Your data, made clear

Podtour privacy policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026.

This policy explains what personal data Podtour processes in its iPhone and Android app and on the podtour.app website: what for, on what legal basis and for how long. Podtour offers narrated audio walks through European cities.

In short

• You can browse the catalogue and listen to each city’s free walk without creating an account.
• An account lets you buy, invite guests, download walks and keep your progress on several phones.
• You pay Apple or Google. Podtour never receives your card details.
• Location is optional and only used while you’re using the app. We don’t store your coordinates.
• No advertising, no selling of data, and no tracking across other apps or websites.
• You can delete your account in the app.

The controller

The data controller is Alberto Rodríguez Fernández, NIF 47521645B, Calle Teodoro Álvarez Martín, 4, 45920 La Torre de Esteban Hambrán (Toledo), Spain. For privacy questions, support or to exercise your rights, email hello@podtour.app.

Using the app without an account

Without an account you can browse cities and walks and listen to the introductions, previews, the “Before you go” guide and each city’s free walk. Your listening progress stays on your phone only.

To show you the catalogue, the app downloads text, images and audio from our storage at Hetzner, and the free walk’s guide from our server (admin.podtour.app). These requests carry no account or device identifier. Our server uses the connection’s IP address for one minute, in memory, to limit abuse, and does not store it in its databases.

Your account

You can sign in in three ways:

• Email. We send you a sign-in link, with no password, from acceso@auth.podtour.app.
• Google. We receive your Google account identifier, your email address, whether it is verified, and the basic profile details Google provides, such as your name and the address of your photo. We cannot access your Gmail, contacts or files.
• Apple. We receive an identifier and the email address you choose to share, which may be an Apple private relay address. Your name, only if you choose to share it.

Supabase manages sign-in and sessions. With your account we store:

• Your profile: an identifier, a name you can edit (“Viajero” by default), a user code (PT-…) and the date you joined. You don’t need to use your real name.
• Your saved walks, with the date you saved them.
• Your listening progress: for each walk and language, which parts of each chapter you’ve heard, where you stopped and when. It does not include your location.
• Your preferences: app language, audio language, cities you’re interested in, whether you’ve completed the welcome screens and your choice about optional emails, with the date, version and wording you saw.

Your preferences are stored on our server (admin.podtour.app); everything else is stored in Supabase. Your profile is not public and there is no user directory.

Purchases

Purchases are made in the app through Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play). The store handles the payment under its own terms and privacy policy. Podtour never receives your card details or billing address.

To link each purchase to your account, the app gives the store a random identifier for your Podtour account, or for that purchase if it includes guests. Google only receives an irreversible fingerprint of that identifier. We don’t give them your email address.

Our server checks every purchase with Apple or Google before granting access, and stores:

• the store and whether the purchase is real or a test;
• the transaction identifiers;
• the product, the walks included and the number of guests;
• the purchase date and the date it was last checked;
• your Podtour account;
• whether the purchase has been refunded or revoked.

For Google Play we also store the purchase token, encrypted, so we can check it again. Apple notifies us of refunds and we check with Google regularly. If a store refunds a purchase, we remove the access that depends on it.

We use this data to give you access on all your phones, restore your purchases, manage invitations, remove refunded access and prevent fraud. Our internal dashboard flags unusual patterns of purchases or redemptions for a person to review. Nothing is blocked automatically.

Guests

When you buy, you can add 0 to 5 guests in the same payment. Afterwards you get one link with as many places as guests you paid for. You decide how to share it: Podtour does not receive your contacts or messages. The invitation code sits in the last part of the link, which your browser does not send to our website.

Each guest opens the link and signs in with their own account. They have 30 days from the purchase date to redeem it. We record which account redeemed each place and when.

The buyer sees how many places have been redeemed, how many remain and the deadline, but not their guests’ names or email addresses. A guest sees the content included and the deadline, but not the buyer’s details. If the purchase is refunded, the guests lose access too.

Emails

We send emails through Resend:

• Sign-in: the link to sign in, when you ask for it.
• Service emails: a welcome email when you create your account, and confirmation of your purchases. They are part of the service and don’t need your consent.
• Optional emails: a reminder if you haven’t started a walk the day after buying it, a message when you finish a walk, recommendations, new walks and offers. You only get them if you switch them on in the app; they are off by default. At most one a day.

To send or cancel these emails, our server stores your email address, your language and which walks you have started and finished on your account, based on your synced progress. You can stop optional emails from the link in each one or in Profile. You will still receive sign-in and service emails.

