Last updated 4 November 2026
Privacy Policy
The short version: Bao keeps what it needs to plan your running, and nothing else. It's stored in London, never sold or used for ads, health data is only read with your permission, and you can delete everything from the app.
Who we are
Bao Run is made and run by Sam Tate, in the UK. For data protection law, that makes Sam the “controller” of your personal data, called “we” below. You can reach us at hello@runwithbao.app.
What we collect, and why
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your email address | To sign you in with a one-time code, and to reach you about your account if we must. No newsletters unless you ask. |
| Your plan answers: experience, goal, race date, running days, units, and optionally birth year, resting and maximum heart rate | To build your plan. Birth year is only used to estimate a maximum heart rate. |
| Your runs: start time, duration, distance, route, heart rate, laps, how it felt, and any notes | To track progress and adjust the plan. Routes are shown only to you. |
| Watch files (FIT files) you import | Kept as you sent them, so a run can be read again if Bao gets better at reading them. |
| Health data from Health Connect, only if you connect it: sleep, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, heart rate, exercise sessions, distance, weight and height | To spot a rough night or a heavy few days and suggest an easier session, to fill in your height and weight, and to bring in runs recorded by other apps. Bao only reads; it never writes to Health Connect. |
| Your location, only while you're tracking a run in the Android app | To draw your route and measure distance. Bao doesn't use location at any other time. |
| Strava, only if you connect it: access tokens, your Strava name, and your Strava runs | To send runs you record in Bao to Strava, and bring runs from Strava into Bao. |
| Signing up on the web, before you've answered “Help improve Bao”: which setup pages you reached, whether you signed in and made a plan, and which version of this website you came from | To see where people give up, so we can make it easier. This is anonymous: it uses a random visit id that's kept only until you close the tab, and isn't linked to your account unless you then allow “Help improve Bao”. Choose “No thanks” and nothing more is sent. |
| How you use the app, only if you allow “Help improve Bao”: screens visited, buttons used, crash reports, phone model or browser, and app version | To find what's confusing or broken. These never include health data, your name or your email. |
The legal bits behind that
- To provide the app you asked for (contract): your account, plan answers, runs and watch files.
- Your explicit consent: health data from Health Connect, Strava, and usage analytics. Each is off until you turn it on, and you can turn it off again at any time in the app, or in Android's Health Connect settings.
- Legitimate interests: anonymous statistics about this website and signing up on the web, to make them work better.
- Legitimate interests: keeping the service secure and stopping abuse, such as limits on sign-in attempts.
Heart rate, sleep and similar readings are health data, which the law protects specially. We only process them with your explicit consent, given when you connect Health Connect, and only to plan your training.
What we never do
- Sell your data, or share it with advertisers or data brokers.
- Show ads.
- Use your health data, or data from Health Connect, Strava or any watch, to train AI models.
- Show your runs, routes or health data to anyone but you.
Who else handles your data
A few companies run parts of Bao for us. They may only use your data to provide that service.
| Who | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and file storage: everything above except analytics | London, UK |
| Resend | Sending sign-in codes to your email address | United States |
| PostHog | Usage analytics and crash reports, only if you allow them | European Union |
| Strava | Only if you connect it: the runs Bao sends and receives | United States |
Where data leaves the UK, it's protected by the UK's adequacy regulations or the standard contractual clauses approved for those transfers.
Workouts sent to a watch through Gadgetbridge stay on your phone and watch; they don't pass through us.
Health Connect
Bao's use of information received from Health Connect follows the Health Connect permissions policy, including its Limited Use requirements. In short: we only use it to provide and improve Bao's training features, we don't transfer it except as described here, and no person reads it unless you ask us to help with a problem or the law requires it.
How long we keep it
- Your account, plan, runs and files: until you delete them or your account.
- Health readings: until you delete your account. Bao only looks at the last few weeks.
- Strava: disconnecting deletes your Strava tokens and link straight away. Runs already brought into Bao stay part of your history until you delete them.
- Analytics: kept by PostHog for up to a year.
Deleting everything
In the app, go to Settings → Delete my account. Your account, plan, runs, routes, health readings, watch files and Strava link are deleted from the live database and file storage. We don't currently have any database backups available to restore. There's more on the delete your account page.
Your rights
You can ask to see the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, take a copy in a portable format, object to how we use it, or withdraw consent at any time. Much of this you can do in the app; for anything else, email hello@runwithbao.app. The law gives us a month to respond.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We'd appreciate the chance to put it right first.
This website
- No cookies. The site keeps only two things in your browser: your light or dark choice if you pick one, and a random visit id that's forgotten when you close the tab.
- Visit statistics, through PostHog in the EU: which pages and sections were seen, how far down the page you scrolled, which buttons were clicked, and which version of the page you saw when we're testing two. These aren't linked to you. To count visitors without cookies, PostHog works out a daily id on its servers from a scrambled mix of your IP address and browser, which changes every day, so a visit on Tuesday can't be matched to one on Wednesday. If you click “Get started”, the visit id goes with you to the web app, so we can tell which version of the page helped.
- The old waitlist: if you left your email address before the beta opened, we keep it in London and use it once, to tell you Bao is on Google Play. Then we delete the list.
Bao in your browser
The web app at app.runwithbao.app keeps your sign-in, a copy of your plan, and changes waiting to be sent in your browser's own storage, so it works when the connection drops. It sets no cookies and nothing for advertising. Signing out removes your sign-in.
Age
Bao is for people aged 16 and over.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll say so in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when it last changed.