Privacy

The short version: we keep only what RunFast needs to work for you: your account, the runs and races you save, your clubs, the emails you ask for, and, only while you’re live on race day, where you are. You choose who can follow you, the positions your phone sends are deleted after 7 days, and we don’t sell any of it or share it for advertising. You can delete all of it yourself, at any time.

Questions go to hello@runfast.tech.

Your RunFast account

If you create an account (at runfast.tech/app or in the RunFast app), we keep your name, your email address, how you sign in (Apple, Google, or your email and password), your units and when you joined. Your password is held by Google Firebase Authentication and we never see it. If you use Hide My Email with Apple, we only see the address Apple gives us. To confirm a new email address we send a 6-digit code, which works for 10 minutes.

Your runs and races

We keep the runs and races you save: each route, its name, whether it’s a casual run or a race, when you run it, the start or gun time, your pace, whether you want its forecast by email, and any start place or notes you add. For a race we also keep your goal time, your own words (up to 60 characters), your choices for Live tracking and Findable by anyone, and your finish time if you went live. A run’s link (runfast.tech/r/…) shows that run’s route and weather to anyone you share it with. Routes and runs you bring in from Strava stay private to you. One-off runs and races move to Past the day after; they’re kept until you delete them or your account.

Clubs

When you join a club, its managers see your name. When you say you’re in for a club run or race, the club’s members see your name and photo on it, and everyone who opens the club’s page sees how many are running (a number, not names). You get its forecast by email the evening before; every email has a one-tap link to stop it. Club runs and races a manager adds belong to the club. If you ask us to add your club, we keep your email address and what you tell us about the club, so we can set it up and reply.

Live tracking

RunFast knows where you are only when you’ve turned on Live tracking for a race and tapped Start live tracking in the RunFast app (iPhone or Android). The website never sends your position, and a casual run has no live tracking.

What’s collected while you’re live: your phone’s position (where you are, when, and how accurate the reading is), sent about every 30 seconds. Readings that are too inaccurate are dropped. It stops when you tap Stop, when you reach the finish, or by itself 3 hours after your planned finish.
How long it’s kept: the positions your phone sends are deleted 7 days after they’re sent. To show your race to your followers we keep the line you ran and your last position for 30 days after you stop; then only a summary stays (your distance, times and finish, for your finish time against your goal in Past). The summary is deleted with your account.
Your link: anyone with your follow link (runfast.tech/f/…) can follow you, in a browser or the app, with no account. They see your name and photo, the race, your goal and your words before the gun; while you’re live, where you are, the line you’ve run, your pace, when you’ll finish and how you’re doing against your goal; and your time at the finish, for 6 hours after. You can reset your link at any time in the app (You → Followers), and the old one stops working.
Findable by anyone (off unless you switch it on, for each race): anyone can find you by your name and follow you, and you’re on the live map of your club’s races you’re in, which anyone can open without signing in.
Your followers in the app: people who follow you in the RunFast app are listed under You → Followers, where you can remove them, and accept or decline anyone who asks to follow you.
Races private to you (ones you brought in from Strava): your first and last kilometre are never shown, and your share picture leaves the course off.
Followers never get your email address or phone number. Your positions are never used for anything else: not for analytics, not for advertising, and never sold.

Following someone

In a browser: the runners you follow are remembered in your browser’s storage, on that device. The page asks RunFast for those runners’ positions; nothing about you is kept.
In the app, without an account: the app makes a random code for your phone. We keep only a scrambled version of it, the runners you follow and your alert choices, and, if you turn on alerts, your phone’s notification token. The runner sees “Someone with your link”, never your name. It’s kept until you stop following, the runner removes you or resets their link, or you sign in, when it moves to your account.
With an account: the runners you follow and your alert choices are kept with your account, and the runners you follow see your name and photo in their Followers list.

Your share picture

When you turn on Live tracking for a race, RunFast makes your share pictures (a tall one for Stories and Status, and a smaller one for link previews) from your photo or initials, your name, the race’s name, date and gun time, your goal, your own words and the race’s course (left off on races private to you). Anyone with your follow link can see them, and apps such as WhatsApp show the smaller one when your link is shared.

Your profile photo

If you add a photo, we keep a small square copy. It shows next to your name to your clubs’ members, to the people following you and on live maps, in name searches when you’re Findable by anyone, and on your share picture. It’s served from a web address so these pages can show it; after you remove it, it can take up to a day to disappear everywhere. It’s deleted with your account.

