Sonke — Privacy notice
Last updated: 2026-10-17
Sonke is a health and training app for households, teams and groups. It is run by Angus Steele, who is responsible for your data (the "controller"). Questions, requests or complaints: sonkehealth@gmail.com.
This notice explains what Sonke keeps about you, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept, and what you can do about it. The short version:
- Your record is yours. Nobody else sees it unless you choose to share it — not the other members of your imbizos, and not an imbizo's admin.
- Nothing is deleted on a timer. Sonke is about long-term trends, so your record is kept until you delete your account.
- No advertising, no selling, no tracking. Sonke has no ads, sells no data, and has no analytics or advertising trackers.
- AI is optional. If you use the AI features, what you type and the parts of your record they need are sent to Anthropic to work out an answer. Anthropic does not train its models on it.
1. What Sonke keeps
Your account. Your email address, your name, your date of birth, and how you sign in: a password handled by Google Firebase, your Google account, or -- on an iPhone -- your Apple ID. You can add more than one of these to the same account, each with its own email address (Profile -> Account -> Ways to sign in); Sonke keeps which ones you added and the address each carries. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your email, Apple gives Sonke a relay address that forwards to you, and that is the address Sonke keeps. Sonke never sees or stores your password.
Your profile. Height, weight, sex at birth, training experience, everyday activity level, your goals, your preferred units, and your time zone. These are used to calculate things like your daily energy burn; you can leave out what you prefer not to give, and the app says what it cannot work out without it.
Your coach. Which coach you picked, any of its settings you changed, and your level if you set it yourself (Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Experienced or Advanced, and whether it moves as you log workouts). Your coach also uses what you told it about how you like to train: how many days, how long and when, what you are training for, what you enjoy, what you would rather not do, anything that hurts, and anything else you wrote for your coach.
A health check before hard work. In Profile, Sonke asks six yes-or-no questions about your health. Answering is optional; until you do, your coach keeps your sessions moderate. Your answers are used once, for one thing: to decide whether your coach may plan hard work (heavy sets and all-out intervals) or keeps your sessions moderate. Only that result is kept, with its date and which set of questions you were asked, never your answers. The result is yours alone: nobody else can see it, not the other members of your imbizos and not their admins, and no sharing setting reaches it. It is deleted with your account, and you can answer again at any time.
What you log. Workouts and activities (what, when, how long, how hard, sets and repetitions), meals and what they contained, weigh-ins, body measurements, goals and your progress on them, tracking breaks (holidays), and the notes you write.
Health readings from your phone, if you connect Health Connect. On Android you can let Sonke read Health Connect, the place on your phone where apps such as Garmin Connect keep what they measure. Sonke asks for these, and you choose which to allow: steps, distance, active and total calories, resting metabolic rate, heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, weight, body fat and workouts. For each reading Sonke keeps its value, when it was measured, which app wrote it and the phone it came from -- and, so that a reading corrected or deleted in that app can be corrected or removed here too, every version it received. Sonke does not read the notes you wrote in another app, and does not write anything to Health Connect.
Sonke reads when the app is open (when it starts, when you return to it, every few minutes while it is in front, and when you press "Sync now"), and -- only if you also allow Health Connect's "read in the background" -- every so often while the app is closed. The first time, it reads the last 30 days. Where two apps measured the same thing -- your phone and your watch counting the same walk -- Sonke counts it once, from the one you rank first.
On Profile, under Data sources, you choose that order for each kind of reading, can ignore a source altogether, and can say for a particular day where its readings should come from; Sonke keeps those choices. You also choose whether your daily burn comes from your connections or from Sonke's own calculation. A workout your watch recorded appears in your day as a session -- the same walk logged by you and by your watch is one -- and "Ignore" takes it back out; Sonke keeps that you ignored it.
You can disconnect on Profile at any time: Sonke stops reading at once and keeps what it already received, which is removed with your account.
Health readings from Apple Health, if you connect it. On an iPhone you can let Sonke read Apple Health instead, and you choose which kinds to allow in Apple's own screen: steps, distance, active and resting energy, heart rate, resting heart rate, sleep, weight, body fat and workouts. For each reading Sonke keeps the same as for Health Connect -- its value, when it was measured, which app wrote it and whether it came from your iPhone or your Apple Watch -- and removes a reading here when it is deleted in Apple Health. Sonke reads when the app is open and, if you allow it, when Apple Health tells it there is something new while the app is closed. It reads only: it writes nothing to Apple Health.
When a connection brings in an activity, the app can tell you with a notification on your phone, if you allow notifications. The notification is made on your phone from what Sonke already holds; nothing is sent to a notification service.
Your plans and your imbizos. The recipes and workouts you create, the weekly plans you make, which imbizos you belong to and your role in them, and the items you share with other people and their answers.
