Terms of service

These terms are the agreement between you and Walksy for the use of the Walksy app. By creating an account, you accept them. Please read them together with the Community guidelines, which are part of these terms, and the Privacy policy, which explains how we handle your data.

If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms takes away the rights the law gives you.

Who provides Walksy

Walksy is provided by Osema Fadhel as an individual, not as a company (“Walksy”, “we”, “us”).

For help with the app or your account, your data, reports and reviews of moderation decisions, write to [email protected]. For anything else, write to [email protected].

The service

Walksy is an app for walking and hiking with other people. With it you can:

record your walks with GPS and see their distance, elevation and duration;
find trails, create your own and share them;
organise group hikes or join other people’s;
follow people, post about your walks, comment and chat;
share your live position with your group, or with someone at home through a link.

We keep improving Walksy, so features may be added, changed or removed. If a change significantly reduces what you can do with the app, we will tell you in advance.

Who can use Walksy

To use Walksy you must:

be at least 16 years old;
be able to enter into a binding agreement;
not have had a Walksy account suspended or closed by us, unless we have agreed that you may come back.

Walksy is for personal use. One person, one account.

Your account

Signing in. You can sign up with an email address and password, with Google or with Sign in with Apple. If you use an email address, you must verify it.
Accurate details. Use your real first name or a name people know you by, and do not pretend to be someone else. Your username must not mislead others about who you are.
Keeping it safe. Keep your sign-in details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens in your account. If you think someone else is using it, tell us at [email protected].
Your profile is public. Any signed-in user can see your public profile. The Privacy policy lists what it shows.
Leaving. You can delete your account at any time in Settings. The Privacy policy explains what is deleted and what stays.

Your content and the licence you give us

“Your content” means everything you put on Walksy: your profile, photos, posts, comments, trails, group hikes, chat messages and the tracks of your walks.

You keep ownership

Your content stays yours. We do not claim ownership of it.

The licence

So that we can run Walksy, you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt, display and distribute your content within the service. “Adapt” means, for example, making smaller copies of your photos, and cutting your tracks and trails by your privacy zones and hiding their ends before they are shown in public.

The licence includes having our map provider, Mapbox, add your public trails to the map, so that they appear on it for everyone.

The licence lasts as long as your content is on Walksy, plus the time it takes to clear it from our backups (see the Privacy policy). Some content stays after you delete your account, such as your comments on other people’s posts and your messages in group chats. The licence continues for that content until it is removed.

We use the licence only to provide and improve Walksy. We do not sell your content, and we do not use it for advertising.

Your responsibility

You must have the right to post what you post. In particular:

post only photos you took or are allowed to use;
ask people before you post photos in which they can be recognised;
do not post other people’s private information.

OpenStreetMap data

Trail routes in Walksy include data from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, made available under the Open Database License (ODbL). If you extract that data from Walksy and reuse it, the ODbL applies to you.

Acceptable use

Follow the Community guidelines. They explain what is not allowed on Walksy and why, in eight sections, from § 1 to § 8.

In addition, do not:

break the law or help someone else break it;
access Walksy with bots, scrapers or other automated means, or collect other users’ data;
try to get around our security, our usage limits, the check that the app is genuine, blocks or moderation decisions;
fake your location, your walks or your stats;
copy, decompile or reverse-engineer the app, except as far as the law allows you to;
overload or disrupt the service;
use Walksy to advertise or sell products or services, including paid tours, unless we have agreed to it in writing.

Group hikes and meeting people

Group hikes are organised by users. Walksy is not a guide, an organiser, a tour operator or a travel agent. We do not check who people are, how fit or experienced they are, or whether a route is suitable for them.

When you meet people from Walksy:

meet in a public place, at least the first time;
tell someone you trust where you are going, with whom and when you expect to be back;
check the route, the weather and your gear yourself before you go;
trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, you can leave at any time.

If you organise a group hike, describe it honestly: the route, distance, elevation, difficulty, meeting point and time. Say what experience and gear people need. If conditions turn bad, change the plan or cancel it in good time.

If you join a group hike, be honest with yourself and the group about your fitness and experience, and follow what the group agreed.

Group hikes are always public, and so is the list of participants. Participants can vote to remove someone from a hike.

Safety: Walksy is not an emergency service

Hiking can be dangerous. Weather changes, paths are lost, people slip, get hurt or get tired. You are responsible for your own safety and for the decisions you make on the trail.

Check conditions yourself. Look at the weather, the season, local warnings and any closures before you go and while you walk.
Estimates are estimates. Difficulty grades, walking times, distances and elevation in Walksy are calculated or entered by people. They can be wrong.
Live sharing is not a rescue service. Your live position, live-share links and the alerts Walksy sends your group (for example when someone has split off or has a low battery) depend on GPS, signal and battery, and can fail without warning. Nobody at Walksy watches them.
In an emergency, contact the local emergency services. The number depends on the country you are in, so check it before you set off.

Trail information

Trail routes come from OpenStreetMap and from other Walksy users. They may be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Paths close, bridges wash away and signs change.

Follow the signs and rules on the ground, even when they differ from the app.
Respect closures, protected areas and private land.
If you find trail information that is unsafe or false, report it under § 6 of the Community guidelines.

You can make a link that lets someone follow your walk without a Walksy account.

Anyone with the link can see it. There is no password. It shows your username, photo, position, battery level, recent trail, the hike’s title, planned route and expected finish.
Share it only with people you trust. They can forward it to others, and anyone they forward it to can open it too.
Close it when you no longer need it. The link stops working when you close it, or 48 hours after the hike starts. For a few seconds after you close it, it may still show your last position.
Share only your own walk. A link shows only the person who made it. Do not use Walksy to follow someone who does not know about it.

