Privacy Policy

The short version

Alleytale is built around one promise: your walk is yours. We collect what the guide needs to narrate the place you're standing in, and not much beyond that. We don't sell your data, and we don't share anything that identifies you with advertisers.

This policy covers the Alleytale app and this website: what they collect, why, and what you can switch off.

Location

Location is what makes the guide work. It is how we find the places and stories around you as you move.

While a walk is running, Alleytale keeps reading your location even when the app is in the background and your screen is off. That is deliberate: it is what lets the narration continue while the phone is in your pocket. Your device asks for this permission separately, and you can decline it and still use Alleytale with the app open.

In the background, location is read only while a walk is running, and ending the walk stops it. With the app open, it is also used to show you what is nearby. We keep the path of each walk so you can see where you went, and so we can show you distance and time.

Microphone and speech

You can ask a question out loud instead of typing it. When you do, your speech is turned into text by your own phone's built-in speech recognition. The recording does not reach Alleytale's servers and we never store it. Only the resulting text is sent, exactly as if you had typed it.

On iPhone, Apple's speech recognition may process the audio on Apple's servers under Apple's own privacy policy. The microphone is active only while you are asking.

Camera and photos

You can attach a photo to a question: point at a building you're curious about and ask. Photos you attach are uploaded, described so the guide can answer, and kept with that walk. We never scan your photo library; we only receive the images you choose or take.

Your account

Creating an account gives us your email address, plus your display name if you sign in with Google. Sign-in is handled by Supabase. We use your email to identify your account and to reach you about the service.

Your past walks

The guide can look back at your earlier walks: where you went and the stories it told you there, so it can pick up a thread or avoid telling you the same thing twice. It reads only what is already saved with your walks, and it doesn't build a picture of your interests beyond the ones you choose in the app.

You can delete a walk, or your whole account, in the app at any time. Deleting your account removes your walks and everything else attached to it, except payment records, which we have to keep for as long as tax and accounting rules require.

Payments

In the app, credits are bought through the App Store on iPhone and Google Play on Android. Apple or Google takes the payment, so your card details never reach us. We receive the store's record of each purchase (which pack you bought, the price you were shown and the store's reference for the purchase) and check it with the store before adding your credits. If the store refunds a purchase, it tells us, and we take back the credits it bought.

Analytics and diagnostics

We use PostHog, hosted in the EU, to understand how the app is used, and Grafana Faro to catch crashes and errors. PostHog stays off until you agree to it, and you can switch it on or off at any time in the app's settings. Faro is on by default, because without it we cannot find out what broke, and you can switch it off there too. Both record events linked to your account: which screens you open, which features you use, what broke. This is not anonymous, and we do not use it for advertising.

Who we share data with

To narrate a place we have to ask other services about it. What they receive is the place or the question, not who you are.

Places and surroundings: OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass), Google Places, Open-Meteo for local weather, and Nager.Date for public holidays.

Story material: Wikipedia and Wikidata.

AI: narration and answers are generated by language models from DeepSeek and OpenAI, OpenAI also searches the web for fresh facts and describes photos you attach, and Google generates the spoken audio.

Infrastructure: Supabase for accounts, Apple and Google for purchases in the app, S3-compatible object storage for saved audio and images, and PostHog and Grafana for analytics and diagnostics.

We don't sell your data, and we don't share anything that identifies you with advertisers.

How long we keep things

Walks, facts, bookmarks and walk paths stay until you delete them or delete your account. Payment records are kept for as long as tax and accounting rules require. Cached place and article data expires on its own schedule and is not linked to you.

Your rights

You can delete your account and its data from inside the app, and any active location or microphone access stops immediately.

If you are in the EU or the UK you also have the right to see the data we hold about you, correct it, export it, restrict how we use it, and complain to your national data protection authority. Write to us and we will help.

Changes

We will update this policy as the app changes. When a change actually affects you, we'll tell you in the app rather than quietly editing this page.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Reach us at contact@alleytale.com.