Privacy Policy

Who we are

MilesAhead is a step-challenge app for friends and groups. This policy says what we collect, why, who sees it, and what you can change.

MilesAhead is run by Shreesh Katyayan, who decides how your data is used (the data controller; a “data fiduciary” under India’s law).

Questions, requests or complaints about your data: [email protected].

Where MilesAhead is offered, and who for

MilesAhead is offered in India and the United Arab Emirates. This policy is written for India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021).

MilesAhead is only for people 18 and over. Sign-up asks you to confirm you are; we don’t ask for your birth date. If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we close it.

Your steps and runs

With your permission, MilesAhead reads from Health Connect on Android (on iPhone, Apple Health, when MilesAhead comes to iPhone):

• your step total for each day;
• for runs-only races, your runs: when each started and ended, its distance and its steps. Runs typed in by hand don’t count and aren’t sent.

It reads again about every hour, also while the app is closed, so races stay up to date. It never reads heart rate, sleep, location or anything else, and never writes to your health data.

We keep one total for each day, with the apps it came from (like “Garmin Connect”), and your runs. When the app checks your step tracking (during setup, and when you run the step checks), it also notes your phone’s setup: Android version, whether Health Connect is installed and allowed, and your watch brand, so we can see why steps don’t arrive.

Your profile

Your name, an avatar from our set (no photos), your daily goal, your time zone (taken from your phone so your day ends at your midnight), and when you confirmed you’re 18 or older.

Who sees my daily steps (Settings) has two choices. Friends and challenge members, the default: friends see your daily steps on the Friends tab and your lifetime steps on your profile. Challenge members only: you won’t appear on friends’ daily list, and your lifetime steps stay hidden.

Inside a race, every member sees your steps either way: that’s how leaderboards work.

Your email

We use your email only to send you codes: six digits to sign in, and to confirm a new email or deleting your account. There are no passwords, newsletters or marketing emails.

Signed-in devices

For each phone you sign in on, we keep its model name, the app version, and when it was last used, so Settings can list your devices and you can sign one out.

MilesAhead keeps no location at all: no GPS, and no city or country for your devices.

We don’t keep your IP address with your account or your devices. Our servers’ request logs and our sign-in service’s security logs do record it, and for people who open an invite before signing in we keep a scrambled form of it to stop invite codes being guessed.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, we keep a push token for each phone so we can reach it, and a copy of each notification in your inbox in the app.

Notifications can include people’s first names, race names, your place, and the text of race messages. Depending on your phone’s settings they can show on your lock screen; your phone’s notification settings can hide them there.

In Settings you choose which kinds you get (overtakes, cheers, messages, invites, reminders, milestones) and your quiet hours. Notifications that arrive during quiet hours wait for a morning summary; final-day reminders still come through.

Friends and streak buddies

• Friends see your steps today and this week, your goal and whether you hit it, and when your steps last synced; with challenge members only, you’re off their daily list.
• Friends, and people you’ve raced with, can open your profile: your race results (bibs), medals, and the races you shared.
• Streak buddies see how close each of you is to your goal today (never your step count), your shared streak, its freezes, and nudges and cheers.

Your friend code starts with your first name. Anyone you give it to, or who scans your QR code, can send you a friend request.

Races and messages

Race members see each other’s names, avatars, bib numbers, steps or distance, places, cheers and messages.

Someone with an invite link sees, even before signing in, the race’s name, rules and dates, the first name and avatar of whoever invited them, how many have joined, and the first names and avatars of up to five members. Never steps or full names.

Race messages are seen only by the race’s members. If you delete one, nobody sees it any more; we keep its text so a report about it can still be checked. If a moderator hides one, members see “Removed by a moderator” instead.

If you block someone, you stop seeing each other’s messages, cheers and invites, and your friendship and streak end. You both stay on the leaderboards of races you share.

Reports and moderation

When you report someone, we keep who reported whom, the race, the reason, and a copy of the reported message. The person you report isn’t told who reported them.

Moderators (people we appoint) review reports in the app. We review every report within 2 working days, and reports of threats or harassment within 24 hours. A moderator sees the report, both people’s names, the race, the copied message, and how many other open reports there are about the same person.

Moderators can hide a message, or suspend an account that breaks our Terms of use. A suspended person can’t sign in, their messages are hidden, and others see them as “Former member” until the suspension ends.

Each new report also sends moderators an email with its reason and the race’s name: never the message, or anyone’s email address.

Deleting your account

Settings → Delete account, confirmed with a code sent to your email. You’re signed out everywhere, and in races you shared others see “Former member” with no avatar.

Sign in again within 30 days and everything comes back. After 30 days we erase:

• your name, avatar, email and friend code;
• your phones’ push tokens and device names;
• the text of your race messages (members see “Former member: message deleted”);
• your name in other people’s notifications and inbox, and the text of your messages kept with reports.

Your step totals and race results stay, so other people’s results still add up, but nothing links them to you: they show as “Former member”.

Our database backups keep a copy for up to 30 days, so what we erase is gone from them 30 days later.

Who we share it with

We never sell your data, and MilesAhead has no ads or ad trackers. These services run parts of MilesAhead for us and use your data only to do that:

• Supabase: sign-in and our database, in Frankfurt, Germany;
• Vultr: runs the app’s services, in Mumbai, India;
• Cloudflare: carries the app’s traffic;
• Resend: sends the code emails, and report emails to moderators;
• Expo and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (Apple’s push service on iPhone): deliver notifications;
• Sentry: crash reports from the app and our services (what went wrong, the phone model and app version), never your email, name or steps.

Our database is in Germany and our services run in India, so your data is stored outside India and the UAE.

We share data with authorities only when the law requires it.

Your rights and choices

• Change who sees your steps, your notifications and your quiet hours in Settings.
• Turn off step syncing in Settings, or remove MilesAhead’s access in Health Connect: that withdraws your consent to reading steps.
• Sign out any of your devices in Settings → Signed-in devices.
• Delete your account in Settings.

You can also ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to erase it, and in India name someone to act for you if you die or can’t. Write to [email protected]; we answer within 30 days.

Grievance officer: Shreesh Katyayan, [email protected]. We acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days. If our answer doesn’t settle it, you can complain to India’s Data Protection Board, or in the UAE to the UAE Data Office.

If we change this policy, we tell you in the app before the change applies.