Privacy notice
The short version
Regulars helps you get to know the people you keep seeing at your gym, class or park. To do that, we need to know where you check in and what you do there. Here's what that means for your data.
What we collect: your first name and photo, where and what you check in to, your mode, your challenge results, and the people you connect with. If you choose, we also keep who you trained with (once you've both confirmed), your gender, industries and interests, and we read some health data on your phone.
What we never do:
- Show anyone your exact check-in times
- Store your location. We save the place you checked in to, never where you are
- Show your name or photo to anyone until you've both said yes
- Tell anyone you said no
- Upload your health data. It stays on your phone; we only receive how many active minutes each session had, which we turn into points
- Sell or share your personal data, or use it for advertising
- Let anyone pay to influence who you're suggested
- Show your gender to anyone
You're in control: you can change what people see, remove the information behind your suggestions, pause suggestions, block anyone, download your data or delete your account at any time in Settings.
The full details are below.
Who we are
Regulars is run by Regulars Life Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number [number]), at [registered address]. We're the controller of your personal data, which means we decide how it's used and we're responsible for looking after it. We're registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (registration number [number]).
Our Data Protection Officer is Glenn [surname]. For any question about your data, email [email protected] or write to us at the address above.
What we collect and how we use it
We only collect what each feature needs. The law requires us to tell you our reason ("lawful basis") for each use.
| What | Why we use it | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account details: first name, and your Apple or Google sign-in ID and email | To create and secure your account | Contract (providing the service you signed up for) |
| Your confirmation that you're 18 or over, and when you gave it | To keep Regulars for adults only | Contract |
| Profile: photo, the activities you do, your usual gym, your weekly goal | To set up your experience and show your photo once you and someone else have both said yes | Contract |
| Check-ins: the place (a gym, or outdoors such as a beach or harbour), the class or activity (or "Just here" if you're there without training), when you arrived and left, and whether you were open to chat. A home workout is a check-in with no place: we keep the activity and when it started and ended, and nothing about where you are | To run check-ins, busy times, challenges, points and suggestions | Contract |
| Your location when you check in | To find places near you and suggest the one you're at. Your phone sends it to our server for that search only, and it's never saved | Contract |
| Your mode (Noise cancelling, Adaptive, Open to chat) | To let your connections and friends at the same place know if you're happy to chat. Your current mode is cleared when you leave | Contract |
| Busy times: which hours of the week you've been at a place, and whether you were open to chat | To show busy times only once five different people have been there at that hour, so nobody can be picked out. Never shown to anyone | Contract |
| Patterns we work out, such as "morning trainer" or "dog walker" | To suggest people whose routines overlap with yours. You can see and remove these in My data | Contract |
| Suggestions, connections, friends, nods and blocks | To introduce you to people and keep you in control of who you're connected with | Contract |
| Challenge results, points and badges | To run challenges and the game | Contract |
| "How's it going with…?" answers, two weeks and two months after you connect | To learn whether introductions work, using totals only. Only you see your answer | Contract |
| Here with: who you were with at a session, if you both confirmed | To show you and the people you were with that you trained together, and to count it towards points and suggestions. See "Here with" below | Contract |
| Your location when you accept a Here with request | To check you're at the place, so it counts as a full check-in. It's never saved | Contract |
| Gender, if you choose to give it | Only to apply someone's choice of Women only or Men only for their suggestions, both ways. Never shown to anyone | Contract |
| Who you'd like to be suggested (Anyone, Women only, Men only) | To suggest you only to people who fit your choice, and only to people whose choice fits you | Contract |
| Industries and interests, if you choose to add them | To decide who comes first among people with similar routines, and to give you something to talk about. See "Things you'd happily chat about" below | Contract |
| Reports you make, and reports about you | To keep people safe | Legitimate interests (keeping our community safe) |
| Your device's notification token and platform (iPhone or Android), and the notifications we've sent you | To send the notifications you've turned on | Legitimate interests (running the service) |
| Health data, if you choose to connect it | See "Your health data" below | Your explicit consent |
You can turn off suggestions at any time in Settings.
How suggestions work
Suggestions start with your routine. We only suggest someone you've already been at the same place with on several days, across at least two different weeks. Days count for more when they're more specific: the same small class counts more than just being in the same building. Things in common away from training, like an industry or an interest, never create a suggestion on their own. They only help decide who comes first when several people's routines overlap with yours about as much.