If the Podtour team creates an account for you, for example to give you access to a walk, we send you an informational email. It does not sign you up to marketing.

The waitlist and your free city

When you join on the website, we store your first name, last name, email address, chosen city, language, sign-up page, the time and the version of the consent you accepted. To confirm your email we send you a link that expires after 24 hours. Opening it confirms nothing until you press the button. We record the confirmation time, an irreversible fingerprint of the link and the delivery reference. To prevent abuse, we keep a pseudonymous record of your connection for ten minutes.

The list is stored in Supabase, in Frankfurt (Germany), with no public directory or export.

When you sign in to the app with the same, verified email address, our server checks your registration and grants your chosen city automatically. We record which account received which city and when, and mark the registration as fulfilled. If you sign in with Apple and hide your email address, we can’t match them: email us and we’ll grant it manually.

Location

Location is optional. The app only uses it while it is open and in use, never in the background. It shows you on the map and guides you on foot to the next stop. You can listen to every walk without it.

Your position is processed on your phone. Podtour does not send it to its servers or keep a history of your coordinates.

If you tap “Get directions from here” in the map guide, the app sends your current position, the stop’s coordinates and the app language to the Valhalla routing service run by FOSSGIS e.V. (Germany), which calculates the walking route. The request goes directly from your phone, only when you ask (at most once every 30 seconds) and without your Podtour account. FOSSGIS is an association that provides this public service and may log the request together with technical connection data, such as your IP address. See its privacy policy. The rest of the guidance uses pre-calculated routes that come with the walk.

“Get directions” opens Apple Maps on iPhone or Google Maps on Android with the chosen destination. That app applies its own permissions and policy.

Map, audio and external links

The map loads styles and tiles from OpenFreeMap, based on OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap. The provider receives technical connection data and the map areas requested, without your account. The map needs a connection.

The catalogue, images and audio are served from Hetzner Object Storage, in Germany. Paid audio is downloaded through temporary links that our server creates after checking your access. Downloaded walks include permission to listen offline for 30 days, renewed whenever you connect.

Links to external websites, for example in “Before you go” or the credits, open in your browser. Those websites apply their own policies.

What stays on your phone

The app stores on your phone:

• the catalogue, its images and the walks you download;
• your listening progress (without an account, only here);
• your language and speed preferences;
• a copy of your profile, including your email address, your saved walks and changes waiting to sync;
• the stops you have reached on a walk, with the time;
• the list of walks already counted in the anonymous statistics;
• the walk or purchase you were choosing when you signed in, for up to 24 hours.

Your session is kept in the system’s secure storage. Signing out removes access on that phone and deletes the purchased walks you had downloaded; everything else stored on the phone stays. Downloads of purchased walks last 30 days, after which you download them again with a connection. Removing a download deletes its files. Uninstalling the app deletes what it stores on the phone.

Anonymous usage statistics

To learn which walks work well, we count how many times each walk is started and finished each day, with the audio language, the platform (iOS or Android) and the app version. The counts are sent to our own server and only kept as daily totals.

We don’t send your account or a device identifier, and we don’t store your IP address. There is no advertising or cross-app tracking. Your phone remembers which walks it has already counted so they aren’t counted twice. Purchases and invitations are counted from the purchase records that already exist, with no new data.

They only run with your permission: we ask once, the first time you open the app, and nothing is counted until you answer. You can change your answer in Profile → Privacy → “Anonymous usage statistics”. While they are off nothing is sent, and turning them on does not send what happened before. Daily totals are deleted after 13 months.

Crash reports

If the app closes because of an error, it sends a technical report to Sentry, in its European Union data region, so we can fix it. The report includes the type of error, the part of the code involved, the phone model, the system and app versions, and the time. It does not include your account, email address, location or IP address: the app does not send them and the Sentry project is set not to store IP addresses. Signed audio links are also removed from reports. It may include a random installation identifier generated by Sentry that is not linked to your account. Sentry keeps reports for 30 days.

The website

podtour.app presents Podtour, hosts the waitlist and opens invitation links in the app. Its fonts are served from the website itself; images and audio from Hetzner Object Storage. It does not ask for your location, camera or microphone.

When you visit, the services that handle the connection receive technical data, such as your IP address, the time, the page requested and the information your browser sends. This is used to serve the website, fix problems and protect it.

The website does not use advertising cookies. It uses Google Analytics to know how many people visit it and which pages they find useful, only if you accept it in the cookie notice. Until then nothing is loaded or stored.

