Privacy Policy
Last updated 7 July 2026
Summary
Bramble is local-first: your hikes, photos and memories are stored on your device. We collect no advertising identifiers, sell no data, and use anonymous product analytics only to understand whether core app flows are working. The app talks to a small number of services, listed below, only to do what you asked it to do.
Anonymous usage stats
Bramble uses EU-hosted PostHog for anonymous product analytics. We do not identify you, attach your email or handle, or send location, trail names, coordinates, grid references, photo content or guide questions. Events are limited to broad app actions such as onboarding completed, hike started, paywall viewed or route planned. You can turn this off in Settings with “Share anonymous usage stats”.
Location
Your position is used during a hike to draw your route, match you to the trail, and pin photos to the map. It is processed on your device. Location is never collected in the background outside an active hike, and the privacy setting “hide hike start & end” trims your route ends before anything is shared.
Photos & camera
Photos you capture or pick stay in your scrapbook on your device (and in your account if you enable sync). We never scan your photo library.
Apple Health
With your permission, finished hikes are written to Apple Health as workouts (with route), and Bramble reads your body weight to estimate calories burned on your hikes. Health data is processed on your device and never leaves it via Bramble.
On-device AI
The private guide, caption ideas, subtitles and recap wording use Apple's Foundation Models on supported iPhones. Your guide questions, prompts and photo context are processed on the device and are not sent to us or to Apple's servers by Bramble.
When the guide checks live facts, the app may request weather, mapped trails, route planning or place data from the providers listed below. Those requests can include the approximate area or coordinates needed for the answer, but not your Bramble account identity or guide question text.
Accounts & sync (optional)
If you create an account (email, or Sign in with Apple), your email address and synced content (hikes, memories, reports) are stored with our database provider, Supabase, in the EU. Sign in with Apple lets you hide your real email. You can delete synced cloud data, or permanently delete your account and synced cloud data, from Profile at any time. Deleting your Bramble account does not cancel Apple subscriptions; manage those in iOS Settings.
Purchases
Subscriptions are processed by Apple and RevenueCat (our subscription manager). RevenueCat receives a random app user id and purchase receipts — never your name or email from us.
Other services
Map tiles, place search and route planning can come from Mapbox when configured; OpenFreeMap, Nominatim, OpenStreetMap and Valhalla are used as fallbacks or for community trail, amenity and pedestrian routing data. Elevation profiles may use Open Topo Data. Weather comes from MET Norway; trail photos from Wikimedia Commons. These requests include your approximate area of interest (e.g. the trail's coordinates) but no Bramble account identity.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you can access, correct, export or erase your data. Most of it is already in your hands — on your device, with GPX export built in. For anything account-related, contact karlhfr@gmail.com. You can complain to the ICO (ico.org.uk) if you're unhappy with our handling.
Children
Bramble is not directed at children under 13. Family mode is a display setting and creates no child accounts.