Byron is an independent game for iPhone and Android. In data-protection terms we are the data controller for the information described here. You can reach us at byron@stupidhuman.dev.
Byron is designed to work with as little personal data as possible. There is no sign-up form, because there is no account to fill in — the app creates an anonymous identity for you on first launch.
| What | Why | Leaves your phone? |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymous account ID A random identifier. Not linked to your name, email, Apple ID, Google account or device. |
So your progress survives reinstalling, and so leaderboard entries belong to someone. | Yes |
| Display name Optional, chosen by you. |
Shown next to your time on the leaderboard. | Yes — and it is public |
| Invites If you invite someone, or were invited: which two anonymous account IDs are linked, and the invite code used. No names, and nothing about either of you beyond the link itself. On Android we also read the referral tag Google Play attaches to an install that came from an invite link. On iPhone there is no such thing, so the app asks you to paste the code instead — Byron never reads your clipboard on its own; you tap Paste and iOS hands the code over. We record whether the two accounts have ever shared an IP address, as a yes or no, to spot people inventing accounts to reward themselves. The address itself is never stored. |
So the person who invited you gets their three letters, and so the reward can't be farmed. | Yes |
| Game progress Letters in your satchel, words you've made, scores, streak, daily challenge state. |
Backing up your hoard so a lost or reinstalled phone doesn't wipe it. | Yes |
| Daily word results The day, the word, how long you took, points scored. |
The daily and weekly leaderboards. | Yes — time and points are public |
| Location See below. |
Placing letters near you and confirming you reached them. | Partly |
| Motion & step count From Apple's pedometer on iPhone, and Android's step counter. |
Confirming you walked to a letter rather than spoofing your position, and the "stride bonus". | Step totals only |
| Notification token The identifier Apple or Google gives your device so a notification can reach it. |
Telling your group when someone is first to collect the day's word. Stored only if you are in a group and have allowed notifications. | Yes |
| Groups Group names, join codes, who is a member. |
Private leaderboards with friends, if you choose to make one. | Yes |
| How the game is played See below. |
Working out which parts of Byron are actually used, and whether something is broken. | Yes, for 90 days |
Byron asks for location access only while you are using the app. That is all it needs to play, and it is what you are asked for at first launch. On Android that is all Byron ever has. On iPhone it is all Byron has unless you deliberately turn on the optional feature described under Letters nearby. Byron does not build or store a continuous location history in either case.
Your live position stays on your phone. It is used to draw the map, decide which letters appear around you, and measure whether you're close enough to pick one up. We do not upload a location feed.
Two location-derived things are included in the progress backup, and we want to be straight about them:
You can revoke location access at any time — iOS Settings on iPhone, or Settings › Apps › Byron › Permissions on Android. The map stops showing letters, because it no longer knows where to put them, but the rest of the app keeps working.
On iPhone, Byron can tell you when you walk near a cluster of letters while the app is closed. That requires the location setting iOS calls “Always”, and it is the only part of Byron that needs it. The Android app does not have this feature, and does not ask for background location at all.
It is off unless you turn it on, from the Profile tab. Byron never asks for this at first launch. Switching the feature off, or setting location back to “While Using the App” in iOS Settings, removes the regions and stops it.
When it is on, Byron asks iOS to watch up to five circles about 150 metres across, centred on letter clusters near you, and to wake the app if you enter one. Your background position is not sent to us and is not stored. iOS does the watching on the device and tells Byron only that you entered one of those circles; what you see is a notification generated on your phone. At most one arrives per day, and never between 9pm and 9am.
Byron reads your step count through Apple's pedometer on iPhone, and through
Android's step counter (the ACTIVITY_RECOGNITION permission) on Android.
Steps are checked on your phone; what gets backed up is the number of steps banked
against each letter and your running totals, not a movement history. Declining motion
access doesn't lock you out; it just removes the walking check. Step rewards come from
the phone's own pedometer rather than from Apple Health or Health Connect — those are
read only by Activity, and only if you allow it.
If you use Byron on an Apple Watch, it asks for Apple Health access the first time you start a walk. It saves each walk to Health as a walking workout, and reads your steps and walking distance only while that workout is recording.
