Effective date: 6 November 2026
Who we are
aki is run by Alexandra Blixt, an individual from Sweden. We decide how your personal data is used, which makes us the “data controller”.
Contact: contact@aki.family
What we collect
You need to give us your name, email, and birth month and year to use aki. Everything else is optional, but the nearby features need your location.
- Account: name, email address, and birth month and year (to check you’re 18 or older).
- Profile: photos, bio, languages, country, travel style, social links, your gender, and whether you’re currently on the road.
- Who you travel with: solo, with a partner, friends or family. If you travel with children, their age group (baby, toddler, child or teen). We never ask for children’s names or dates of birth.
- Trip plans: destinations and rough dates you add, and routes you draw yourself. Past trips become your list of previously visited areas.
- Location: your device’s location, only while you’re using the app. aki never tracks your location in the background.
- Your circle: the people you save to meet. Your circle is private.
- Messages: chats with other users, and any reports you make or that are made about you.
- Subscription: whether you have aki Plus. Apple or Google handles payment, so we never see your card details.
- Technical data: device type, app version, IP address and crash logs. If you agree, also how you use the app (for example, which screens you open).
Why we use it, and our legal basis
| What we do | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Run your account, show your profile, suggest travellers nearby, show route overlaps, provide chat and your circle | Contract: it’s the service you signed up for |
| Use your location to find people nearby | Your consent (location permission; turn it off any time in your phone settings) |
| Show your location, trip plans or visited areas to others | Your consent (your sharing settings; change them any time) |
| Use your gender for the option to only show your profile to women | Contract |
| Manage your aki Plus subscription | Contract |
| Send service emails and push notifications (e.g. a new message) | Contract; push only if you allow it |
| Keep aki safe and working: check ages, review reported chats, remove accounts that break our rules, prevent misuse, fix crashes | Legitimate interests (a safe, working app) and legal obligations |
| Measure how the website and app are used | Your consent (cookie banner on the website, a prompt in the app) |
| Respond to valid requests from authorities | Legal obligation |
Where you’ve given consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This doesn’t affect anything we did before you withdrew it.
What other users can see
You decide what others see when you sign up, and you can change it any time in your location sharing settings. Anything you switch on is visible to all aki users, or only to women if you choose that option.
| Setting | What others see when it’s on |
|---|---|
| Show my recent approximate location | Your nearest city or an approximate location, never more precise than about 2 km, shown now or with a 24-hour delay |
| Show my trip plans | Your upcoming destinations, rough dates and routes, so you can spot where your routes overlap |
| Show my previously visited locations | The areas and regions of your past trips, never exact places |
| Show my age, Show my last name | Your age, your last name |
| Only show my profile to women | Your profile and everything above is only shown to women |
Your profile always shows your first name, photos, bio, languages, country, travel style, who you travel with (including any children’s age groups), social links and whether you’re on the road. Other users never see your email address, birth month and year, exact location or your circle.
Age
aki is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account. We check your birth month and year when you sign up, and we delete the account of anyone we find is under 18.
Who we share data with
We don’t sell your data or share it with advertisers. We only share it with these services, which help us run aki:
| Service | What for |
|---|---|
| Firebase (Google) | App database, login, photo storage, push notifications, account emails, crash reports and app usage statistics |
| Mapbox | Maps, routes and distance calculations |
| Google Analytics | Website visit statistics, only if you accept cookies |
| Apple App Store, Google Play | aki Plus subscriptions and payments, under their own privacy policies |
We may also share data with the police or other authorities when the law requires it, or when someone’s safety is at risk.
Google and Mapbox may process data in the United States. These transfers are protected by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the EU’s Standard Contractual Clauses.
How long we keep data
We keep your data while your account is open and delete it within 30 days of you closing it.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Account, profile and settings | Until you delete your account, then removed within 30 days |
| Backups | Overwritten within 90 days |
| Recent location | Up to 7 days |
| Trip plans and previously visited areas | Until you delete them or your account |
| Messages you’ve sent | Deleted when you delete your account |
| Reported chats and moderation records | 12 months after the report is closed, longer only if needed for a legal claim |
| App and website analytics, crash reports | Up to 14 months |
Your rights and choices
You can ask us to:
- give you a copy of your data
- correct anything that’s wrong
- delete your data
- limit how we use it, or object to how we use it
- send your data to you or another service in a reusable format
Email contact@aki.family and we’ll reply within one month.
You can also:
- delete your account in the app under Settings, or by emailing us
- change what others see in your location sharing settings
- turn off location access or push notifications in your phone’s settings
If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Swedish data protection authority, IMY. If you’re in the UK, you can complain to the ICO.
Cookies and analytics
Our website aki.family uses Google Analytics cookies to count visits, but only if you accept them in the cookie banner. In the app, Firebase Analytics only runs if you agree when asked. You can change either choice at any time.
Changes to this policy
If we make important changes, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before they take effect. The effective date at the top shows when this policy was last updated.