01Overview
Traka is a step counter and light fitness tracker for Android. It uses your phone's sensors to count steps and to tell walking, jogging and running apart, and it can estimate your heart rate with the rear camera.
Everything it records is stored on your phone. The app doesn't request the Internet permission, so Android won't let it use the network, and there is no Traka server that could receive your data. There is also no account to sign up for.
02What Traka stores
Only what the app generates from your own use, all of it on the device:
- Steps and sessions. A step total for each day, plus each session's type (walking, jogging or running), start and end time and step count. Distance and calories are calculated from step counts when needed and aren't stored.
- Heart-rate readings. The beats-per-minute number and the time you took it. The camera frames used to work it out are processed in memory and thrown away.
- Your profile. A username, a goal, a daily step target and an optional photo, plus an optional age range, height and weight, all of which you choose during setup and can change in Settings. Height and weight are only used to work out distance and calories. The photo is copied into the app's private storage.
- Settings and progress. Your reminder time, whether all-day step counting is on, and which badges you've unlocked and when.
Traka never reads your location, contacts or messages. It has no advertising ID, analytics or crash-reporting code, and nothing is sent off the device.
03Permissions
Every permission Traka asks for, and what it's used for. You can decline the ones Android prompts you about, and the related feature simply stays off.
- Activity recognition. Lets Traka read your phone's step sensor, which is what counts your steps. Without it there are no steps and sessions can't be started. Asked on the last setup screen, where you can tap Not now, and again from the Home screen.
- Camera. Used only on the heart-rate screen, to measure light passing through your fingertip. Asked the first time you open that screen. It isn't used anywhere else or in the background.
- Notifications. Shows the optional daily reminder, and the pause and finish buttons while a session is running. Asked when you switch reminders on in Settings, or the first time you start a session.
- Foreground service (health). Keeps a session you start running while the app is closed or the screen is off. Android shows a notification, with pause and finish buttons, for as long as the session runs. All-day step counting doesn't use it and shows no notification.
- Run at startup. After your phone restarts or Traka updates, puts back the daily reminder and the all-day step counting schedule, which Android clears. It has no prompt and does nothing else.
- Keep awake. Held only while a session is actively running, so the timer doesn't stop when the screen turns off. It has no prompt.
04Where it lives
Your data is kept in a local database and a settings file inside the app's private storage on your phone. Other apps can't read it.
Traka opts out of Android's automatic backup. That means the data isn't copied to your Google account, and it also means it won't carry over if you switch phones or reinstall the app. Your history starts again on a new device.
05Third parties
Traka doesn't share, sell or transmit your data, and it contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting libraries. This is a property of the app as built, so it can't change quietly: sending data anywhere would need a new release, and this policy would be updated first (see Changes).
One thing sits outside the app's control. If you install through Google Play, Google handles the download and may collect install and crash statistics under your own device settings. Traka doesn't receive any of that.
06Deleting your data
Open Settings in the app, choose Delete Account and type your username to confirm. This erases your steps, sessions, heart-rate readings, badges, profile, photo and settings from the phone straight away, and stops background tracking and reminders.
The button says "account" for lack of a better word. There's no online account, so nothing is removed from anywhere else, because nothing was ever sent. Uninstalling the app removes its stored data too.
07Heart rate and health
Traka is not a medical device. The heart-rate check estimates beats per minute from small changes in light through your fingertip. It is far less accurate than clinical equipment. Use it for general interest, not to diagnose or monitor a condition, and speak to a healthcare professional about any health concern. The Terms cover this in more detail.
08Children
Traka isn't directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect information about them. Because nothing leaves the device, nothing about any user is sent to the developer.
09Changes
If a future version changes how data is handled, for example by adding cloud sync, this page will be updated and its effective date changed before that version is released, and the release notes will mention it.
10Contact
Questions about this policy can go to sageofblademw@gmail.com.