What we keep, and what we don't.

• Your location stays on your phone. The walk uses GPS to know which stop you've reached; that position is never sent to us or stored anywhere. We record only that you reached a stop, not where you were standing.
• No advertising, no trackers, no selling of data. We don't use Google Analytics, Meta pixels or any ad network.
• An account is optional. You can browse and start walks without one. An account is an email address and a password, so your progress and reviews follow you across devices.
• You can leave completely. Ask through the contact form and we delete your account and everything tied to it.

If you make an account

Your email address, a name if you give one, a securely hashed password (we can't read it), and your preferred language. Your name — first name and the initial of your surname — appears next to the reviews you write and on a walk's leaderboard.

While you walk

Which walks you start, which stops you reach, when you finish, and the reviews, ratings and bookmarks you leave. Reviews are public and shown with your first name and surname initial and a small drawn avatar.

If you report a problem with a stop ("closed", "can't reach it", "not there any more"), we keep the report, any photo you attach, and the position you were at when you sent it, so we can check the stop. Reports are seen by us and, once three walkers agree, summarised anonymously for other walkers as "closed" or "changed".

Without an account

Your progress is stored on your phone only (in the browser's own storage). If you later sign in, it's copied to your account. Downloaded walks live in your phone's cache until you remove them.

How you found us

We keep a random device identifier (a string of characters, not your name or your phone's ID) with the page you landed on, the site that sent you and any campaign tag in the link — for example whether you came from a poster in a hostel or a post on Reddit. This tells us which of our efforts bring walkers. It isn't linked to advertising networks and can't identify you.

Server logs

Like every website, our hosting provider records requests (IP address, browser type, time, page) for security and to keep the site running. These are kept briefly and not used to profile you.

We use a small number of first-party cookies and browser storage, all of them functional:

• Session — keeps you signed in.
• wt_ch — remembers how you first found us (see above).
• wt_lang / googtrans — only if you pick a language in the header; see "Services we rely on" below.
• Browser storage — your walk progress, downloaded walks for offline use, and the city you last looked at.

There is no cookie banner because there are no advertising or tracking cookies to consent to.

These providers process data on our behalf, only to run the service:

• Vercel (hosting, image and audio storage) and Neon (database) — where the site and your account live. Data is stored in the United States.
• OpenFreeMap (map tiles) and Wikimedia (some photographs) — your browser fetches these directly, so they see your IP address like any website you visit. They receive nothing about who you are.
• Google Translate — only if you choose a language from the header. The page's text is then sent to Google to be translated, under Google's privacy policy. Choose "English" to switch it off; the cookie is removed.
• Ko-fi — if you tip a guide, that happens on Ko-fi's site under their policy. We never see card details.

The guides' voices and portraits are generated with AI tools when a walk is made; no walker data is sent to those tools.

If you redeem a code from a venue, we record which code was used and when, so the venue's batch can be counted. The venue does not learn who you are.

Walk & Tell is for travellers and isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their data; if you believe a child has made an account, tell us through the contact form and we'll remove it.

Wherever you are, you can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. Under the Australian Privacy Act and, if you're in Europe or the UK, the GDPR, you also have the right to object to processing and to complain to your data-protection authority. Use the contact form with the email address on your account; we answer within 30 days. Deleting your account removes your profile, progress, bookmarks and reviews; anonymous counts (how many people finished a walk) stay.

Anything about this policy, your data, or the walks: write to us. A person reads every message.

If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top moves and the change is described here. We won't start selling data or adding trackers quietly.