Crewtale Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 14, 2026

Who we are

Crewtale is operated by Alexander Andersen, Kilchberg (Zurich), Switzerland ("Crewtale", "we"). We are the controller of your personal data under the EU and UK GDPR and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (nDSG/FADP).

Contact for anything about your data: help@crewtale.com

Crewtale in short

• Crewtale is a private app for rider crews. What you add is for your crew, not for the public.
• We record your location only between Start and Stop of a rideout you record. Nobody, including your crew, ever sees where you are right now.
• You can hide the start and end of your rides, so your crew doesn't see where you live.
• We don't sell your data, show ads, or track you across other apps and websites.
• A ride is only visible outside your crew if a rider who was on it creates a share link. Anyone with that link can see the ride's route, its clips and the faces of the riders, until the link expires or is stopped.
• You can delete your account and your data in the app at any time.

What we collect

Your account

• Your email address, or the address Apple gives us if you use Sign in with Apple (this can be Apple's private relay address), and a sign-in identifier. We don't use passwords: you sign in with Apple or with a 6-digit code we email you.

Your profile

• First name, @username, an optional profile photo and, if you add it, your bike. Members of your crews see these.

Your crews

• The crews you created or joined, your role (rider or admin), when you joined, invites you created, and requests to join. If an admin removes you from a crew, we keep that fact so old invite links can't be used to rejoin.

Rides and location

• The recording. When you record a rideout, the app saves your GPS position, altitude and time, from the moment you start until you stop. Recording continues with the screen off or the phone in your pocket ("background location"), and works without signal; it is stored on your phone and uploaded when you have a connection. The full recording is readable only by you.
• The route your crew sees. From the recording we publish the ride's route, distance, duration, climb and stops to your crew. If you switched on "Hide the start and end of my rides", everything within the distance you chose around the start and end points is removed before anyone else sees it. Until you have answered that question after your first recorded ride, 0.5 miles are hidden.
• Being on a ride. That you tapped "I'm in" on a ride, and whether you recorded or backed it up.
• Place names. To show a name for a stop or a clip ("Newcomb's Ranch"), your phone asks Apple's (on Android: Google's) place lookup for the name of that position. We store the name with the ride.

• Where you are on the map. If you allow location, the app shows your position as a blue dot on your crew's map and on your own recording. That position stays on your phone: it isn't saved, and it isn't sent to us or to your crew. The map providers below supply the map of the area on screen.

We never collect your location outside a recording you started. There is no live location sharing.

Clips (photos and videos)

• The photos and videos you choose to add to a ride, and for each: where and when it was taken (read from the photo on your phone, or matched to the ride's route by its time), its size and length, and an optional caption.
• We remove location and other metadata from the files before they leave your phone (photos are re-saved, videos are compressed without metadata). The place a clip was taken is stored in our database only, where your crew can see it on the route. A clip taken inside a hidden start or end is moved to the nearest visible point of the route; its real position is not stored.
• If you allow access to your photo library, the app looks on your phone for photos and videos taken during a ride's time window, so it can suggest them. Nothing is uploaded until you tap Add. Photos you don't add never leave your phone.

What you write and do

• Captions, replies, reactions, tags of riders in a clip, names of rides and saved spots, and which rides you have opened (to show "new" markers).

Your settings and device

• Units, auto-pause, your hide-start-and-end choice, your notification choices.
• If you allow notifications: a push token for your device, so we can notify you (a rideout started, add your clips, someone replied, and so on).
• Riders you blocked, and reports you sent us about a clip, a reply, a rider or a share link.

If you use a share page without an account

• When you open a ride's share link in a browser, our server sees your IP address and uses it for a short time to limit how often the page and uploads can be called.
• If you upload photos or videos there: the name you type in, the files, and where and when each was taken (your browser reads this from the file, sends it to us as numbers, and removes it from the file before uploading; our server refuses photos that still contain it). A random identifier is stored in your browser so the page can show your own uploads and your remaining upload allowance. Your uploads wait until a rider from that ride approves them; declined uploads are deleted.