Moderation and the Digital Services Act

This section explains how we moderate content, as the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) requires.

Reporting content

In the app, you can report posts, comments, trails, accounts, group hikes and chat messages (press and hold a message). You choose a reason, which matches a section of the Community guidelines:

§ 1 Harassment or bullying
§ 2 Hate or discrimination
§ 3 Violence or threats
§ 4 Nudity or sexual content
§ 5 Spam or scams
§ 6 Unsafe or false trail information
§ 7 Sharing someone’s private information
§ 8 Illegal content
Something else

In the app, § 8 appears as “Something illegal” and the last reason as “Something else”. Both need an explanation.

Reporting illegal content (DSA Art. 16)

A report with the reason “Something illegal” is a notice under Art. 16 DSA. It must explain why you believe the content is illegal and include a statement that you make the report in good faith and that what you say is accurate and complete. The app asks for both.

You can also send a notice by email to [email protected]. Include:

why you believe the content is illegal, and under which law if you know;
where it is: the account, post, trail or hike, as exactly as you can;
your name and email address (not needed if you report child sexual abuse material);
a statement that you believe in good faith that the information in your notice is accurate and complete.

We confirm that we received your notice and tell you what we decided.

What happens after a report

Automatic hiding while we review. A post, comment or trail reported by several different people is hidden from everyone but its author until a moderator has looked at it. Reports from brand-new accounts do not count towards this. Accounts and group hikes are never hidden by reports alone. Every report is read, whether or not it counts towards hiding.
A person decides. Every decision is made by a person, not by software. The possible decisions are: no violation, remove, remove and warn, warn, or suspend the account.
What removal means. Removed content is no longer shown to anyone but its author, who can still see it with the decision. A removed trail becomes private and is held, so that it cannot be made public again.
The author is told why. When we restrict content or an account, the author receives a statement of reasons (DSA Art. 17). It says what we decided, which rule or law it is based on, the facts behind it, whether it followed a report, and how to ask for a review. While content is hidden pending review, its author sees a notice on it.
Reporters are told the outcome.
Serious threats. If content suggests a threat to someone’s life or safety, we inform the police or the judicial authorities (DSA Art. 18).

When we decide, we consider how serious the violation is, whether it was intentional and whether it is a repeat. If someone often posts manifestly illegal content, we may suspend their account after a warning. If someone often sends reports that are manifestly unfounded, we may stop processing their reports for a while, after a warning.

Asking for a review

If you disagree with a decision, as its author or as a reporter, you can ask us to look at it again. Tap the decision in the app. You can do this up to twice for each decision, within 183 days (about six months) of it. A person looks at the request again and tells you the result.

If your account is suspended, you cannot sign in. Write to [email protected] to ask for a review.

The law does not ask a service of this size for a formal complaints system, but we offer this review anyway. None of this limits any right you have under the law.

Single point of contact

If you use Walksy, our single point of contact (DSA Art. 12) is [email protected]. Authorities can reach us at [email protected] (DSA Art. 11). You can write to us in English or Italian. A person reads every message.

Suspension and termination

You can leave at any time

Stop using Walksy whenever you like. You can delete your account in Settings. If you cannot, write to [email protected].

When we act

We may remove content, warn you or suspend your account if you break these terms or the Community guidelines, or post illegal content. What we do depends on how serious the violation is and whether it has happened before. A single very serious violation, such as a credible threat or child sexual abuse material, can lead to immediate suspension.

We tell you why, in a statement of reasons, unless the law forbids us or an authority has asked us not to.

A suspended account cannot sign in until the suspension ends or we lift it. To ask for a review, write to [email protected].

If we stop offering Walksy

If we ever close Walksy, we will tell you at least 30 days in advance, in the app or by email. Before it closes, you can ask us for a copy of your data at [email protected].

Walksy is free

Walksy is free. There are no payments, subscriptions or in-app purchases. If we ever introduce paid features, we will tell you first, and you will decide whether to use them. Nothing you use for free today will start costing money without your agreement.

Intellectual property and credits

The Walksy app, its name, its logo and its design belong to Osema Fadhel. We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app on your devices, for as long as you have an account and follow these terms.

Walksy uses data and maps from others:

places from GeoNames, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence;
elevation from the Copernicus WorldDEM-30 model;

The full credits and licences are in the Legal notice.

Liability

We provide Walksy with care, but it is a free service and it comes as it is. It may sometimes be unavailable, slow or have errors.

What we are always liable for

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability:

for damage we cause intentionally or through gross negligence;
for death or personal injury caused by us;
where the law does not allow it to be limited, including product liability and your rights as a consumer.

What we are not liable for

Within the limits above, we are not liable for:

what other users post, say or do, on Walksy or when you meet them;
what happens during group hikes, which users organise;
trail information, grades, times and elevation that turn out to be wrong or out of date;
live sharing, positions or group alerts that fail or arrive late;
damage that we could not reasonably foresee, or that is caused by things outside our reasonable control.

For ordinary negligence, we are liable only for the breach of essential obligations of these terms, and only for the damage typical of this kind of service that could be foreseen.

Changes to these terms

We may change these terms, for example when we add features or the law changes. We will tell you at least 30 days before a change takes effect, in the app or by email, and explain what changes.

If you do not agree, you can delete your account before the change takes effect. If you go on using Walksy after that date, the new terms apply.

Law and disputes

These terms are governed by Italian law. If you are a consumer living in another country, you keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live.

If something goes wrong, please write to us at [email protected]. Most problems can be solved that way.

Contact

Help with the app, your account, your data, reports and reviews: [email protected]
Anything else: [email protected]