GymBuddy Privacy Policy
GymBuddy is a workout, nutrition and social fitness app for iPhone and Apple Watch. This policy explains what data GymBuddy collects, why, who it is shared with, how long it is kept and how you can delete it. It applies to the GymBuddy app and to trygymbuddy.com.
Who we are
GymBuddy is developed and operated by Emin Çimen, an individual developer based in Türkiye ("we", "us"). We are the data controller for the data described here.
Contact: support@trygymbuddy.com
Summary
- We collect only what the app needs to work: your account, your training and nutrition logs, and what you choose to share with friends.
- We don't show ads, we don't track you across other apps or websites, and we don't sell your data.
- Apple Health data stays on your iPhone. The only thing we store is the calories of each workout. Health data is never sent to the AI, never used for advertising or marketing and never stored in iCloud.
- AI features send data to Google Gemini only after you allow it in the app, and you can turn them off at any time.
- You can delete your account and all of its data in the app: Settings → Account → Delete account.
Data we collect
Account
- Email address and password (the password is stored only as a hash by our authentication provider).
- Display name, username, avatar color, an optional profile photo and your app language.
Your profile and goals
- Fitness goals, experience level, where you train (gym or home), your weekly workout goal, daily calorie and water goals, your active plan and schedule.
- Body data you enter: sex, birth year, height and weight, and your weight history. This is used to calculate calorie, protein and water targets and, if you use the AI features, to personalize them.
Training and nutrition logs
- Workouts (exercises, sets, weights, repetitions, durations, personal records, start and end times, calories burned), your own programs and custom exercises, planned workouts, meals (description, calories, macros) and water.
- XP, badges and challenges are calculated from these logs.
Apple Health (HealthKit)
If you connect Apple Health (Settings → Apple Health), GymBuddy reads your heart rate, active energy and workouts during and around your training, and saves your finished strength workouts and their active energy to Apple Health.
- HealthKit data is read and processed on your iPhone. We store only the result: the calories burned in a workout and whether they came from Apple Health, from heart rate or from our estimate.
- Apple Health data is never sent to the AI features or to any other third party.
- On Apple Watch, the app runs a workout session to measure heart rate and active energy and sends them to your iPhone.
- We never use Health data for advertising, marketing or data mining, we never sell it, we never store it in iCloud and we never share it with anyone else.
Social features
- Your friends list, friend requests, congratulations, nudges and challenges.
- Live workouts: while you train, your friends can see your current exercise, set and weight.
- Snaps: view-once photos and videos you send to friends from a workout, with an optional caption.
- Programs you mark "Friends can see".
- Push notification device token (to send you friend and workout notifications).
Photos, camera and microphone
- The camera and photo library are used only when you take or pick a photo: a profile photo, a meal photo for the AI estimate, or a snap. The microphone is used only to record sound for a snap video. GymBuddy doesn't access your library in the background; the iOS photo picker gives the app only the photo you select.
Diagnostics
- Crash reports and performance data (device model, OS version, app version, the screen in use and your account ID, never your name or email) are sent to Sentry so we can fix bugs.
We don't collect your location, contacts, browsing history, advertising identifier or any data from other apps.
How we use your data
- To provide the app: your account, sync across devices, workouts, plans, nutrition tracking, reminders and the social features you choose to use.
- To calculate targets and calories (Mifflin-St Jeor formula, MET values, heart rate).
- To provide the AI features you ask for (see below).
- To keep the service secure, prevent abuse (for example daily AI limits) and fix problems.
We don't use your data for advertising, we don't build advertising profiles and we don't sell or rent it.
AI features (Google Gemini)
GymBuddy has four optional AI features: meal photo estimates, AI program creation, Review with AI and AI meal ideas. Before you use any of them for the first time, the app shows exactly what is sent and asks for your permission. Nothing is sent to the AI until you allow it, and only when you use a feature.
What each feature sends from our server to Google's Gemini API:
- Meal photo estimate: the meal photo you take or choose.
- AI program: your goals, level, place and equipment, training days, session length, notes, sex, age, height, weight and recent weight trend, and your workouts from the last 6 weeks.
