Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29 June 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how the Santiago Walk mobile application ("the App", "we", "us") collects, uses, and protects the personal information of its users ("you", "the pilgrim"). The App is developed and operated by Juan José Pereira Salinas as an individual developer based in Spain. We comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Spanish data protection law (LOPDGDD).

1. Data we collect

1.1 Account data

• Email address — used to create your account, sign in, and send password recovery emails. Stored in our authentication provider (Supabase) in encrypted form.
• Display name and alias — shown publicly in the Community feed if you choose to publish posts.
• Profile picture — optional, uploaded by you, shown publicly with your posts.

1.2 Pilgrimage data

• Completed stages — which stages of the Camino you have marked as completed. Stored locally on the device and synced to your account so you can switch devices.
• Diary entries — title, text, mood, distance walked and timestamps you write in your personal diary. Diary content is private to you and never shared with other users.
• Community posts — text, optional photo, and likes when you choose to publish.
• Community alerts — weather, accommodation, health or route warnings you choose to share.

1.3 Location data

The App requests access to your device location only while in use, exclusively to display your position on the route map. Your location is not stored, not transmitted, and not shared with any third party. It only lives in memory while you have the map screen open.

1.4 Photos

If you choose to upload a profile picture or add a photo to a community post, the App requests access to your camera and/or gallery. The selected photo is uploaded to our storage (Supabase) and associated with your account or post. You can delete photos at any time from inside the App; the file is removed from storage immediately.

1.5 Crash diagnostics

If the App crashes unexpectedly, an anonymous diagnostic report is sent to our crash reporting provider (Sentry, see section 6). The report contains the stack trace, the type of device, and the version of the App. It does not contain your email, your diary content, your photos, your location, or your authentication token — those values are actively scrubbed before the report leaves the device.

1.6 Advertising ID

The App displays an occasional interstitial advert (one between Camino stages) served by Google AdMob. AdMob may access your device's Advertising ID for ad selection and frequency capping. You can reset or delete this ID at any time from your Android system settings (Settings → Google → Ads). See section 5 for details.

2. How we use your data

3. Legal basis (GDPR)

• Performance of a contract (Art. 6.1.b GDPR) — to provide you the App you create an account with us.
• Your explicit consent (Art. 6.1.a GDPR) — for optional features such as photo upload, community posts and alerts.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6.1.f GDPR) — to operate the service, prevent abuse, fix crashes (anonymized) and ensure data integrity (e.g. admin moderation of inappropriate content).

4. Third-party services

To operate the App we rely on the following service providers (data processors under GDPR Art. 28). Each one only receives the minimum data required for its function:

• Supabase (Frankfurt, EU) — authentication, database, file storage. Privacy policy.
• Resend (USA) — transactional email delivery (sign-up confirmation, password reset). Receives your email and the email body. Privacy policy.
• Stadia Maps (USA) — map tiles. No personal data is sent; only anonymous tile coordinates. Privacy policy.
• OpenStreetMap — route geometry and POIs, downloaded once at first launch. No personal data is sent.
• Open-Elevation — anonymous elevation lookups for stage profiles.
• Sentry (USA, EU region) — crash reporting. Anonymized stack traces only; PII actively scrubbed before sending. Privacy policy.
• Google AdMob — interstitial advert delivery and Advertising ID usage. See section 5 below. How AdMob uses data.
• Google Play Services — required by the Android operating system. Subject to Google's privacy policy.

5. Advertising

The free tier of Santiago Walk shows a single interstitial advert when you complete a stage. Adverts are served by Google AdMob. AdMob may collect and process:

• Your device's Advertising ID (a resettable identifier).
• Approximate IP-based location, device type and OS version.
• Whether you tapped, dismissed, or watched an ad to the end.

The App does not share your email, diary content, photos, posts, or precise GPS location with AdMob. You can opt out of personalized ads at any time from Settings → Google → Ads → Reset advertising ID on your Android device. You can also disable adverts entirely by upgrading to the planned Premium tier.

6. Crash reports

To detect and fix bugs we use Sentry. When the App crashes, an event is sent containing: stack trace, device model, OS version, App version, and a short list of UI breadcrumbs (e.g. "user opened map", "user opened profile"). The following data is explicitly scrubbed before the event leaves the device:

• Email address (Sentry user object is anonymized).
• IP address.
• Authentication tokens (Authorization and apikey HTTP headers).
• Any breadcrumb whose category or message contains diary, post, community, content or email.

Crash reports are retained by Sentry for 90 days and then permanently deleted.

7. Data retention & deletion

• While your account is active, we keep all data associated with it.
• You can delete your account from inside the App: Profile → Delete my account → type DELETE. All your personal data (diary, posts, alerts, stages, profile, avatar, post photos) is permanently deleted from our servers within 30 days. The action is irreversible.
• Anonymized backups may persist for an additional 30 days for disaster recovery purposes, after which they are also destroyed.
• If you would rather request deletion by email (e.g. you can no longer access the App), write to hello@santiagowalk.com and we will action it within 30 days.

8. Your rights (GDPR)

You may exercise the following rights at any time by writing to hello@santiagowalk.com:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Rectification — correct inaccurate data.
• Deletion — delete your account and all your data (also available in-app, see section 7).
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
• Restriction or objection — limit or oppose the processing of your data.
• Withdraw consent — for any processing based on consent, with effect for the future.
• Lodge a complaint — with the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD, www.aepd.es) or your local supervisory authority.

9. Security

All traffic between the App and our servers is encrypted in transit via HTTPS/TLS. Passwords are never stored in plaintext; we use the secure hashing provided by Supabase Auth. Database tables holding personal data are protected with Row-Level Security policies that restrict each row to its owner. Cascading foreign keys ensure that when you delete your account every related row is removed atomically.

10. Minors

The App is not directed to children under 14 years old. We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided personal data, contact us to delete it.

11. International transfers

Our primary data processor (Supabase) operates infrastructure in the EU (Frankfurt). When data must be transferred outside the EEA (e.g. Stadia Maps tile requests, Sentry events, AdMob), we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) or equivalent safeguards.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you in-app or by email of substantial changes. The "Last updated" date at the top of this document indicates the latest revision.

13. Contact

Data Controller: Juan José Pereira Salinas
Email: hello@santiagowalk.com
Website: https://santiagowalk.com