Privacy & your data
What we collect, what we never do with it, and what you control.
In plain language, because a policy nobody reads protects nobody. The four things worth knowing are below; the rest is detail.
The short version
Four things, up front.
Your readings are yours
Your measurements, your history and your Age belong to your account. By default nobody else sees them — not other users, not your family, not your doctor. There is no public profile and no leaderboard to be on.
We never sell your data
Not to insurers. Not to employers. Not to advertisers. Not to data brokers. footing is paid for by people choosing to subscribe, and that is the only way it is paid for.
Research contribution is a separate question
Whether your de-identified readings help build the research picture is its own decision, asked as its own screen before we measure anything — not a line buried in terms you scroll past. You can say no, and change your mind later, in either direction.
You can take it all with you, or delete it
Export everything footing holds about you, or delete your account and the readings attached to it. Both live in the app under You › Privacy, not behind a support ticket.
The detail
What footing actually collects.
Motion data from your walks
While you take a measured walk, footing reads your phone’s motion sensors — the same accelerometer and gyroscope any step counter uses. From that it derives walking speed, step length, the evenness of your steps, and the consistency of your stride.
It reads these during a measurement you started. footing is not listening to your movement in the background all day.
Your responses in the sitting tasks
Timing and accuracy from the tap-and-recall tasks — how fast, how precise, how consistent. What footing keeps is the measurement, not a recording of you.
Your name and your age
Your chronological age is required, and not out of nosiness: every number footing produces is your body read against your age. Without it there is nothing to compare against. Your name and age stay on your account, and neither ever appears on a share card.
Where it’s processed
Readings are uploaded to be processed and to build your history across devices. If you’ve contributed to research, a de-identified copy joins the research set — with your name, email and device identifier stripped, never travelling with it.
Research contribution
How the consent actually works.
This is the part most products get quietly wrong, so here is exactly what we do.
- Asked before we measure anything.
The question comes during setup, before your first walk — not after we already hold your data and are asking permission retroactively.
- Its own screen, not a clause.
Separate from the terms of service, in its own words, with a real "no" button that is exactly as easy to press as the "yes".
- Revocable, and forward-looking.
One switch in You › Privacy, any time. Turning it off stops future readings going to research. Readings already contributed and already aggregated can’t be pulled back out of work that’s been done — we’d rather say that plainly than imply an undo that doesn’t exist.
- It changes nothing about your app.
Same measurement, same number, same features, same everything. Saying no costs you nothing, and we won’t ask again with banners or nudges.
This page is a plain-language summary, not the legal policy.
It describes how footing is designed to work and what we intend to be held to. The binding privacy policy and terms of service — reviewed by counsel — govern where the two ever differ. If something on this page turns out to overstate what we can promise, we will change this page rather than quietly leave it up.
Questions we haven’t answered here?
Ask before you trust us with anything. That’s the correct order.