- Review with AI: the program, your goals, level and weekly goal, first name, body data, your workouts from the last 6 weeks, weekly streak and custom exercises. No Apple Health data.
- AI meal ideas: your goal, the meal, the calories and protein left today and your note.
Your email address and account credentials are never sent. We use Google's paid Gemini API, under which Google processes the data to produce the answer and doesn't use it to train its models. We store the answers (the estimate, plan, review or ideas) in your account, not the photos. The AI features are available to users aged 18 and older only.
You can turn the AI features off at any time in Settings → Privacy & security. Without AI you can still enter meals and build programs yourself.
AI answers and calorie or protein targets are estimates, not medical advice. Talk to a doctor before starting a new program if you have an injury or a health condition.
Who can see your data
- Other GymBuddy users: anyone can find you by username or name and see your display name, username, avatar and profile photo. Your friends (people whose friend request you accepted) can also see your goals, level, weekly goal and progress, your workouts and records, your live workout, the programs you share and the snaps you send them. Your body data, meals, water and Apple Health data are never visible to other users.
- Profile photos are stored at a public, unguessable web address so they load quickly in the app; anyone who has that address can view the photo.
Service providers
We share data only with these providers, who process it on our behalf and are bound to protect it at least as well as this policy requires:
| Provider | Purpose | Data | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase, Inc. (on Amazon Web Services) | Database, sign-in, file storage, server functions | All account and app data above | EU (Frankfurt, Germany) |
| Google LLC (Gemini API) | AI features, only after you allow them | The data listed under "AI features" | United States and other Google locations |
| Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry) | Crash and performance reports | Diagnostics, account ID | European Union (Germany) |
| Apple Inc. | Push notifications (APNs), Apple Health on your device | Device token and notification text | Worldwide |
Some providers are outside Türkiye and the European Economic Area. When data is transferred abroad, we rely on your explicit consent where the law requires it and on the providers' standard contractual protections.
We may also disclose data if the law requires it, for example in response to a valid court order.
How long we keep data
- Your account data is kept until you delete your account.
- Snaps: the photo or video is deleted as soon as every recipient has viewed it, or 24 hours after it was sent; the remaining record (who sent it to whom, viewed or not) is deleted 7 days later.
- Daily AI usage counters are kept with your account.
- Crash reports are kept by Sentry for up to 90 days.
- After you delete your account, its data is removed from our live systems immediately. Copies in our hosting provider's encrypted backups are overwritten within 30 days.
Your choices and rights
- Delete your account: Settings → Account → Delete account. This permanently deletes your account and everything linked to it: profile, profile photo, body data, workouts, meals, water, programs, plans, custom exercises, friends and requests, congratulations, nudges, challenges, snaps you sent, push tokens and AI usage. It cannot be undone.
- AI features: turn them on or off in Settings → Privacy & security.
- Apple Health: disconnect in Settings → Apple Health, and change which data GymBuddy may read or write in the iOS Health app (Sharing → Apps → GymBuddy).
- Notifications, camera, photos and microphone: change them in iOS Settings → GymBuddy.
- Edit your data: your profile, body data, logs and programs can be edited or deleted in the app.
- Access, correction, portability, objection and complaints: depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR or Türkiye's Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698, KVKK), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your data, and to withdraw consent or object to processing. Write to support@trygymbuddy.com and we will answer within 30 days. You can also complain to your data protection authority (in Türkiye, the KVKK Authority).
Withdrawing consent doesn't affect processing that happened before.
Legal bases (GDPR / KVKK)
- Providing the app and your account: performance of our contract with you.
- Health and body data, and sending data to the AI provider or abroad: your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
- Security, abuse prevention and crash reports: our legitimate interest in a working, safe service.
Children
GymBuddy is not for children. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account, and 18 to use the AI features. If you believe a child has given us data, write to us and we will delete it.
Security
Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest by our hosting provider. Access is limited by per-user database rules, so each user can only read their own private data and what friends share with them. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password.
Changes
We will update this policy when the app or the law changes and change the date at the top. If a change affects how your data is shared, for example with the AI features, the app will ask for your permission again.
Contact
Emin Çimen · support@trygymbuddy.com