SpotBud Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 11, 2026 · Operated by Spotbud LLC (Arizona, USA)
SpotBud ("we," "us," "the app") helps you find workout partners, join fitness
challenges, track your training, and connect with a fitness community. We take
your privacy seriously — especially your health and location data. This policy
explains what we collect, why, where it goes, and the choices you have.
1. Information we collect
Account information you provide: name, username, email, profile photo, date of
birth, gender, and optionally your sexual orientation, home gym, goals, and
interests.
Fitness and health data you enter: goals, height, weight, weigh-ins, workout
logs, and meal logs.
Apple Health data you choose to share: step count, active energy, walking and
running distance, flights climbed, resting heart rate, heart rate variability,
VO2 max, sleep analysis, body weight, and your Apple Fitness workout history.
Location: your approximate location while you use the app. If you start a run
or route session, SpotBud uses precise location and continues tracking while
the app is in the background, until you end the session.
Motion and fitness activity: step and pedometer data from your device.
Content you create: posts, comments, photos, GIFs, messages, AI trainer
conversations, events you create, event RSVPs, and challenge and tournament
activity.
Music: if you add a playlist to your profile, we store the link you provide and
its public cover art. We do not access your listening history or library.
Calendar: if you choose to save an event, we add it to your calendar. We have
write-only access and cannot read your existing calendar.
Camera and photos: photos you take or select for meals, workouts, your profile,
and events you create.
Device and usage data: app interactions, crash and performance data, device
model, OS version, and your push notification token.
Session recordings: we record app screens during use to diagnose problems and
improve the app. See section 6.
2. How we use your information
- To provide core features: matching you with workout partners, showing nearby
gyms and events, running challenges and tournaments, tracking steps and
streaks, and powering your AI trainer and meal tools.
- To personalize your experience and recommendations.
- To send notifications you have enabled, including workout reminders, step
milestones, challenge results, and coach messages.
- To keep the community safe (moderation, reports, blocking).
- To communicate with you (welcome, reminders, and account notices).
- To manage subscriptions and purchases.
- To fix bugs and improve performance.
3. Apple Health (HealthKit)
When you allow it, SpotBud reads the Apple Health data listed in section 1. We
use it to power your in-app fitness features: your step level, 10,000-step
streaks and badges, weight tracking, and the context your AI trainer uses.
Some of this data is stored on our servers so it can appear on your profile and
persist across devices. That includes your recent daily step counts, your
step streak, the days you reached 10,000 steps, your lifetime step total, and
your current body weight. Other members can see these on your profile.
We never use Apple Health data for advertising or marketing, and we never sell
it or share it with data brokers.
Your Apple Health data may be included in the context sent to your AI trainer.
By default that processing happens entirely on your device (see section 4). If
you switch to ChatGPT, that context — including health values — is sent to
OpenAI. We recommend leaving the default on-device setting if you would rather
your health data never leave your phone.
Some SpotBud files stored on your device, including your workout log and your
trainer's memory, are included in your iPhone's iCloud or computer backups if
you have backups enabled. Those backups are controlled by you and Apple, not by
us. We do not upload your Apple Health data to iCloud ourselves.
You can revoke SpotBud's access at any time in the iOS Health app.
4. AI features and how they are processed
SpotBud's AI trainer, meal analysis, and workout tools can run on different
engines, and you choose which.
On-device (default): SpotBud uses Apple Intelligence, which runs on your iPhone.
Your prompts and the data in them are not sent to us or to any third party.
ChatGPT (optional): if you select ChatGPT in Settings and provide your own
OpenAI API key, your requests are sent directly from your device to OpenAI.
That context can include your profile details, goals, weight history, Apple
Health data, recent workouts, recent meals, and posts you have liked —
including the names and post text of other members. Your key is stored on your
device. Use of OpenAI is governed by OpenAI's own terms and privacy policy.
Anthropic (Claude): our AI trainer is built to support Claude, but it is not
enabled and no data is sent to Anthropic today. If we enable it, we will update
this policy first.
Regardless of which engine you choose, your AI trainer conversations are stored
on our servers so your chat history is available when you return.
