The short version. StepsMaxxing reads only your daily step totals and walking distance, never when or where you walked. Your health data is never sold and never used for ads. At work, HR sees who has joined and team totals, never your individual steps. You can delete your account in the app at any time.
Who we are
StepsMaxxing is a social walking app run by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [REGISTERED ADDRESS] ("StepsMaxxing", "we", "us"). Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (the "DPDP Act"), we are the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described here. This policy covers the StepsMaxxing app on iPhone and, when it launches, Android, plus this website.
What we collect
Your profile
- Required: a display name and a unique @username.
- Optional: a profile photo, a nickname for work leaderboards, and a daily step goal (6,000 unless you change it).
- From sign-in: when you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive an account identifier and the email address the provider shares with us (with Apple, this can be a private relay address).
- If you join a company: your work email address, so we can confirm you belong to that company and match you to your employer's invite list and team.
Your steps
- Daily step totals and daily walking distance, read from Apple Health on iPhone (and Health Connect on Android, when it launches), only after you give permission.
- Whether steps were measured by a device or typed in by hand, so hand-typed steps can be kept out of leaderboards.
- When you first install the app, we read the last 7 days to fill your week chart.
We read totals per day only. We never collect what time you walked or where you walked. We don't ask for heart rate, sleep, workouts or location, and we never write anything into Apple Health or Health Connect.
What you create in the app
- Your friends, groups, challenges and competition teams.
- Cheers, short team posts and shout-outs.
- Reports and blocks you make, and messages you send to support.
Technical data
- App usage events and crash reports (see "Analytics and crash reports" below), your app version and device model, and a push notification token if you allow notifications.
What we never ask for
We never ask for your age or date of birth, gender, weight or phone number. (If you are asked whether you are under 18, see "Children" below.)
Using StepsMaxxing without signing in
You can start using StepsMaxxing without an account. Until you sign in, your profile, steps and history stay on your phone only. Nothing about you is sent to our servers, and it is kept as long as the app is installed. If you delete the app or lose your phone before signing in, that information is gone and we can't recover it.
Sign-in is needed only when you do something social for the first time: adding a friend, joining or creating a group or challenge, or joining a company. You sign in with one tap using Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google. When you sign in, the step history saved on your phone is uploaded to your account so it's safe if you change phones.
How we use your data
- To show your steps, goal, streaks and badges.
- To run friends and group leaderboards, duels, group races and workplace competitions, including scoring, tie-breaks and checking for steps that look unusual.
- To show pace buddies (clearly labelled bots) that walk at a level close to yours. Bot steps never count anywhere real.
- To send the notifications you've allowed (at most 3 a day, none between 10pm and 7am your time), and to send workplace invite emails on behalf of your employer.
- To keep StepsMaxxing safe: checking photos and names for offensive content, handling reports, and enforcing our terms and competition rules.
- To fix bugs and improve the app, using analytics and crash reports that never include step data.
Your health data is never sold or used for ads
We never sell your personal data. Step data and anything read from Apple Health or Health Connect is never used for advertising, marketing or data mining, never shared with advertisers or data brokers, and never stored in iCloud. We use it only to provide StepsMaxxing's features to you.
Who sees what
| Who | What they can see | What they never see |
|---|---|---|
| Friends (people you've accepted) | Your name, photo, today's and this week's step totals (unless you hide them), streaks, badges and feed posts. | Your daily history, what time or where you walked. |
| People in a challenge with you | Your name, photo and your total for that challenge, even if you hide your steps from friends. The invite tells you this before you join. | Anything outside that challenge. |
| Group members | Your name, photo and group board totals. If you hide your steps, they see "Steps hidden". | Your history, times or places. Joining a group doesn't make you friends. |
| Colleagues (who aren't your friends) | The name or nickname you chose for the competition (or "Anonymous walker"), your photo, your team and your competition total. | Your daily steps, streaks, friends, groups or personal challenges. |
| Your employer's HR team | Who on their invite list has joined and who hasn't, with names and profile photos (your real name, even if you use a nickname on leaderboards). Which team you're on. Team total steps, team averages and participation rates, for teams of 5 or more. Winners' names, only if the winner agrees. | Any individual's step count, daily history, streaks, friends, personal challenges, or when or where anyone walked. Which phone you use. |
You agree to share this with HR on a consent screen before you join a company competition. HR may not use StepsMaxxing data for performance reviews or employment decisions. If our support team removes someone from a competition for a rules issue, HR is told only that "a participant was removed for a rules issue", never who.
You can hide your steps from friends, or show as "Anonymous walker" on leaderboards, at any time in the app.
Analytics and crash reports
We use PostHog to understand which features are used, and Sentry to catch crashes and errors. Neither ever receives your step counts, walking distance or any other health data. Sentry is set up not to collect personal data. We don't use advertising trackers, we don't track you across other apps or websites, and this website has no tracking scripts.
Service providers
We use a small number of providers who process data only on our instructions:
- Cloudflare: hosting, database and photo storage.
- Apple and Google: sign-in and push notifications.
- PostHog and Sentry: analytics and crash reports (no step data).
- Cloudflare (Email Service): workplace invite emails and work-email verification codes. Invite emails contain no tracking pixels.
- [IMAGE MODERATION PROVIDER]: automatic checks of uploaded photos for offensive content.
Your data is stored on servers in the United States (Cloudflare). We share personal data with others only as described in this policy, or where the law requires it.
How long we keep data
- Before sign-in: on your phone only, until you delete the app.
- While you have an account: we keep your profile and step history so your streaks, history and friends keep working.
- Leaving a company: you're removed from HR's lists straight away. HR keeps only anonymous team totals.
- Deleting your account: see below.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app: You → Privacy → Delete account. We offer you a "Download my data" copy first.
- Deletion is immediate: your profile, photo, friends, steps, posts and challenges are erased from our live systems.
- Copies in our backups are purged within 30 days.
- So that your teammates' competition results don't change, a team keeps one anonymous contribution from you (for example "A former member: 42,100 steps"), with no name, photo or daily data attached.
If you no longer have the app, see how to delete your account.
Your rights under the DPDP Act
You have the right to:
- Access a summary of the personal data we hold about you and how we use it, and who we have shared it with.
- Correct, complete or update your data. Most of it you can change yourself in the app.
- Erase your data, by deleting your account.
- Withdraw consent at any time: turn off step access in your phone's health settings, leave a company competition, or delete your account. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect anything we did before.
- Nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you die or become unable to.
- Grievance redressal: raise a complaint with our Grievance Officer (below). If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
To use any of these rights, email hello@stepsmaxxing.com or contact the Grievance Officer. We will respond within [RESPONSE TIME, e.g. 30 days].
Children
StepsMaxxing has no minimum age, but we take extra care with anyone under 18. When you sign in, we ask one question: "Are you under 18?" We don't ask for your date of birth.
If you answer yes:
- A parent or guardian must approve your account by email before you can use StepsMaxxing's social features. We collect the parent's email address only for this purpose.
- You are hidden from public search, and you can add friends only through invite links.
- You can't join workplace competitions.
- We never use your data to track or monitor your behaviour, and never for advertising.
If you are a parent and believe your child is using StepsMaxxing without your approval, contact the Grievance Officer and we will act promptly.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit, and access to production systems is limited to the people who need it. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.
Contact and Grievance Officer
Grievance Officer
[GRIEVANCE OFFICER NAME]
Email: [GRIEVANCE OFFICER EMAIL]
Address: [GRIEVANCE OFFICER ADDRESS]
General privacy questions: hello@stepsmaxxing.com.