If you accept it, Google Analytics stores two cookies in your browser, _ga and another starting with _ga_, which tell visits apart without knowing who you are and last up to two years. It receives the pages you see and how you use them, where you came from, your type of device and browser, your language, and your approximate city and country, worked out from your IP address without storing it. It also counts when you ask for a place on the waiting list and when you confirm it, with only the language. Google signals and every advertising use are switched off: the data is not linked to your Google account or used to show you ads.

You can change your mind at any time in “Cookie settings”, at the foot of every page. If you reject it after accepting it, the website deletes those cookies.

Phone permissions

• Location while using the app. Optional. Used to show you on the map and guide you on foot.
• Background audio. Keeps audio playing with the screen locked and shows the controls on the lock screen and headphones. It gives no access to any data or to the microphone.
• Internet connection.

Podtour does not ask for access to your camera, microphone, photos, contacts or notifications, or for “Always” location. You can change the location permission in your phone’s settings.

What we don’t do

• We don’t show advertising or use advertising tools.
• We don’t sell your data or share it so others can advertise to you.
• We don’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites.
• We don’t make automated decisions that have legal effects on you or affect you in a similar way.

What we use data for and on what legal basis

You can withdraw your consent at any time; this does not affect earlier processing. You can also object to processing based on legitimate interest. Reading this policy does not mean you accept any optional processing.

Services involved

Supabase, Hetzner, Resend, Cloudflare, Sentry and Google, for website analytics, process data on Podtour’s behalf. Apple and Google, for sign-in and purchases, FOSSGIS and OpenFreeMap provide their services as independent controllers under their own policies. Your email provider, and the apps you choose to share an invitation or get directions, also receive data.

Some providers are companies based outside the European Economic Area or may access data from outside it, even when they store it in Europe. In those cases, the transfer relies on the GDPR mechanisms each provider offers, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. You can ask us about the providers that process your data and their safeguards.

How long we keep data

Records needed to deal with legal claims or comply with a legal obligation may be kept, restricted, for the period required by law.

Security

All connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Database rules stop one account from reading another’s data. Google purchase tokens are stored encrypted. We make an encrypted backup every day. Access to the internal dashboard is limited by role and exports are logged. We may suspend an account that is misused; we keep a record of that status.

How to delete your account

In the app: Profile → Privacy → Delete account → “Delete my account”. It is also in Profile → Edit profile. You need a connection. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.

Without the app: email hello@podtour.app from your account’s email address with the subject “Delete account”. If needed, we’ll ask for some information to check the account is yours. We will delete it within one month.

What is deleted:

• your user and sign-in details (email address and Google or Apple identifiers), your profile, saved walks and synced progress;
• your preferences, your email choices, your address on our email server, the content of the emails we sent you and the walks you started or finished; pending emails are cancelled;
• your open sessions and the copy of the account on the phone you delete it from;
• Podtour’s permission on your Apple account, if you signed in with Apple on an iPhone: Apple asks you to confirm and we revoke it.

What is kept:

• records of your purchases and invitations, for 6 years from the purchase, for legal obligations, refunds, claims and fraud prevention;
• the date and status of emails already sent, without the address or the content;
• your waitlist registration, which is separate: ask to leave if you want it deleted;
• encrypted backups, until they are deleted after 3 months.

Please note:

• You lose access to what you bought with that account. A new account cannot recover those purchases, even with the same email address.
• Guests who have already redeemed one of your invitations keep their access.
• Uninstalling the app does not delete your account. Downloads and data on other phones stay there until you delete them; their offline permission expires within 30 days.
• If you signed in with Apple on Android, or didn’t confirm the revocation, you can remove Podtour’s permission in your Apple account settings.

Children

Podtour is designed for people aged 14 and over, the age from which Spanish law lets people consent to the use of their own data. Children under 14 may only create an account with permission from a parent or guardian, or within an activity organised by their school, which collects that permission. We do not ask for a date of birth or documents, and the app is not designed for children under 13. No account is needed to listen to the free walk. If you believe a child under 14 has created an account without permission, email us and we will delete it.

Your rights and how to exercise them

You can ask for access to your data, its correction, deletion or portability, restriction of processing, and you can object to processing, in the cases set out in the GDPR. You can also withdraw your consent where processing relies on it. Email hello@podtour.app with your request and details that help us find your account, or write to the controller’s address. If needed, we’ll ask for proportionate information to confirm your identity. We will reply within one month.

If you think we have not handled your data properly, you can complain to the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD).

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when Podtour’s features or use of data change. The date at the top identifies the current version. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it applies. If a new feature needs your consent, we will ask before using it.