Meal photo analysis: when you scan a meal, the photo and the resulting nutrition
breakdown are processed to identify the food and may be logged to Braintrust,
our AI evaluation provider, so we can measure and improve accuracy.
Your AI trainer also keeps a short memory of things you have told it. That
memory is stored in an encrypted file on your device and is not uploaded to our
servers. It is included in your device backups, and deleting your account does
not remove it — delete the app to remove it from your device.
5. Location
We request reduced accuracy for everyday use, so your position is roughly
100 metres and only updates after you move about 25 metres.
Before your location is saved to our servers, it is deliberately blurred to a
grid of roughly one kilometre. Other members never see your exact position —
only an approximate area and a distance.
If you start a run or route session, SpotBud switches to precise GPS and keeps
tracking while the app is in the background so your route is accurate. This
stops when you end the session.
We send only a coarse area — never your identity — when looking up nearby gyms,
events, and weather.
6. Analytics and session recording
We use PostHog to understand how the app is used and to diagnose problems. This
includes session recordings: a replay of the screens you view while using
SpotBud, linked to your account. Because these recordings capture the screens
as they appear, they can include information shown on those screens, including
health figures and messages. Recordings are stored by PostHog in the United
States and are used only to improve the app and fix problems. They are never
sold or used for advertising.
We also collect crash and performance data. SpotBud does not track you across
other companies' apps or websites, and does not use your data for advertising.
7. How we share information
We do not sell your personal information. We share limited data with service
providers who help us run the app, under confidentiality obligations:
- Google Firebase — authentication, database, storage, and notifications.
- PostHog — product analytics and session recordings.
- OpenAI — only if you choose ChatGPT as your AI engine, using your own key.
- Braintrust — logging of meal-scan results to measure accuracy.
- Loops — sends account and community emails; receives your email address and
first name.
- GIPHY — provides GIF search.
- Apple — Sign in with Apple, HealthKit, Apple Music playlist covers, and
in-app purchases.
We also fetch public event listings from Meetup, Eventbrite, and Ticketmaster,
and public gym and weather information from Wikipedia and Open-Meteo. We
request these by geographic area from our servers. We do not send your name,
account, or exact position to any of them. SpotBud uses the Meetup API and is
not verified by Meetup.
8. What other members can see
Other signed-in members can see your profile and the content you post: your
name, username, photo, bio, gym, goals, interests, playlist, level, badges and
trophies, step streak and 10,000-step days, current weight, approximate area
and distance from them, your posts, comments, events, and challenge activity.
Please be aware that, at present, some profile fields that are not displayed in
the app — including your email address, date of birth, and push notification
token — are technically readable by other signed-in accounts through our
database. We are actively restricting this, and you should treat your profile
as visible to the SpotBud community. Do not put anything in your profile you
would not want other members to see.
Your direct messages are visible only to you and the people in the
conversation. Your AI trainer conversations are not visible to other members.
9. Data retention and deletion
We keep your data while your account is active.
You can delete your account at any time in the app (Settings → Delete Account).
This removes your profile, posts, comments, messages, workouts, meals,
challenge history, and uploaded photos from our servers.
Two things are not covered by that: your AI trainer's on-device memory and
locally cached files remain on your phone until you delete the app, and some
records may be retained briefly as required by law or to prevent abuse.
Anonymous, aggregated statistics that cannot identify you may be kept.
Cached event listings are deleted automatically after 30 days.
10. Your rights
You may access, correct, or delete your information. Use the in-app tools or
email support@spotbudapp.com. Depending on where you live, you may have
additional rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act or the
GDPR, including the right to a copy of your data and the right to object to
certain processing.
11. Children
SpotBud is intended for users 17 and older. We do not knowingly collect
information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us
information, contact us and we will remove it.
12. Security
We protect your data with encrypted connections, authentication, and
server-side access rules. Your AI trainer's on-device memory is stored with
file-level encryption. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your
information safe.
13. Where your data is processed
SpotBud is operated from the United States, and our providers store and process
data in the United States. If you use SpotBud from outside the US, your
information is transferred there.
14. Changes
We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected here with a new
"last updated" date, and where appropriate we will notify you in the app.
Questions? Email us at support@spotbudapp.com.