Effective August 21, 2026 · Updated September 24, 2026 · Wickd Smart LLC
The short version: your walk location is collected during a walk you start and shared with your household and the lookouts you personally invite. Tapping the locate button takes one fix to set your home zone, which only you can read, or a saved place, which your household can read. Lookouts see neither location, though a walk that stops at a saved place tells them its name. Deleting your account deletes your account and what is attached to it. A household you shared with other people keeps its saved places and its completed walks, but the walks you took lose your name and their routes. Your data is never sold and never used for advertising.
Walka Talka is a location app. While you are on a walk, your location, your name, your dogs' names and your phone's battery level are sent to Walka Talka's servers and shown to your household and the lookouts you invited.
The people watching your walks (the app calls them lookouts) are recorded against your account and are visible only to you. Members of your household cannot see your lookout list, and lookouts of the same person cannot see each other. You can see who has access to your walks, and nobody else can see that list.
Either side can end a lookout connection at any time, from their own device, without the other's permission.
An account holds your display name and your email address (or the private relay address Apple provides if you use Sign in with Apple). They identify you to the people you share with, sign you in, and associate feedback you send with your account.
If you allow notifications or Live Activities, Walka Talka stores delivery tokens so it can send walk alerts and update your Lock Screen walk card. Other users cannot read these tokens. A Live Activity registration belongs to the current walk and is deleted when the server closes that walk; device notification tokens are deleted with your account. When the Lock Screen card is not available on your phone, the check-in question arrives as a notification instead. Alert content can include your name, your dog's name, and walk details, so choose your lookouts accordingly.
The first time it needs one, the app makes up a random identifier and keeps it on your phone. It is not your device's advertising identifier or any ID from Apple, and reinstalling the app replaces it. Walka Talka's servers receive it when a walk starts, with each location update and when the walk ends, so that only the phone you tapped Start on can add to that walk. If you are signed in on a second device, that device does not add its location to the walk unless you tap Start on it. While a walk is live, a short code worked out from that identifier and that walk is stored with the walk, where the apps of your household and your lookouts can read it. The code is different on every walk and is deleted with the live walk data when the walk ends. Other users cannot read the identifier itself.
Your dogs' names, breeds and photos are stored with your household and shared with its members. Photos are resized on your device before being saved.
If you send feedback from Settings, Walka Talka receives what you type plus your account id, the email address on your account, and your app version, build, device model and OS version. Text only, and the form does not accept attachments. Feedback you send is deleted when you delete your account.
Walka Talka runs on Google Firebase (Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Messaging and App Check), which stores and transmits the data described above under Google's privacy terms. Your data is stored in Google Firebase (Firestore) in the United States. Push notifications are delivered through Apple Push Notification service. Crash reports go to Firebase Crashlytics. Maps are drawn by Apple MapKit on your device. Google and Apple are the companies that handle your data for Walka Talka. Each does so under its own published data-protection terms, and I rely on those terms to give your data the same protection this policy promises.
If you sign in with Google, Google receives the sign-in request and returns your name and email address. Google also processes authentication information (including a phone number if you use one in its sign-in flow), identifiers, usage information, and approximate location derived from IP addresses, for authentication, security and its own service analytics, under Google's privacy terms. Walka Talka does not receive your phone number from Google Sign-In.
The Firebase and Google Sign-In SDKs also process technical diagnostics and usage information to run and improve Google's own services. Walka Talka does not include the Firebase Analytics SDK.
There is no advertising SDK and no third-party tracker in this app. It does not use the App Tracking Transparency framework, because it does not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and it never sells or shares personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
A finished walk stays in your household's log for as long as the household exists. The app has no way to delete a single walk; the log goes when the household does, which is when its last member deletes their account. Live walk data, the second-by-second breadcrumb, is deleted outright when the walk ends, and only the compacted route in the walk's log entry survives. Unredeemed invites expire after seven days and are swept.
Two streams are kept for as long as the account exists and are deleted with it. Walk events are the one-line records behind each notification (that a walk started, that a check-in went unanswered, that a walk ended), and they carry your name, your dogs' names and the walk they belong to. Feedback is whatever you typed in the Settings form, with the account id and email address described above.
Settings → Account → Delete account removes your account and sign-in, your display name and email address, your home location, your push tokens, your lookout lists in both directions, any invites you sent, the walk events described above, and the feedback you sent. Any walk still running is ended first.
What happens to the household depends on who else is in it. If you are its last member, the household, its dogs, its favorite places and its whole walk log go with you. If other members remain, the household stays with them: it keeps its saved places and its completed walks. The walks you took stay in the log so the dogs' history still adds up, but your name and account are removed from them, they are shown as walks by a former member, and their routes and the places they stopped at are deleted.
Watching someone, or being watched, is a grant, not ownership. Deleting your account ends those grants in both directions. It does not delete the other person's household, their dogs or their walk log.
Walka Talka is not directed at children under 13, and I do not knowingly collect their information.
You can view your data in the app, correct it in Settings, and delete your account from Settings → Account → Delete account, with the shared-household retention described above. If you would rather I did it, or you want a copy, email privacy@wickdsmart.com.
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this address. Questions: privacy@wickdsmart.com, or use the in-app feedback form (Settings → Send feedback).