Byron is a walking game, and in winter a lot of people stop walking and go to the gym instead. The Activity screen exists so that still counts: it reads the exercise your watch or phone has already recorded and turns the effort into letters for the daily word. It is marked beta in the app, and on Android it is only in test builds.
On iPhone this reads Apple Health; on Android it reads Health Connect. In both cases it asks first, and it reads only these, and only for the day you are playing:
None of it leaves your phone. The scoring happens on the device, and the only thing saved or backed up is the letters it awarded — never a heart rate, a workout, or anything else from Health. We never see it, and it is not part of the record described in How we see the game being played.
You can decline, and the rest of the game is unaffected — you just earn letters by walking instead. You can withdraw access at any time in Apple Health or Health Connect, and Byron will simply stop finding sessions. Letters already earned are yours and stay in your satchel.
Byron keeps a record of how the game is used: the app being opened, a letter being collected (and whether the collect succeeded), a word being submitted, the daily word being solved, a group being made or joined, a reminder being tapped, the route planner being opened. Each record has the time, which phone type it came from, and the app version.
We added this because we were guessing. Byron had no measurement of any kind, which meant we could not tell the difference between a feature nobody wanted and a feature that was quietly broken.
What these records never contain:
It is entirely first-party: our own app writing to our own database. No advertising network, no analytics company, no third-party code is involved, and none of it is shared or sold. It is tied to your anonymous account id, which is how we can hand it to you or delete it on request.
The detailed records are deleted after 90 days, automatically. What remains after that is a daily count — how many times each thing happened, and how many people did it — which is not connected to any individual account.
Byron's backend runs on Supabase,
hosted in Ireland (AWS eu-west-1). Supabase processes data on our
instructions as our service provider. Data is encrypted in transit.
Public: your display name, and your daily completion times and points, on the leaderboards. Pick a nickname rather than your full name if you'd rather not be identifiable. The all-time board is also published on this website, at byron-word-walkies.vercel.app/leaderboard.html, where anyone can read it without the app — display name, lifetime points and how many daily words you've finished. Your account ID is not shown there, and neither is anything else.
Private to you: everything else — your satchel, your progress, your streak, and the location-derived data described above. Other players cannot read it, and database access rules enforce that rather than relying on the app to behave.
Your groups: if you join a group, its members can see your display name and your scores on that group's board.
Open Byron, go to the Profile tab, scroll to the bottom and tap Delete account. After you confirm, we permanently delete your account, your satchel, your progress, your leaderboard results and your group memberships from our servers, and wipe the copy on your phone. It happens immediately and cannot be undone. Nothing is retained in a "deleted" state and there is no grace period.
If a group you created still has other members in it, the group itself survives so their board keeps working — but your membership and name are removed from it. Empty groups are deleted outright.
Simply deleting the app from your phone does not delete the server-side backup, so use the in-app button if that's what you want. If you've already removed the app, use the delete your data page and we'll do it for you.
Your progress is kept for as long as you keep playing, so that it's there when you come back. Accounts that have been inactive for over two years are deleted. You can delete yours sooner at any time, as above.
The gameplay records described in How we see the game being played are deleted after 90 days. Deleting your account removes them immediately, along with everything else.
Byron is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. Byron involves walking outdoors — if a child does play, a parent or guardian should decide whether that's appropriate and supervise it. If you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we'll delete it.
If you're in the UK or EU, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict and port your data, and to object to how it's processed. Deletion is built into the app; for anything else, email us. Being anonymous cuts both ways, though: there is no email address or name on file for us to look you up by, and the app doesn't show you an account ID either. So tell us what you can — your display name, any group you were in, roughly when you played — which is what the delete your data page asks for, and what we'd need for any of the other rights too. You can also complain to your local data protection authority — in the UK, the ICO.
We process this data to provide the game you asked for (contract) and to keep the leaderboards honest (legitimate interests).
If we change how Byron handles your data, we'll update this page and the date at the top. Material changes will be announced in the app.
Questions, requests, or anything that looks wrong here: byron@stupidhuman.dev.