Both only count activities they can already see, so nothing about a private activity reaches anyone else this way.
• Live safety sharing is opt-in for each run. It shows one latest position and the time to whoever has your link, and nothing else about you on the page (the map tiles are fetched from a map host, see below). It ends when the run ends, you revoke it, or after 12 hours, and the position is deleted.

Who at Stride can see it

Stride's operator can see account details (email, username, profile and the optional details above), activity summaries of every visibility, comments, photos, stories and voice notes someone has reported, and reports, to run the service, help you and deal with abuse. Never your GPS tracks, routes, privacy zones or where you were: the tools we use don't show them.

Who else handles your data

• Our servers and database are hosted by Railway (United States).
• Backups of the database are made every day by a job on GitHub Actions, which briefly holds the dump on its runner before it is encrypted, then stored encrypted with Backblaze B2. Backblaze cannot read them. Backups are deleted after at most 28 days.
• The live-share page that someone opens from your link loads its map code from cdnjs (Cloudflare) and map tiles from OpenStreetMap or MapTiler. Those hosts see the viewer's IP address and which part of the map is shown, which is near where you are.
• Resend delivers email-confirmation and password-reset messages, safety check-in emails and early-access waitlist submissions by email.
• Maps in the iPhone app are Apple Maps. Apple's own privacy policy applies to that.
• When you search for a song for an activity, the iPhone app sends what you type straight to Apple's iTunes Search, not to us. When you pick one, our server asks Apple for that song's details by its id alone. Cover pictures and 30-second previews of songs on activities are loaded from Apple, so Apple sees the IP address of whoever looks at them. Apple's own privacy policy applies to that.
• When you plan a route, the start point and distance you ask for are sent to our own routing server.
• Several of these (Railway, Resend, Backblaze, GitHub, Cloudflare) are in the United States, so your data can leave the UK and the EU. We rely on their standard contractual clauses and the UK's data bridge where they apply.
• Apple Health data is read on your phone and only what you choose to import is uploaded.

We don't sell or share your data with advertisers or data brokers, and the app contains no analytics or advertising software.

Why we may use your data (UK GDPR)

We use your account, activities and the things you add because that is the service you asked for (a contract). We keep logs, moderation records and backups to keep Stride secure and to deal with abuse (our legitimate interests). Crash reports, voice notes, photos, stories, location while you record, Apple Health and a safety check-in contact only happen when you choose them, and you can withdraw that at any time by turning the feature off.

Your control

• Export: download everything we hold about you, in open formats, at any time from the app.
• Delete: deleting your account from the app removes your activities, routes, comments and everything else of yours, except that reports you made or that are about you, and our record of moderating your account, are kept for 30 days afterwards (reports about you under your username), so deleting an account can't be used to escape a report. Backups of the database can keep a copy for a while after that (never more than 30 days), and are then deleted.
• Edit: you can change or delete any activity, and change its visibility, whenever you like.
• Other rights: you can also ask us to correct your data, to stop using it in some ways, or for a copy. If you are not happy with how we handle it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) in the UK or to your own data protection authority.
• Waitlist: email talk@withstride.net to have your address removed from the early-access list.

Our servers' logs

Our servers keep their own operational logs and metrics, on our own servers at Railway and nowhere else, so we can see when something breaks: which kind of request was made, how it ended and how long it took, and the errors behind failures. They hold no names, email addresses, locations, activities or account ids, and are deleted after 14 days (metrics after 30).

Security

Connections are encrypted. Login tokens are stored hashed, expire after 90 days, and can be revoked by logging out. We note when each login was last used (to within 15 minutes), to count how many people use Stride; that goes when the login does. Changing your password signs out your other devices. No system is perfectly secure; if something we hold about you is ever exposed we will tell you.

Children

Stride is not meant for people under 13, and we don't knowingly hold their data.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app first. Questions or requests: talk@withstride.net.