01Who we are
Wanderful is a GPS-guided walking app made by Stephen Larke, operating as Wanderful (CVR 46604113), a sole proprietorship registered in Denmark. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.
Questions, requests, or concerns about your data can be sent to steve@wanderfulaudio.com at any time — a real person reads and replies to this address.
02The short version
Wanderful is built to need as little about you as possible. In short:
- Your location is used on your own device to figure out which part of the city you're in — it is not sent to our servers as raw coordinates.
- We don't run ads, don't use ad-tracking SDKs, and don't sell your data to anyone, ever.
- On Android there is no sign-in at all. On iOS, signing in is optional and only shares an anonymous identifier from Apple — not your name or email.
- Purchases go through Apple or Google directly. We never see your card details.
- If you have signed in on iOS, you can delete your account and everything tied to it at any time from within the app.
The sections below go into the actual detail, as required by law and as we think you deserve.
03Your location
Wanderful's core feature is triggering a story when you walk into a place that has one — that requires your device's GPS location while a walk is active.
This location processing happens on your device. The app compares your live coordinates against the boundaries of nearby zones to decide what to play; your precise coordinates are not transmitted to or stored on Wanderful's servers. What we do record, for the usage-analytics purposes described in Section 7, is the name of a zone you've triggered (e.g. "Nyhavn," not a latitude/longitude) and, at the end of a walk, the total distance you covered in metres — a single rounded number calculated on your device, not a path or a set of coordinates.
Location access is requested through your phone's standard system permission prompt. You can decline it, though the app's core walking experience will not function without it. You can revoke location access at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → Wanderful, or on Android in Settings → Apps → Wanderful → Permissions → Location.
While a walk is running. Wanderful keeps reading your location for as long as a walk is active, so a story can still start while your phone is locked or in your pocket. On Android this runs as a foreground service, which means a Wanderful notification stays visible the whole time the walk is running — that notification is how you can always tell location is in use, and ending the walk stops both. On iOS the same thing is done by granting location access "Always"; without it, walks still work while the app is open on screen. Wanderful never reads your location when no walk is running.
04Your account
On Android, Wanderful has no accounts and no sign-in. Nothing identifies you to us. What you've bought is remembered against the purchase itself (see Section 5), not against a person, so there is no profile to build, no account to delete, and nothing here that applies to you.
The rest of this section is about iOS only.
On iOS, Wanderful offers Sign in with Apple. It is optional — you can buy a city and use the app without it. When you do sign in, Apple shares a stable, anonymous identifier with us — not your Apple ID email address or your real name. The app doesn't request either of those from Apple.
That identifier is used to:
- Track how many free walks you have used, so we can offer a fair trial before asking you to buy a city.
- Remember which cities you've purchased, so a "buy once, own forever" unlock actually persists across devices and reinstalls.
This data is stored on our infrastructure (see Section 8) linked only to that anonymous identifier — never to your real name or contact details unless you've provided them to us directly (for example, by emailing us).
You can delete your account from within the app at any time, which permanently removes your session and entitlement records tied to that identifier.
05Purchases
City unlocks are sold as in-app purchases, processed entirely by Apple through the App Store on iOS and by Google through Google Play on Android. Wanderful never sees or stores your payment card details — that information stays with Apple or Google, governed by their own privacy policies.
To confirm a purchase and unlock the right content, our server checks it with the relevant store — verifying a cryptographically signed receipt from Apple, or checking the purchase token with Google Play — and stores a purchase reference number. This is used only to prevent the same purchase being redeemed twice, and to restore your purchase if you reinstall the app or switch devices.
On Android, and on iOS if you haven't signed in, that reference number is stored on its own, with nothing identifying you attached to it. On iOS, if you are signed in, it's also linked to your anonymous account identifier so the unlock follows you across devices.
Partner referrals. Some local businesses, such as tour guides and rental companies, recommend Wanderful through their own link or QR code. If you open one of those links, the page copies the partner's short code to your clipboard, and the first time you open the app it checks the clipboard once for a code of that shape (iOS may ask you to allow this). The code stays on your device and is sent with your purchase, so we can record which partner referred it and pay them a commission. We store the partner code with the purchase reference number, price and App Store country; if you're signed in, it's also linked to your anonymous account identifier. Partners never see who you are.
06Apple Music & other music sources
Wanderful plays music from several sources while you walk. Most of these — royalty-free tracks, independent local artists, and ambient soundscapes — are streamed from our own hosting and involve no personal data beyond the standard technical logs described in Section 8.
Apple Music is an iOS-only feature; it does not exist in the Android app. If you choose to connect Apple Music, that access is governed entirely by Apple's own MusicKit authorization, which you grant and can revoke directly through iOS. Wanderful does not copy, store, or retain your Apple Music library or playlist contents on our own servers — playback is requested from Apple's catalog in real time.
07Usage analytics
We use a small amount of anonymous, aggregated analytics to understand how the app is actually used — which zones people visit, whether narration is completed or skipped, how walks begin and end — so we can fix what doesn't work and improve what does.
This data is processed by Mixpanel, on servers within the European Union. It is used only to improve Wanderful — never sold, and never used for advertising.
Separately, if you listen to a Copenhagen Artists track, a second, unrelated identifier is involved:
This identifier, together with which artist and track was played, is sent to our own infrastructure (see Section 8) and used only to produce the aggregate reports our music-licensing obligations require. It is never sold, never used for advertising, and never shared with Mixpanel.
08How your data is hosted and delivered
Wanderful's narration and music are streamed on demand from Cloudflare's infrastructure, and account/entitlement records are stored in Cloudflare's database services. Like any internet service, this involves standard technical logs (such as IP address and request timestamps) generated automatically as part of normal server operation — this is infrastructure-level logging, not something Wanderful actively collects or reviews about you individually.
Wanderful's narration scripts are converted to spoken audio using ElevenLabs' text-to-speech service during content production, before the app is ever used — this process does not involve your personal data at all.
10How long we keep data
Because Wanderful's city unlocks are sold as one-time, permanent purchases, we keep entitlement records (which cities were bought) for as long as they're needed to honour that purchase, so "own it forever" actually means forever. Where a record is tied to an iOS account identifier, deleting your account in the app removes it permanently. Records held against a purchase alone — every Android purchase, and signed-out iOS purchases — aren't linked to a person, so there is nothing in them to identify or delete.
Anonymous usage analytics are retained according to Mixpanel's standard data retention settings, and are not linked back to your identity.
Partner referral records (partner code, purchase reference, price and App Store country) are kept for as long as we need them to calculate, pay and account for partner commission, including the period Danish bookkeeping rules require.
11Your rights
If you're in the European Economic Area, the UK, or anywhere else the GDPR or a similar law applies, you have the following rights over your data. To exercise any of them, email steve@wanderfulaudio.com.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with Denmark's data protection authority:
Datatilsynet (The Danish Data Protection Agency)
Carl Jacobsens Vej 35, 2500 Valby, Denmark
datatilsynet.dk
12Children
Wanderful is a general-audience travel app and is not directed at children. We don't knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we'll remove it.
13Changes to this policy
If we make a material change to how Wanderful handles your data, we'll update the effective date above and, where the change is significant, let you know inside the app. We'd encourage checking back here occasionally regardless.