Privacy Policy

Overview

Walkimals is a social step-sharing game for iPhone and Android. You choose a mascot, earn coins by walking, collect outfits, and compare derived step totals with people you add directly. This policy explains what Walkimals collects, why it is used, where it is processed, and the controls available to you.

Anonymous Accounts And Identifiers

Walkimals creates a Firebase Anonymous Authentication account when the app starts. No email, phone number, or real name is required. The Firebase user ID is also used as the Walkimals backend account identifier so the app can keep your profile, friends, and shared progress associated with the correct account.

Account recovery and device migration are not available for anonymous accounts. If you lose access to the device or delete the app before deleting the account, you may lose access to that anonymous account.

Apple Health And Health Connect Data

With your permission, Walkimals reads step count, walking and running distance, and active energy from Apple Health (HealthKit) on iPhone, and steps, distance, and active calories burned from Health Connect on Android. Walkimals reads only totals for a time period, not individual records. It uses steps to show progress, calculate coin rewards, and provide step sharing. Distance and active energy are shown only in your personal activity view on your device and are never uploaded.

On Android, Walkimals also asks for permission to read Health Connect data in the background, so your shared step totals stay current for your friends while the app is closed, and to read past data, so your activity history can include earlier days.

During onboarding, Walkimals clearly explains its required social step-sharing contract and asks for your explicit agreement before you can enter the core experience. After you agree, Walkimals uploads derived daily step totals (and, on iPhone, weekly step totals) together with the applicable dates, time-zone identifier, and sync time. Walkimals never uploads raw HealthKit samples or raw Health Connect records.

Health data is used only to provide Walkimals features. It is not used for advertising, is not sold, and is not shared with anyone except the service providers listed below, the friends you add, who see your derived step totals, and people you send a personal invite link to, who can see your latest daily step total in the invite preview.

Social And Gameplay Data

Walkimals stores information needed to provide its account and friends features, including:

• Your handle, selected mascot, daily goal, coin balance, reward progress, and wallet ledger
• Your owned clothing, equipped outfit, and current Shop catalog state
• Your friend code, invite activity, direct friendships, blocks, and reports
• Your step-sharing preference and opted-in derived step snapshots
• Friend leaderboard totals for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly periods
• Status updates you post and your status notification preference
• Service state such as notification tokens if that functionality is enabled

Your social circle is closed. Walkimals does not provide open discovery, a public feed, free-text chat, or public photo uploads. Short status updates are visible only to the friends you add.

Shop And In-App Purchases

On iPhone, Walkimals offers optional consumable coin packs through Apple's In-App Purchase system. Apple processes the payment and does not share your full payment-card details with Walkimals. Walkimals receives the product identifier, transaction identifier, purchase status, and signed transaction information needed to verify the purchase, credit coins, and handle refunds or revocations. Verified purchase and wallet records are associated with your Walkimals account.

The Android app does not currently offer coin packs or any other Google Play purchase. On both platforms, Shop items are bought with in-app coins only.

Invite Links And App Clip Previews

A personalized invite can show the inviter's handle, mascot, and equipped outfit in a web page or, on iPhone, an App Clip preview. If the inviter shares steps, the preview can also show their derived step total for today, or for yesterday when today's total is not available yet. Anyone who opens the invite link can see this preview. Invite previews do not expose private account identifiers or friendship data. Opening a preview does not add a friend. Joining happens only in the full app after onboarding and explicit agreement to the step-sharing contract.

Android Testing Applications

If you apply to test Walkimals for Android, we collect your Google Play email address so the developer can review your application, manually add you to the test, and email you the joining instructions. The address is stored in encrypted form in the Walkimals backend and sent to our developer's private Telegram chat. If you apply through a friend invitation, its link is included in that Telegram notification so the developer can send it back to you. The invitation link is not stored with the application in the database. Your email is not used for unrelated marketing, and the form does not verify that you own the mailbox.

Applications and earlier waitlist records are kept while Android testing and launch outreach have an active product purpose. You can request removal at any time through our contact form, using the submitted email address. Remaining records will be removed after Android launch outreach concludes. Deleted live records may remain in restricted disaster-recovery backups for up to 14 days before those backups expire.

Optional Profile Photos

If you choose a profile photo, Walkimals resizes it to a private JPEG and uploads it to the Walkimals service. The photo is sent to Google Cloud Vision SafeSearch for automated moderation and is displayed only in the account and direct-friend experiences that use it. You can replace or remove the photo at any time.

Status Updates

You can post a short text status of up to 60 characters. Walkimals stores the text, the time you posted it, and your local day so it can apply the daily posting limit. A status is shown only to your direct friends, never publicly, and you have at most one live status at a time.

Before a status goes live, the Walkimals service checks it against a word list and sends the text to Google Cloud Natural Language for automated safety moderation. If a status is rejected, Walkimals records that a rejection happened, but not the rejected text, and removes that record after two days.

A status stops being shown after 24 hours and is deleted from the Walkimals service within a few hours after that. If you delete a status or replace it with a new one, friends stop seeing it right away; the record is kept until its 24 hours end so the daily posting limit still applies. If someone reports a status, a copy of its text is kept with the report so we can review it. The report reason, report ID, status ID, and reported text are also sent to the developer through Telegram for timely review.