The apps

Notifications: if you allow them, the app registers your phone’s notification token (from Apple or Google, through Firebase Cloud Messaging), with the kind of phone, the app’s version and your time zone. We use it only to send the alerts you chose: when a runner you follow starts, reaches halfway and finishes, and when someone asks to follow you. We keep tokens for up to 5 phones per account, and delete them when a phone says they’re no longer valid, or with your account.
Location: only while you’re live (see Live tracking). On iPhone, RunFast asks for “While Using” only, never “Always”. On Android, a notification shows whenever you’re live.
Photos: the apps open your photos only when you choose a profile photo, or to save your share picture when you ask.
Settings: your units are saved to your account; light or dark is kept on your phone.
The apps don’t count how you use them, and don’t use advertising identifiers.

If you connect Strava

From your account (Account → Connected apps on the web, or You → Strava in the app) you can connect Strava. RunFast then reads your Strava name and country (to choose your units), your Strava routes and your recent runs, so you can pick one to bring in. The route of one you bring in becomes your run; nothing else from Strava is kept with it. For each new run you upload, RunFast reads its type, times and GPS points to work out the weather you ran in, writes one short summary at the end of the run’s description, and keeps nothing about the run afterwards apart from a count. If you join The RunFast 200 (below), it also keeps each run’s distance, moving time and day from 16 to 31 December, to count your kilometres. RunFast shares its Strava app with its sister product Windline (Strava’s screen says “Windline / RunFast”), so the connection itself (the tokens Strava gives) is kept by Windline’s server (windline.tech), which writes only on your runs for RunFast, and on your rides only if you connected Windline too. It’s kept until you disconnect. Routes and runs you bring in from Strava stay private to you: never shown on a club’s page or to anyone else. Your Strava data is never sold or used to train AI. Disconnect any time in RunFast or in Strava (Settings → My Apps), and the connection is deleted straight away.

The RunFast 200 by ProLend

If you join The RunFast 200 (run 200 km from 16 to 31 December), RunFast counts your kilometres from the runs you upload to Strava: for each run in those dates, its distance, moving time and day, nothing about its route. You see your own total; nobody else does. Your total and a line like “The RunFast 200 by ProLend: 140 / 200 km” go on your own runs on Strava. If you finish, your finisher card shows your name, photo, kilometres and runs, at an address only you get. Each run’s row is deleted 90 days after the challenge ends; your total stays with your account.

A tap on the back

While you’re live, people following you can give you a tap on the back. If they’re signed in, you see their first name and the first letter of their surname (“Thandi M.”); if not, they’re counted but not named. We keep the count on your live run, and each named tapper with how many times and when they tapped, until the line you ran is trimmed (30 days). Only you can see that list. That someone has just tapped (so it’s one a minute each) is kept for an hour at most. You can turn taps on the back off in You → Taps on the back.

Reporting and blocking

You can report a runner, a club or a run you find offensive, from the web or the app, signed in or not. We keep the report: what it was about, why, your note, the kind of device and browser you sent it from (“Chrome on iPhone”), and your account if you were signed in. A person looks at it within 24 hours, by email to our support inbox. We keep reports for a year, so repeated problems can be seen, then delete them. If you delete your account, the reports you made stay, no longer linked to your account.

You can block anyone who follows you or gives you a tap on the back. They stop following you, they can’t follow you again from that account or phone, and their taps don’t reach you. If they followed you by your link, choose Reset your link too: the old link stops working for everyone who only had the link, and you share the new one. If you’re Findable by anyone, people can still find you by name on a race map, so turn that off too. We keep who you’ve blocked until you unblock them or delete your account.

A runner’s own words on a race are checked for slurs and abuse when they’re typed. Clubs are looked after by their managers.

The free route tool

The route file you drop into Map your run is read in your browser and never uploaded or kept, unless you save it to your runs (above) or ask for the forecast by email (below). To get the forecast, the tool sends points along the route (about one every kilometre and a half, rounded to roughly 10 metres) and the day to the forecast service RunFast shares with its sister product, Windline (windline.tech), which asks Apple Weather. Those points aren’t linked to you, and nothing else about you is sent.

The forecast by email

For your saved runs and races with “Email me its forecast the evening before” on, and for club runs and races you’re in, we email the forecast at 18:00 where it’s run, to your confirmed email address. If you ask Map your run to email you the final forecast, we keep your email address, your run’s name, its route (a simplified line of points), the start time, time zone, pace, units and its link, so we can work out the forecast and send it. For a single run we send it the evening before and two hours before the start, then delete everything two days after the run. For a weekly run we send it the evening before each run until you stop it. Every email has a one-tap link that stops it (for Map your run, it also deletes the run straight away). The emails are sent through Resend, and Map your run’s runs are kept by our sister product Windline (windline.tech), which works out the forecast with Apple Weather. Your email is never used for anything else.