What we don't collect

No contacts or address book, no health data, no payment card details (if you buy something in the app later, Apple or Google take the payment; we only learn what you bought and whether it is active), no advertising identifiers, and no analytics or tracking tools from other companies in version 1.

What we use it for, and on what basis

We don't make automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects, and we don't use your content to train AI models.

Who can see what

• Your crew: your profile, the rides you were on, the published route (without hidden starts and ends), your clips with where they were taken on the route, what you wrote.
• Riders who were on the same ride: can review uploads from share-page guests for that ride.
• Crew admins: can remove clips and riders, and switch web sharing off for the crew.
• Anyone with a ride's share link: that ride's name, route (without hidden starts and ends), numbers, clips and riders' profile photos. No names or usernames are shown. Links expire and can be stopped by any rider who was on the ride.
• Anyone with a crew's invite link: the crew's name, city, cover photo, size, a few members' first names and profile photos, and its latest ride's name and outline without map positions.
• Riders you blocked no longer show you their clips, replies and tags, and can't tag you.
• We can access data when needed to run the service, fix problems, or handle a report.

Who processes your data for us

If you choose "Open in Apple Maps" or "Open in Google Maps" for a route, the route's points are handed to that app under its own privacy policy.

We don't sell personal data and don't share it for advertising.

Transfers outside your country

Our providers are mainly in the United States. For transfers from the EU, the UK and Switzerland we rely on the EU–US and Swiss–US Data Privacy Frameworks where the provider is certified, and otherwise on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (with the Swiss addendum) in our data processing agreements with them.

How long we keep it

• Account, profile, rides, clips, what you wrote: until you delete them or your account.
• When you delete your account: your profile, your settings, every clip you added (files included), your recordings, your replies, reactions and tags are deleted right away. Routes you recorded stay on your crew's rides without your name, so the others don't lose their rides. For those rides we keep the two centre points of your hidden start and end, readable by nobody, for one purpose: so that a crew mate's clip taken there later still isn't pinned at your door. A crew in which you were the only rider is deleted with you.
• Leaving a crew: your clips stay in the crew's rides unless you delete them first.
• Share links expire after the time chosen when sharing. Guest uploads that were never finished are deleted after about 2 hours; declined ones at once.
• Rate-limit records (including the IP addresses of share-page visitors): deleted after at most one day.
• Notifications: deleted 90 days after they are sent.
• Backups at our hosting provider: deleted data can remain in them for up to 7 days before it is overwritten.

Your choices and rights

In the app:

• Hide start and end: You tab → ⚙ → Settings → Hide start and end.
• Location, photos, notifications: iPhone Settings → Crewtale. The app works without "Always" location and without full photo access, with limits it explains.
• Delete a clip, a reply, a spot: on the item itself.
• Take your routes with you: any ride can be exported as a GPX file (Ride again → GPX file).
• Delete your account: You tab → ⚙ → Settings → Delete account.

Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR and the Swiss nDSG you have the right to access your data, have it corrected or deleted, restrict or object to its use, receive it in a portable form, and withdraw consent at any time. Write to help@crewtale.com; we answer within one month. You can also complain to your data protection authority; in Switzerland that is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

United States. We don't sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in US state privacy laws such as the CCPA/CPRA, and we don't use sensitive personal information (which includes precise location) for anything other than providing the service you asked for. Depending on your state you may have rights to know, delete and correct your information; use the contact above. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.

Children

Crewtale is not for young children. You must be at least 13 to use it, or older if the law where you live sets a higher age for using an app like this without a parent's consent (in some EU countries that age is up to 16). If you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit. Access to crew data is enforced in the database: riders can only read data of crews they belong to, and a recording only by the rider who made it. Photos and videos are stored privately and opened through links that expire after a short time. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.

Contact

Alexander Andersen, Kilchberg (Zurich), Switzerland · help@crewtale.com