Notifications that a friend posted a status are off until you turn them on, and they never include the status text. Which statuses you have already read is stored only on your device.

Firebase And Service Providers

Walkimals uses the following services to operate and improve the app:

• Firebase Authentication for anonymous accounts
• Firebase Analytics for product interaction, app session, app-instance/device, and coarse geographic analytics
• Firebase Crashlytics for crash and diagnostic data
• Firebase App Check for app and service-integrity signals, using Google Play Integrity on Android
• Firebase Remote Config for remotely managed app configuration
• Firebase Cloud Messaging for service notifications, step synchronization requests, and, on iPhone, Live Activity updates
• Google Cloud Vision for profile-photo safety moderation
• Google Cloud Natural Language for status update safety moderation
• Telegram for delivering Android testing application emails and friend-invite links, contact-form email addresses and messages, in-app feedback, and report alerts including reported status text to the developer
• The Walkimals API for account, profile, friend, leaderboard, status update, moderation, Shop, verified purchase, invitation, and step-sharing data

These providers process data only on our behalf, under data-processing terms that require them to provide the same or equal protection of your data as described in this policy.

Contact Form And Developer Notifications

Our support form collects your email address and message so the developer can read your request and contact you if needed. Both are stored on the Walkimals backend and sent to the developer's private Telegram chat. A temporary keyed hash of your IP address is used in memory to limit spam; it is not stored with your message. Website messages are not linked to a Walkimals account.

Contact messages are kept in the live database for 90 days, then removed by scheduled cleanup that runs every two hours. Deleted contact records may remain in restricted disaster-recovery backups for up to 12 weeks. Notification copies of contact messages, Android testing applications, feedback, and reports in Telegram remain in the developer's private chat until manually deleted; database cleanup or account deletion does not automatically delete those copies. Telegram processes these notifications under its privacy policy.

Feedback

If you answer an in-app feedback prompt, Walkimals stores the rating, optional comment, prompt source, and app version with your account so we can improve the product and follow up on reliability issues. The rating, comment, prompt source, app version, and feedback ID are sent to the developer through Telegram so feedback can be read promptly. Feedback is not used for advertising, and its database record is deleted with the account.

Analytics And Diagnostics

Firebase Analytics may collect an app-instance identifier, device/app information, product interactions, sessions, and coarse geography. Coin reward events include the number of walking coins credited, which is calculated from your daily step count. Walkimals does not set the Firebase Analytics user ID to your social account ID. Status update events record actions such as posting, opening, or reporting a status, never the status text. Crashlytics may collect crash reports and related diagnostic information needed to diagnose failures.

TestFlight builds can upload redacted developer diagnostics to the Walkimals API. This diagnostic path is not enabled for App Store or Google Play builds. Live TestFlight diagnostic records are automatically removed after 14 days.

Data On Your Device

Walkimals caches game state and preferences on your iPhone or Android device, including mascot choice, daily goal, Shop state, outfit selections, reward progress, and step-sharing consent. The Walkimals service is authoritative for account-linked social, wallet, inventory, and purchase state. Deleting your account removes server-side account data. Deleting the app removes local data from the device. On Android, this cached data may be included in your device backup if Android backup is turned on.

Advertising, Sale, And Tracking

Walkimals does not show third-party advertising, sell personal information, or use collected data to track you across other companies' apps or websites. On iPhone, Apple processes payments for optional coin packs; Walkimals does not receive your full payment-card details.

Retention And Account Deletion

Account, profile, social, and opted-in step data is kept while the account is active or as needed to provide the service. You can permanently delete the account inside Walkimals Settings. If you no longer have the app, you can request deletion by friend code on the Privacy Choices page; the account is deleted 30 days later unless it is used with Walkimals again before then, which cancels the request. Deletion removes the Firebase Authentication identity and Walkimals backend user record, profile photo, status updates, shared step snapshots, friendships, blocks, reports, notification tokens, wallet ledger, inventory, equipped outfit, verified purchase state, feedback, invite state, diagnostics tied to the account, and associated account identifiers.

Deleted database records may remain in restricted disaster-recovery backups for up to 14 days before those backups automatically expire. Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics records follow the retention settings configured for those Firebase services and may be retained in aggregated or de-identified form.

Apple keeps App Store transaction records under Apple's own policies. Those records are controlled by Apple and are not deleted through Walkimals account deletion.

Your Choices

• Change or revoke Apple Health access in iOS Settings
• Change or revoke Health Connect access in Health Connect on Android
• Withdraw from the step-sharing contract by revoking Health access and deleting your account
• Replace or remove an optional profile photo
• Delete a status update, and turn status notifications on or off
• Remove a friend, block another user, or submit a report
• Delete your complete Walkimals account inside the app
• Request account deletion on the web if you no longer have the app
• Ask us to remove your Android waitlist email address

See the Privacy Choices page for step-by-step instructions.

Children's Privacy

Walkimals is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided information, contact us so we can investigate and delete it.

Changes To This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as Walkimals changes. We will update the revision date at the top of this page when we do.

Contact

For privacy, safety, moderation, or account questions, use the contact form.