Every suggestion tells you what you have in common. We never show percentages or scores. To keep things fair, each person is suggested to only a few people a week, and a suggestion is only made if it would be offered to both of you. During the pilot, we use lower starting figures at the pilot gym so there's enough to test; this never changes any privacy or safety rule. We publish how suggestions work in plain English on our website, under How suggestions work, with the figures we use and the date of every change.
We don't use your data to make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you: suggestions are only suggestions, and nothing happens unless you both say yes.
Your health data
Connecting health data is optional, and Regulars works fully without it. We only read it if you give your explicit consent on its own screen, separate from signing up.
If you choose to connect Apple Health or Health Connect, Regulars reads your heart rate and resting heart rate on your phone, for the times you're checked in. We plan to add workouts, steps and distance, to show in your session summary; we'll ask your permission before reading them. We use your health data only to work out your effort points and show your own session summary.
Your health data stays on your phone. All we receive is how many moderate and vigorous minutes each session had, which we turn into points and don't keep. We never use it for advertising or share it with anyone. You can disconnect at any time in Settings, and we'll stop reading it straight away.
Without health data, effort points are estimated from what you did and for how long.
Regulars works the same whether you check in on your phone or your watch: it's one session, and checking out on either ends it on both. If you use Regulars on an Apple Watch or a Wear OS watch, the watch measures your heart rate (and distance, for activities that move) while you're checked in, to show your heart rate zone and active minutes during your session. This is worked out on your watch; as on the phone, all we receive is moderate and vigorous minutes. Your phone shares your sign-in, birth year and resting heart rate with your watch so it can do this; they pass only between your own devices.
If you give us your birth year, we use it on your phone to estimate your maximum heart rate for effort points. It isn't sent to our servers.
If you check in on an Apple Watch, the session is saved to Apple Health as a workout, so it counts towards your rings and appears alongside your other workouts. That is the only thing Regulars writes to your health data. If you check in on a Wear OS watch and allow it in Health Connect, the session is saved to Health Connect on your phone as a workout, with its heart rate and distance. The watch passes it to your phone directly; it never comes to us. We never show your health data to other people. Others may see your points or badges only if your visibility settings allow it.
Health data is "special category" data under UK data protection law. Our lawful basis is your consent, and the condition for health data is your explicit consent. You can withdraw it at any time without affecting the rest of the app.
Here with
After you check in, you can add connections or friends who are with you. Nobody else can be added. Nothing is recorded for the person you add until they confirm. If they don't answer within 6 hours, the request quietly expires, and if they decline, you're never told. The notification they get doesn't say who added them.
If you turn on "Let friends check me in" (it's off unless you choose it), a friend's request is accepted for you. When you accept, your phone checks you're at the place; we use your location for that check only and never save it.
A session together is shown only to the people in it, and in friends' activity only to people who are friends with both of you. At outdoor places it's never shown at the place.
Things you'd happily chat about
You can add up to three industries (now or before) and up to five interests. Both are optional and you can remove them at any time. We only ask about industries, never your job title or company. Interests come from our own list, which leaves out anything about religion, politics, identity, health, unions or beliefs, and you can't type your own.
They're never shown on your profile. On a suggestion, an industry is named only if at least five regulars at that place share it; otherwise the card says "Something in common away from training", and you'll see what it is once you've both said yes. They're never combined with a time of day.
Your gender and who you'd like to be suggested
Giving your gender is optional (Woman, Man, Non-binary or Prefer not to say). We only use it if someone chooses Women only or Men only for their suggestions, both ways, and nobody ever sees it. If you don't give it, you're only suggested to people who chose Anyone. You can change or clear it in Settings at any time.
What other people can see
What others see depends on how you know them. Nobody, including instructors and gyms, can see more than this.
| Who | What they can see |
|---|---|
| Anyone at the same place | How many people are there and how many are open to chat, as totals, while you're both checked in. Busy times as totals only, never individuals |
| Your connections and friends at the same place | That you're there, and your mode if you've chosen to show it |
| Anyone at an outdoor place (a beach, harbour or the canal) | Only totals, and only once 10 or more people are there. Nobody is shown individually outdoors, not even to connections and friends |
| Someone suggested to you | Things you have in common, described generally. An industry only if at least five regulars at the place share it. Never your name, photo, gender or exact times |
| A connection (you both said yes and met) | Your first name, photo and the classes or sessions you share, including that you were there at the same time and any Here with sessions you were both in. Badges and level only if you choose |
| A friend | The activities and badges you choose to share. Never exact times |
| Class leaderboards | Your name and improvement, only if you opt in |
| Instructors | Who took part in their own challenges. Nothing else |
| Our team | Only two of us can use our admin tools, every action is logged, and your privacy settings apply to us too. If someone reports a concern, we see what the report says and how many different people have reported that person, and for what. We never see who made a report, and nothing else about either person |
If you report someone, we act on patterns rather than judging who's right, because there are no messages to look at. If a report is serious (harassment, or someone following you or turning up where you are), or two different people report the same person, we stop suggesting them to anyone straight away while we look. We may then close their account. They're never told who reported them.
