Privacy policy

Startline, published by AMTDA GLOBAL LLC. Effective 15 September 2026.

Startline keeps your plan, your log and your routes on your phone. There is no account and no sign-in. The app connects to the internet for two things only: the street map on the run notification, and a run you choose to share.

What Startline keeps, and where it keeps it

Three things are written to your phone, and only to your phone.

1. Your plan

What you answer at setup and the plan built from it: your race day, whether you are running a full or a half, the days of the week you run, which day is your long run, whether you count in miles or in kilometers, the minutes you typically run in a week, your longest recent run, the highest week you have held, either a recent race result or your own estimate of an easy pace, and your choices about recovery and the taper. This is written as a file named plan.json in the app's private folder.

2. Your weekly log

What you record after a session: done, partial or skipped; minutes run; distance; how the session felt; the optional note you may type; and the dates of any pause you put on your plan. This is written as a file named logs.json in the same private folder. The next week is rebuilt from it, on the phone.

3. Your run log

When you start a session, Startline opens a record for that run before the first word is spoken, so an interrupted run is still there when you come back. The record is a database file named startline-runs.db in the app's private folder. It holds one row for the run itself (when it started, when it finished, how long it lasted, how far it went) and an ordered list of what happened during it: each step of the session starting, each cue spoken, any cue that was skipped, every pause, resume and skip you tapped, the finish, and one location sample about once a second while location is on. A location sample is a latitude, a longitude, how precise the phone said that reading was, a speed if the phone reported one, and the time it was taken.

What Startline does not do

• No account and no sign-in. You are never asked for a name, an email address, a phone number or a password.
• No account server. Startline needs no internet connection to build a plan or to run a session. It connects to the internet for exactly two things, both described below: the street map on the run notification, and a run you choose to share.
• No analytics, no advertising, no advertising identifier, no tracking of any kind, and no third-party toolkit inside the app that collects anything about you.
• No crash reporter and no error-reporting service in the app today.
• No sale of anything about you. Your plan, log and routes stay on the phone.

Location

Startline asks for location so it can measure how far and how fast you went and keep the route with the run.

• Only while a session is running. Location starts when you start a session and stops when you finish it. It is never on at any other time.
• Only the "while using the app" permission. Startline never asks for the "all the time" permission, and does not declare it.
• With a notification you can see. On Android, a running session shows a notification that reads "Startline is recording your run — Your route is being saved." It stays in the shade for the whole session and disappears when you stop. On iPhone, the system shows its own indicator while a session records.
• Your route stays on the phone, unless you share that run. The route is written into the run log described above and is never uploaded, except in a run you choose to share (see below).
• The street map on the notification. During a run, the notification shows a small street map with a dot where you are. To draw it, the phone downloads the map squares for your area from CARTO, a map company, the same way any map app does. Each request tells CARTO roughly which area you are in (a square a few hundred meters across) and your phone's internet address. It does not carry your name, an account, your route or anything else about you. Downloaded squares are kept on the phone for up to 30 days so the same area is not downloaded twice. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, map design © CARTO.
• You can say no. If you refuse location, or location is turned off on the phone, the session still starts and Startline still reads it to you. It simply records no distance and no route.

Sharing a run with a friend

Before and during a run, Startline offers a button that reads “Share this run with a friend”. If you never press it, nothing in this section happens and no position is ever sent to our server.

• What it does. Pressing it makes a private web link and opens your own messaging app with that link ready to send. You choose who to send it to. While you run, your position, the time elapsed and the distance are sent to a server we run at startlinerun.app so the person you sent it to can watch on a map.
• What they see. While you are running, where you are. When you finish, only where the run stopped and the route drawn as a picture. The page shows no name unless you type one into your own message.
• Who can see it. Only someone holding the link. The link contains twenty-two random characters, there is no way to list or search shared runs, and the page asks search engines to stay away.
• Nobody can change it. Adding to a shared run needs a secret your phone keeps and never sends to anyone. A person holding the link can look and nothing more.
• How long it lasts. The link keeps working after you finish so your friend can see the route, then it deletes itself within twenty-four hours. A run you start sharing and abandon deletes itself within twelve.
• How exact it is. Positions sent for sharing are rounded to about eleven metres.
• Who else is involved. The server is ours, on Cloudflare. The map on the page is drawn with tiles from OpenStreetMap, which sees your friend’s browser asking for map squares, as any map does, and never learns who is running. Nothing is sold, and nothing goes to an advertiser or an analytics company.
• It is off by default, every run, every time. There is no setting that leaves it on.

What Startline never touches

• No body measurements. Startline does not connect to Apple Health or to Health Connect, does not read or write anything in them, and does not pair with a watch, a chest strap or any other sensor. It asks you nothing about your body and records no measurement of it.
• No microphone and no camera. The Android build does not declare the microphone permission. Nothing is listened to and nothing is recorded.
• No contacts, photos, files or calendar. None of these are requested or read.

Sound

Startline speaks your session through the text-to-speech voice that is already on your phone. While a cue is spoken, the app briefly lowers other audio so you can hear the words, then lets it back up. It never stops your music or your podcast, and it never records sound.

Permissions the app declares

• Precise and approximate location, for the reason above.
• A foreground service of the location kind, so a session keeps recording with the screen off, together with the notification that has to accompany it.
• Vibration, for the taps that go with the spoken cues.
• Keeping the processor awake and adjusting audio settings, so cues arrive on time and lower other audio.

Children

Startline is made for adults and is not directed to children. It collects nothing from anyone, of any age.

Deleting your data

Everything Startline keeps sits inside the app's own storage, so removing the app removes all of it: the plan, the weekly log and every run. There is no copy anywhere else, and nothing to ask us to erase, because we never had it. On an iPhone, choose Delete App rather than Offload App, since offloading keeps the app's files.

In the app: a control that erases everything Startline keeps on this phone without removing the app. It is at the bottom of the plan screen, the row "Delete everything on this phone". It asks you to confirm, then removes your plan, your weekly log, and every saved run with its route. It cannot be undone.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version is posted at startlinerun.app/privacy.html with a new effective date at the top. Material changes are described in the app's release notes.

Who to write to

AMTDA GLOBAL LLC · support@startlinerun.app

Ask us anything about this page and we will answer it. We cannot look up your data, because we do not have it.