Privacy policy

Last updated 25 October 2026

Hound is an app where friends turn their step counts into challenges. This page says what the app and this website keep about you, what they do with it, and how you can take it back.

What we keep

• Your account: your name, email address, username, and a profile picture or initials if you add them. If you sign in with Google or Apple, we get your name and email from them. We never see your Google or Apple password.
• Your activity: with your permission, steps, distance, exercise sessions, heart rate and weight from Apple Health or Android Health Connect. These power challenges, goals and your own charts. Hound only reads this data. It never writes to Health. With your permission it also reads it in the background, about every half hour, so your challenges, your Journey and the home-screen widget stay up to date while the app is closed; your phone can turn background activity off at any time.
• Your social side: friends and friend requests, the challenges you create or join, scores, messages and reactions on a challenge, nudges, kudos and Tic-Tac-Go games.
• Your phone's push address, so we can send notifications you have turned on.
• Purchases: Bones packs are in-app purchases. Apple or Google take the payment, RevenueCat confirms it to us, and we keep a record of the purchase: the product, the date and a transaction ID. We never see your card details.
• Ads: the only ads in Hound are the ones you choose to watch to earn Bones. See Ads below for what that involves.

What we do with it

• Run the app: score challenges, show leaderboards and streaks, and show your friends what you chose to share with them.
• Send you things you asked for: push notifications, and emails such as invites, friend requests and password resets.
• Keep the service safe and working, for example by blocking abuse and fixing errors.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use your data to show you ads.

Ads

Hound shows an ad only when you choose to watch one to earn Bones. The ads come from Google AdMob. We ask AdMob for non-personalized ads only, and we do not use ads to track you across other companies' apps and websites. To show and count an ad and to prevent fraud, AdMob may receive your device's advertising identifier, IP address and basic device information; Google's handling of it is described in Google's advertising policy. If you are in the EU, the UK or Switzerland, a consent form is shown before the first ad, and you can change your choice later in the app under Settings → Ads.

Who else handles it

We use a small set of services to run Hound. They process data only on our behalf.

• Supabase stores the database and signs people in.
• Vercel hosts this website.
• Resend delivers our emails.
• Expo, with Apple and Google, delivers push notifications.
• RevenueCat, with Apple and Google, handles purchases.
• Google AdMob serves the ads you choose to watch for Bones.
• Google Fonts serves the typeface on this website.

What other people can see

Friends and people in your challenges can see your name or username, your initials or picture, and your scores and progress in those challenges. Your email address and friend code are not visible to other users. Messages on a challenge wall are removed after the challenge ends, once the retention period set for that challenge has passed.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account exists. When you delete your account, your profile, activity, friendships, messages and challenge scores are deleted. A few records may stay for a short time in backups. Invites sent to an email address, and purchase records we must keep for accounting, are handled as described on the delete account page.

Your choices

• Turn off Health access or notifications at any time in your phone's settings.
• Delete your account in the app, or ask us to.
• Ask us for a copy of your data, or to correct it, using the contact below.

Children

Hound is not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you think a child has an account, tell us and we will remove it.

Changes and contact

If we change this page in a way that matters, we will say so in the app. Questions or requests: [CONTACT EMAIL].