Treadline Privacy Policy
Effective Date: June 25, 2026
Last Updated: July 5, 2026
Treadline is a hiking journal app developed by Leading Ridge Solutions LLC. Your privacy matters to us. This policy explains what data Treadline collects, how it is used, and the choices you have.
Data We Collect
Data You Provide
- Hike entries — Trail names, dates, ratings, notes, highlights, companions, mood, and other journal details you enter.
- Photos and videos — Media you attach to hikes, stored on your device and synced via iCloud if enabled.
- Voice memos — Audio recordings you capture on trail, stored on your device.
- Spots and sightings — Named locations you tag with coordinates and notes, including wildlife, wildflower, and plant observations you identify.
- Planned routes, hike plans, and trips — Future hike and multi-day trip plans including waypoints, campsites, meals, estimated stats, and notes.
- Gear items — Gear you track, including name, weight, and category.
- Field notes (Blazes) — Free-form journal entries you create.
- Trail Name — An optional display name you choose (not your legal name).
- Waypoints — Trail resource URLs you save for reference.
- Tags and lists — Freeform tags and challenge lists you create or join.
Data Collected Automatically
- Location data — GPS coordinates recorded during hikes (via Apple HealthKit workouts) and when you tag spots. Location is used to display your routes on maps, calculate distances, and fetch on-trail weather. Background location is used only during active hike recording on Apple Watch.
- HealthKit data — With your permission, Treadline reads hiking and walking workouts from Apple Health, including distance, elevation, duration, heart rate, and route data. Treadline does not write data to HealthKit.
- Weather data — For each hike, Treadline fetches historical weather conditions (temperature, wind, precipitation, UV index) scoped to your hike's time and location using Apple WeatherKit. If WeatherKit is unavailable, Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) is used as a fallback with your hike's approximate location and date.
- Apple Music — You can search and tag songs to a hike using Apple Music search. Treadline does not listen to or detect what is currently playing. No listening history is accessed or stored.
TrailCoach AI (Pro) — AI on Your Terms
TrailCoach AI is Treadline's only AI feature, available to Pro subscribers, and it is always your choice:
- When TrailCoach AI is on — When you generate a report, relevant details from the selected period are sent to Anthropic's API via a secure proxy operated by Leading Ridge Solutions LLC to write your report. Nothing is stored on our proxy — data is forwarded to Anthropic and the response is returned to your device.
- When TrailCoach AI is off — You can turn TrailCoach AI off at any time in Settings inside the app. Your reports are then built entirely on your device from your own stats and patterns, and no journal content or hike data leaves your phone.
How Your Data Is Stored
- On-device — All hike data, photos, voice memos, gear, spots, and settings are stored locally on your device using Apple's SwiftData framework.
- iCloud sync — If you have iCloud enabled, your data syncs across your Apple devices via Apple's CloudKit private database.
- Minimal services, no journal on our servers — Leading Ridge Solutions LLC operates two small services: the AI proxy described above and a plan-sharing service for plans or trips you explicitly choose to share.
Shared Plan Links
If you share a hike plan or trip as a link, a copy of that plan's contents is uploaded to our plan-sharing service so people with the link can view it. Sharing is always owner-initiated. You can stop sharing at any time from the app.
Third-Party Services
| Service | What Is Shared | Why | Their Privacy Policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple WeatherKit | Hike location and time window | Fetch on-trail weather conditions | apple.com/privacy |
| Open-Meteo fallback | Hike location and date | Fetch daily weather when WeatherKit is unavailable | open-meteo.com/en/terms |
| Anthropic | Hike details, gear names, species observations, and journal excerpts via secure proxy | Write your TrailCoach report | anthropic.com/privacy |
| iNaturalist | Species search text and approximate location when browsing nearby species | Species identification and life-list suggestions | inaturalist.org/pages/privacy |
| Esri / USGS | Map viewport location | Historic topographic map layer | esri.com/privacy |
| GitHub | Standard web request only | Fetch updated journal prompts and app configuration | docs.github.com/privacy |
| Apple CloudKit | All app data if iCloud enabled | Cross-device sync | apple.com/privacy |
| Apple StoreKit | Purchase transactions | In-app purchases | apple.com/privacy |
Treadline does not use any analytics SDKs, tracking pixels, advertising frameworks, or crash reporting services.
Notifications
Treadline may send local notifications for:
- Planned hike reminders
- Spot proximity alerts
- Weekly trail summaries
- On This Day hike memories
All notifications are local to your device. No push notification data is sent to or from external servers.
Subscriptions and Purchases
Treadline offers optional in-app purchases processed entirely through Apple's App Store. Leading Ridge Solutions LLC does not collect or have access to your payment information.
Your Choices
- TrailCoach AI — Turn AI on or off at any time in Treadline's Settings.
- Shared plans — Stop sharing any plan or trip link at any time from the app.
- HealthKit — You can grant or revoke Treadline's access to Health data at any time.
- Location — You can control location permissions in device settings.
- Photos — You can control photo library access in device settings.
- iCloud sync — You can disable iCloud sync for Treadline in iCloud settings.
- Notifications — You can disable notifications in device settings.
- Delete your data — Deleting the app removes local data. To remove iCloud data, manage storage from iCloud settings.
Children's Privacy
Treadline is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted to this page with an updated "Last Updated" date.
Contact
If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact us at:
Leading Ridge Solutions LLC
Email: privacy@treadlineapp.com