Your own space ("Just me") is an imbizo you can invite people into. It starts with your first name ("Just Ada") and you can rename it. Anybody you invite sees what is in it -- its workouts, recipes, plans, goals and equipment, its name and its town (your "Where you are") -- including anything you put there before you invited them. They never see your health record (what you log, your readings, your body) unless your own sharing settings for that space allow it, exactly as in any other imbizo. You stay its admin and cannot be removed from it.
Every imbizo keeps an admin. If an imbizo's last admin leaves it or deletes their account, its builders -- or, if it has none, everyone in it -- become its admins, and Sonke tells them in the app.
People without an account. An imbizo admin can add someone who has no account — a child, say — so they can be named on a plan. Sonke keeps their name and who added them. The person who keeps their record can also set a coach, coach settings and a level for them, and answer the health check for them; only that person can see or change these.
Your AI requests. When you use an AI feature, Sonke keeps what you asked, the answer, and what it cost, so you can see your own history and your monthly AI allowance.
Your sharing choices. What you have chosen to share, with whom, and a record of each change you made.
Technical records. Your signed-in sessions (so you can sign out a lost phone from Profile), and error reports when the app crashes — which record what went wrong in the app, never what was on your screen.
Problems you report. When you use "Report a problem", Sonke keeps what you wrote, any pictures you chose to attach, the screen you sent it from and your app version, so the people who build Sonke can find the fault. A screenshot can show your health data: it is sent only if you add it, and only Sonke's administrator can see it.
Animation bugs you report. When you tap the small bug beside an exercise's moving figure, Sonke keeps which exercise and animation it was, which avatar was showing, the screen, your app version and anything you chose to write, so the animation can be fixed. Only Sonke's administrator can see it.
Your avatar. Which figure you chose to show the exercises. It is a preference, not health data, and nobody else can see it.
Your camera and microphone, only when you use them. Scanning a barcode uses the camera to read the number on a packet: no picture is taken, kept or sent. Tapping "Say it" turns what you say into words on your screen; Sonke keeps no recording, and nothing is sent until you press the button. Both ask your phone's permission the first time, and neither is used at any other time.
2. Why, and on what basis
| What | Why | Legal basis (UK/EU GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Account, profile, coach and level | To give you an account, do the calculations you ask for and build the sessions you ask for | Contract — providing the service you signed up for |
| Health, training, food and body data and readings from Health Connect or Apple Health, including anything you told your coach about what hurts | To record it, show you trends over time and give you insights | Your explicit consent, given by ticking the box when you first use Sonke (and again if this notice changes in a way that matters). You can withdraw it at any time by deleting your account |
| The health-check result | Only to decide whether your coach may plan hard work | Your explicit consent, as above. You can answer again at any time |
| Sharing with other people | Only because you asked | Your consent, for each thing you share |
| AI requests | To answer what you asked | Your explicit consent — you choose to press the button |
| Sessions and error reports | To keep your account secure and the app working | Legitimate interests |
| Problems and animation bugs you report | To find and fix the fault you told us about | Your explicit consent — you choose what to write and which pictures to add, each time |
| Your avatar and your Data sources choices | To show the exercises the way you chose, and to count your readings the way you set | Contract — they are settings you make to use Sonke |
3. Who else handles your data
Sonke uses a small number of companies to run. Each handles your data only to provide its service to Sonke:
| Company | What it does | What it handles |
|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud | Runs the Sonke server | Everything passes through it; stored secrets and nightly backups |
| Neon | Runs the database, on Amazon Web Services | Your whole record |
| Google Firebase | Handles sign-in | Your email address, and your password, Google sign-in or Apple sign-in |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, on an iPhone, if you use it | Apple confirms who you are to Firebase and gives your email address, or a relay address if you hide it; Apple's own privacy terms cover what it keeps |
| Anthropic | Powers the AI features, only when you use one | What you type, plus the parts of your record the feature needs (for example your recipes and food preferences when logging a meal; or, when your coach builds a session, a summary of your recent training, your coach and its settings, your level, what you told your coach about how you like to train and what hurts, and whether hard work is allowed — never your health-check answers, which are not kept) |
| Open-Meteo | Weather on the week's plan | Only the town an imbizo admin set for the imbizo — nothing about you |
| Open Food Facts | Looks up a packet when you scan its barcode | Only the barcode's number, sent by Sonke's server — nothing about you |
| Your phone or browser's speech service (Google on Android and in Chrome, Apple in Safari) | Turns what you say into words when you tap "Say it" | The sound of what you say while it is listening. It goes from your device to them and is not sent to Sonke; their own privacy terms cover it |
Anthropic's own policy is that it does not use data sent through its API to train its models. None of these companies may use your data for their own purposes.