If you contact support

When you send a request through the help center or email us, we keep your name, email address, your message, any link you add, and your browser and device type (for example “Safari on iPhone”), to answer you and improve our help pages. Files you attach go to our support inbox by email and aren’t stored with the request. If you rate a help article or search the help center, we keep the rating, any note you write, and searches that found nothing, without your name or email address. Ask, and we’ll delete your requests.

Counting visits

We count page views and a few actions (mapping a route, opening a race, sharing, saving a run, joining a club, saying you’re in, asking for the forecast by email, seeing and tapping our sponsor’s link) to see what’s useful. No cookies, nothing stored on your device, and no names, emails or routes. Each visitor is counted once a day by a code made from that day’s random number, your connection and your browser; the random number is deleted at the end of the day, so visits can’t be traced back to you or linked across days. Your country comes from your device’s time zone setting, not your IP address. The counts are kept by our sister product Windline’s private counter (windline.tech), which keeps RunFast’s numbers apart.

Services we use

RunFast runs on a few providers who handle data on our behalf, under their own security and privacy terms:

Google Firebase: sign-in, the database, the website and app notifications.
Apple: Sign in with Apple, Apple Weather for forecasts, and the maps in the iPhone app.
Resend: sending emails, such as your confirmation code, forecasts and replies to support requests.
Windline (windline.tech), RunFast’s sister product: the forecast service, the Strava connection, Map your run’s forecast emails and the visit counts, as described above.
Maps: OpenFreeMap draws the street maps on the website; Esri supplies the satellite imagery on the live map and Fly the route on the website; Mapbox draws the maps in the Android app. Like any map service, they see your internet address and which parts of the map are shown.
Strava: only if you connect it (above).

We don’t sell or rent your information, and we don’t share it with advertisers. RunFast’s sponsor receives no information about you.

How long we keep it

Your account, runs, races, goals, clubs and photo: until you delete them, or your account.
Reports you send: a year. Who you’ve blocked: until you unblock them, or delete your account.
The positions your phone sends while you’re live: 7 days. The line you ran and your last position: 30 days after you stop. The summary of each race you went live in: until you delete your account.
The RunFast 200: your kilometres and runs counted for it, until you delete your account; each run’s own row (distance, moving time, day) is deleted 90 days after the challenge ends.
Following without an account: until you stop following, or the runner removes you or resets their link.
Notification tokens: until the phone says they’re no longer valid, or you delete your account.
Map your run’s forecast emails: two days after a single run; a weekly run until you stop it.
Support requests: kept so we can follow up on them; ask and we’ll delete yours.

Deleting your account

On the web, Account → Delete my account; in the app, You → Delete account. It deletes, straight away and for good: your account, your runs and races, your goals, words and results, your live sessions and the positions your phone sent, your follow link, the people who follow you and the runners you follow, Findable by anyone, your photo, your membership of your clubs, and your phones’ notification tokens. On the web, it disconnects Strava first. Club runs and races you added for a club stay with the club. If you’re a club’s only manager, add another manager first, or ask us to close the club. You can also email hello@runfast.tech from the address on your account, and we’ll do it for you.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask to see the information we hold about you, correct it, have it deleted, or receive a copy. This includes your rights under South Africa’s POPIA, the EU and UK GDPR, and California’s CCPA. Email hello@runfast.tech and we’ll respond within 30 days. If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to your local data protection authority.

Children

RunFast isn’t aimed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly create accounts for them. Following a runner needs no account. If you think a child has made an account, tell us and we’ll delete it.

The early list

Before accounts opened, people could leave their email to hear when RunFast launched. We no longer collect these. For those already on the list we keep their email address; where you came to the page from (for example a link’s name or the site that linked you); your browser’s language; your time zone, so we email you at a sensible hour; and when you joined. It’s kept in Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore, in Europe), where only RunFast can read it; it can’t be read or changed from a browser. Email hello@runfast.tech and we’ll delete it, and we’ll use it only once, to tell you when the phone apps launch.

Changes

If we change how we handle your information, we’ll update this page and the date below. If a change is significant, we’ll tell account holders by email first.

Updated 14 October 2026.