Privacy notice
Talestep walking tours. Last updated 16 September 2026
We built Talestep so you can enjoy a tour without giving us your personal details. There are no accounts, no sign in and no advertising. This notice explains the small amount of information we do handle, why, and what control you have over it.
Who we are
Talestep Ltd is the controller of the information described here. We are registered in England and Wales, company number 17417284. Registered office: 4 Marleigh Lane, Cambridge, CB5 8ED.
All Talestep tours are offered in partnership with a local organisation, such as a Business Improvement District or a tourism body. We only ever share combined, anonymous statistics with them. They never receive information about you as an individual.
Questions or requests: privacy@talestep.com.
What we collect and why
Your location
To play each story as you arrive, the app uses your phone's location while a tour is running. This is worked out on your device and is not sent to us or stored by us. You can refuse location access and use the play buttons instead.
How the tour is used
The app records simple events such as starting a tour, reaching a stop, opening a transcript or finishing. These are linked to a random code that changes every visit, not to your name, device or account. We use them to improve tours and to report overall numbers to our partners. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in understanding how our tours perform, and we have designed this so it has minimal impact on your privacy. You have the right to object at any time by emailing us.
Questions you ask the guide
Ask the guide is not switched on yet, and nothing you type into it is sent anywhere. When it is available, your question will be sent to our AI service to produce an answer from our approved tour content, and we will keep questions and answers so we can check the quality and safety of replies. Please do not include personal details in your questions. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in providing an accurate and safe service.
Ratings and comments
If you rate a tour or leave a comment, we store it to improve our tours. Please keep comments free of personal details. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in understanding how visitors find the experience.
Technical information
Like any website, our hosting providers briefly process technical data such as your IP address to deliver the app securely and protect it from misuse. We do not use this to identify you. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working.
Storage on your device
The app saves a small number of items on your phone: your language choice, and tour audio and maps so the tour keeps working without signal. These are needed for the service to function. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.
Who helps us
We use trusted providers who act only on our instructions and under contract:
- Google Cloud and Firebase, for hosting, data storage, delivering tour audio, and translating our tours into the languages we offer. Google will also provide the AI service behind Ask the guide when that feature is switched on.
- Ordnance Survey, for the map. Your phone requests map tiles from Ordnance Survey directly, so it receives your IP address as any map provider would.
- Microsoft, for our email, if you write to us.
Some of these providers may process data outside the UK. Where that happens, we rely on the protections required by UK data protection law, such as UK adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement.
We never sell your information.
Children
Talestep is suitable for families, but the Ask the guide feature is intended for adults or for use with a parent or carer present.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask to access, correct or delete your information, object to how we use it, restrict its use, or withdraw consent. Because we deliberately avoid collecting details that identify you, we may be unable to link stored data to you, but we will always help where we can. There is no automated decision making that affects you.
To make a request, email privacy@talestep.com. We will reply within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
The talestep.com website
This page also covers the talestep.com marketing website, which collects nothing automatically. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics and includes no third party trackers, as our cookies page explains. The contact links on it open your own email application addressed to hello@talestep.com. Anything you choose to send us is handled the same way as any other business email, is kept for up to 2 years, and is accessible to Talestep's team.
Changes
If we change how we use information, we will update this page and the date at the top.