What Sonke will never do with Health Connect or Apple Health data. It is used only to show you your own record and to work out the figures Sonke shows you. It is never sold, never used for advertising or marketing, never shared with anybody you have not chosen to share with, and never used to train an AI model. When you use an AI feature, the parts of your record it needs may include a summary of these readings, as for the rest of your record. Health Connect and Apple Health run on your own phone; the readings go from it straight to Sonke's server, and Sonke sends nothing to Garmin, Apple or the other apps.
Where it is stored. Sonke's server and database are in the United States (Oregon). If you live in the UK or EU, your data is transferred there.
4. How long it is kept
Your record is kept until you delete your account. Nothing you log is deleted after a set time: long-term trends are the point of Sonke.
When you ask for your account to be deleted, Sonke erases everything about you — your account, your profile, your coach and level, your health-check result, everything you logged, your AI requests, the problems and animation bugs you reported, your avatar and Data sources choices, your sharing choices, and your sign-in with Firebase — and checks that nothing is left. It keeps only a note that an account was erased, with nothing that identifies you.
Backups. Each night Sonke saves a copy of the whole database, so it can recover from a fault. Each copy is kept for 30 days and then deleted automatically. So after your account is deleted, your data can remain in those backup copies for up to 30 days, and then it is gone. The backups are not used for anything except recovery.
Everything in your own space ("Just me") is deleted with your account -- unless you invited other people into it. Then it stays for them, as an ordinary imbizo: renamed, with your town cleared, and with one of them as its admin; your record goes as usual. Things you created inside an imbizo — a recipe or workout the group uses — belong to the imbizo and stay there, without your name on them. Somebody without an account whom you added is handed to another admin of an imbizo they are in, and removed only if there is nobody to keep their record.
5. Your rights
You can:
- See and download your data at any time: Profile → Export my data, in the web version of Sonke (the phone app will follow). You get everything Sonke holds about you, in files other apps can read.
- Correct it. Anything you logged can be edited or taken back in the app; the app keeps a record that a correction was made.
- Delete your account and all your data: Profile → Delete my account, or email sonkehealth@gmail.com from the address you signed up with. You are signed out straight away, and everything is deleted within 30 days. If you change your mind before then, email us.
- Stop sharing anything with anybody, at any time, in your sharing settings. Other people are not told that you stopped.
- Withdraw consent — which, for your health data, means deleting your account.
- Complain to your data protection regulator (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office, ico.org.uk), though please tell us first so we can put it right.
6. Keeping it safe
Everything between your phone and Sonke is encrypted. Access to each person's data is enforced by the database itself, not just by the app, so a mistake in one screen cannot show your record to somebody else. The people who run an imbizo cannot see its members' records. The providers above store data encrypted.
7. Children
Sonke accounts are for people aged 18 and over; sign-up checks your date of birth. A parent or guardian can add a child to an imbizo without an account, as described in section 1.
8. Cookies and your device
Sonke uses one cookie, to keep you signed in, and none for tracking or advertising. The app keeps a copy of some of your data on your phone so it works without a signal; signing out removes that copy.
9. Not medical advice
Sonke is a wellness app. It does not diagnose, treat or give medical advice, and its numbers are estimates. Talk to a doctor about anything that concerns you.
10. Changes
If this notice changes in a way that matters, Sonke will tell you in the app before the change takes effect, and ask you to agree again.
- 2026-10-17. Added reading Apple Health on an iPhone, if you connect it; Sign in with Apple, and adding more than one way to sign in to your account; the five levels; inviting people into your own space, what they see there, and what happens to it if you delete your account; every imbizo keeping an admin; and the phone's notifications when a connection brings in an activity (sections 1 to 4).
- 2026-10-16. Added reading Health Connect in the background if you allow it; your Data sources choices (the order of sources, ignoring one, a day's sources, and where your daily burn comes from); a watch's workouts appearing in your day; your avatar; and the animation bugs you report (sections 1, 2 and 4).
- 2026-10-14. Added the health readings Sonke reads from Health Connect on Android, if you connect it: which ones, that every version is kept so a correction or deletion in the other app follows through, that only one app's reading counts where two measured the same thing, and what Sonke will never do with them (sections 1, 2 and 3).
- 2026-10-12. Added scanning a barcode and saying what you ate: the camera and microphone are used only while you do, a barcode's number is looked up in Open Food Facts, and your speech is turned into words by your phone's or browser's own service (sections 1 and 3).
- 2026-10-11. Added the problems you report from inside the app, and the pictures you choose to send with one (sections 1, 2 and 4).
- 2026-10-10. Added your coach, its settings and your level, what you told your coach about how you like to train, the health check before hard work, and what the person who keeps a record for someone without an account can set for them (sections 1 to 4).