We never tell anyone you declined a suggestion, didn't accept a friend request, or blocked them. Notifications that appear on your Lock Screen never name other people.
Our website
We count visits to our website with Umami, which we run ourselves. It uses no cookies, stores nothing on your device, doesn't collect personal information and doesn't follow you to other websites. It tells us things like how many people visited a page and which link or poster brought them there. If you'd rather not be counted, [how to opt out, to confirm with Will].
Who we share it with
We don't sell your data or share it for advertising. We use a small number of trusted providers to run Regulars, under contracts that only let them use your data on our instructions.
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Our database, sign-in, photo storage, scheduled jobs and notifications | Ireland (EU) |
| Apple and Google | Sign-in, app notifications, and the health platforms on your phone | Under their own privacy terms |
| [Email or crash reporting provider] | [To confirm] | [To confirm] |
What we'll never do
These are promises about how Regulars makes money, now and later:
- No advertising
- We never sell your personal data or share it for anyone else's purposes
- Nobody can pay to change who you're suggested or who's suggested to you
- Safety tools and connecting with people are never behind a paywall
- Your health data is never used for anything commercial
We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or if the business is sold, in which case the new owner must protect it in the same way.
International transfers: your data is stored in Ireland, in the EU. UK law recognises the EU as protecting personal data adequately, so no extra safeguards are needed for that. If any provider processes it anywhere else, we make sure it's protected by a UK adequacy decision or the UK's approved contract terms (the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum).
How long we keep it
We keep data only as long as we need it, and delete it automatically.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Check-in details | 28 days, then reduced to the patterns behind your suggestions and anonymous busy-time totals |
| How often you and others are at the same place | Until 90 days after you were last there together |
| Which hours you've been counted in for busy times | 26 weeks after your last visit at that hour |
| Suggestions that weren't accepted | 90 days, then deleted. We don't suggest the same two people again within that time |
| Friend requests that weren't accepted | 30 days after they expire |
| Your friends' activity feed | 90 days |
| Your mode | Your current mode is cleared when you leave. Each check-in keeps whether you were open to chat for 28 days, and busy times for 26 weeks, as above |
| Session history and points | 1 year; after that, older points are kept only as a total |
| Patterns, badges, connections and friends | While your account is open |
| Safety reports | 12 months after they're resolved, unless needed for a legal claim. Kept if either person deletes their account, so a pattern can still be seen |
| Whether your suggestions are paused or your account closed after reports | Until we lift it, or you delete your account |
| Here with requests | Requests that aren't answered expire after 6 hours. [TBC: unanswered or declined requests deleted 30 days later; confirmed sessions kept with your session history, 1 year] |
| "How's it going" answers | While you're connected [TBC: and at most 1 year] |
| Gender, who you'd like to be suggested, industries and interests | Until you remove them or delete your account |
| Notifications we've sent you | 30 days |
| Technical logs | [TBC: confirm with our hosting plan] |
| Everything else, after you delete your account | Deleted straight away, and removed from backups within [TBC: backup period] |
Health data isn't kept by us at all: it stays on your phone.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- See the data we hold about you
- Correct anything that's wrong
- Delete your data
- Restrict how we use it
- Take it with you in a portable format
- Object to uses based on our legitimate interests
- Withdraw consent at any time, for example by disconnecting health data
Many of these are built into the app: My data, export, delete account, pause suggestions and disconnect health data are all in Settings, and you can clear your gender, industries and interests there too. Your download includes your Here with sessions, "How's it going" answers, gender, suggestion choice, industries and interests. For anything else, email [email protected]. We'll reply within one month.
Age limit
Regulars is for adults aged 18 and over, and we ask you to confirm this when you sign up. If we learn someone under 18 has an account, we'll close it and delete their data.
Security
Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest, access is limited to what each part of the service needs, and photos are only shared through short-lived, private links after a mutual yes.
Changes to this notice
If we make important changes, we'll tell you in the app before they take effect.
Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first at [email protected]. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.