STORYWALK (Kiyochika Miyata) ("we", "us") handles your information as set out below in the mobile application and website "STORYWALK" (the "Service"). This Policy includes the disclosures required under Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI).
The Service does not ask for your name, address or telephone number. It does, however, use your device's precise location — and stores it as the record of your arrival — because standing at the place is how a chapter opens. Your Ask questions are also sent to a generative-AI provider outside Japan for processing (Section 4). What follows is the whole of it.
This English text is provided for convenience. In the event of any discrepancy, the Japanese version prevails.
A random string (a UUID) generated on your device the first time you open the Service is used to tie your record together. It is kept in the iOS Keychain (and carries over to devices on the same Apple Account if iCloud Keychain syncing is on). We also issue a device token so that an identifier cannot be impersonated, and store only its hash. The identifier is not linked to your name by itself, but because it ties your record together we treat it in the same way as personal information.
If you use Sign in with Apple for handoff, what reaches us from Apple is the user identifier Apple issues, plus your email address and name only if you choose to share them (if you choose "Hide My Email", a relay address is passed). Signed-in users may optionally set a nickname. Signing in is not required to use the Service.
Questions sent through the Ask feature and the answers generated are stored so that an answer to the same question can be reused (cached) to cut cost and waiting. Question text is sent to Anthropic (below).
If you ask by voice, your speech is converted to text by the speech-recognition feature of your device's operating system (Apple). For this, audio may be sent to Apple's servers under Apple's privacy policy. What we receive and store is the text of the question only; the audio itself is never sent to our servers.
To improve the Service we record actions such as: opening the app, viewing a story, starting a walk, arriving, listening, completing, asking, the display and tapping of purchase prompts, whether a purchase succeeded, and restores. We also record the app version, a session ID created for each launch, the display language, and the story and chapter concerned. We do not collect your name, an advertising identifier, or identifiers from third-party ad networks. The Service carries no advertising and shares no data for behavioural advertising.
If you make an in-app purchase, we store the signed transaction information received from Apple (transaction ID, product ID, purchase date, price, currency, storefront, environment) and the record of access that follows from it. If Apple notifies us of a refund or revocation, we store that notice too. We never receive your card number or any other payment credentials.
We store the category and body you send through "Feedback / Contact", and an email address if you choose to give one. To understand the situation we automatically attach your device identifier, app version, OS, display language, and the story and chapter you were on.
We keep server access logs (time, request path, response code, duration, request ID) and error information when something goes wrong. IP addresses are used temporarily for usage limits (to stop excessive requests from one IP address or device). We record generative-AI usage (token counts, characters, duration) against the device identifier; the content of questions is not part of that record.
If we change a purpose, we do so only within a scope reasonably related to the original purpose and publish the change on this page.
We do not sell your information and do not pass it to third parties for advertising. To provide the Service we use the following external services.
Other than the above, we do not disclose information to third parties, except where required by law, where necessary to protect a person's life, body or property, and where personal information transfers as part of a transfer of the business. What we report to local governments and sites is aggregate only.
Information sent directly from your device (Telecommunications Business Act, Article 27-12) — of the above, Google Maps and Sentry communicate directly from your device. Google Maps receives the map area displayed, your position, IP address and device/OS information, for showing maps and routes. Sentry receives error details, device/OS, app version and the anonymous device identifier, for finding defects. Transmissions to Apple (purchases, sign-in, speech recognition) are made as iOS functions.
| Information | Period |
|---|---|
| Visit records (including latitude and longitude), questions and answers, usage records | Until you delete them. The Service is designed on the assumption that a walking record stays yours |
| Device identifier, device token, sign-in identifier, nickname | Until you delete them |
| Purchase and refund records | Kept for the period the law requires as evidence of the transaction (as a rule 7 years), even after a deletion request; the link to your device is severed during that time |
| Enquiry records | After we have responded, for as long as needed to prevent the same defect recurring |
| Server access logs and error information | Roughly 90 days |
| IP-address counters for rate limiting | Five to ten minutes |
| Generative-AI usage records | Aggregated in a form that cannot identify individuals, then deleted in due course |
| Backups | Copies may remain in backups for up to about 90 days after deletion |
You may ask us to notify you of the purpose of use, disclose, correct, add to or delete, stop using or erase, or stop disclosing to third parties, the information we hold about you.
The Service is provided for walking in Japan. If, under the law of the EEA, the United Kingdom, a US state or another jurisdiction, you have rights equivalent to those above (access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, lodging a complaint with a supervisory authority), please exercise them through the same contact. We do not "sell" or "share" your information for targeted advertising within the meaning of US state privacy laws.
The Service is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect information about children under 16. If a child walks with you, please use the location features under your supervision as their guardian. If we learn that we hold information about a child under 16, we will delete it promptly.
To prevent leakage, loss or damage of the personal data we hold, we take the following measures.
Neither the app nor our website (the information pages and this page) uses cookies for advertising or behavioural tracking.
If we change this Policy we will post it on this page and update the date at the top. For significant changes such as new categories of information or new purposes, we will give notice through the announcements in the Service before the effective date.
Enquiries about the handling of personal information, requests for disclosure and the like, and complaints are accepted at:
Established: 18 September 2026