Whistle

Privacy Policy

A quick summary

This short summary is here to help you understand the main points of this Privacy Policy. It does not replace the full Privacy Policy below.

Whistle is a training and workout planning app for running, cycling, swimming, and related fitness activities. Whistle can use Apple Health data you choose to share, data you enter in the app, your training plan, workout history, recovery signals, weather context, and coach preferences to help you plan and adapt your training.

Most core app data is stored on your device and, depending on your settings and Apple configuration, may sync through your private Apple iCloud / CloudKit account. We do not sell your personal data, health data, workout data, or training data.

Whistle includes AI coach features. When you use the coach, Whistle sends the message, selected app context, and any data you allow the coach to access to Google’s AI infrastructure through Firebase AI. If you attach images or choose to include conversation transcripts in support requests, those may also be processed for that specific purpose. Automatic summaries may process selected health and workout data when enabled. You can manage coach permissions and automatic summaries in Whistle’s privacy settings.

Whistle uses Mixpanel for Product Insights so we can understand how the app is used, improve features, debug funnels, and understand paywall and purchase flows. Product Insights may include app activity, technical device and app context, subscription and paywall context, coach preference settings, notification settings, token usage metrics, and similar product data. It does not include your HealthKit samples, workout routes, coach chat text, photos, payment card details, or real email address. Product Insights can be turned off in the app.

If you join the beta, sign up for updates, contact us, or submit feedback, we process the information you choose to send. Apple handles App Store payments, so we do not receive your full payment card details.

Controller

Vogelhaus Apps GmbH (“Vogelhaus,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) operates Whistle (“Whistle” or the “App”) and is the controller for the processing described in this Privacy Policy.

For privacy questions or requests, contact Florian Schulte at florian@vogel.haus.

Data we process

Health and fitness data

Whistle can access data from Apple HealthKit if you grant permission. Depending on the permissions you approve and the features you use, this can include:

  • workouts, workout routes, activity summaries, steps, distance, active energy, exercise time, stand time, and workout effort
  • heart rate, resting heart rate, walking heart rate, heart rate variability, beat-to-beat measurements, VO2 max, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, and wrist temperature
  • sleep analysis and recovery-related signals
  • running metrics such as pace, power, stride length, vertical oscillation, and ground contact time
  • cycling metrics such as power, cadence, speed, and distance
  • swimming metrics such as distance, stroke count, and water temperature
  • body and profile-related Health data such as date of birth, biological sex, height, body mass, lean body mass, body fat percentage, and wheelchair use

Whistle uses this data to show training context, calculate workout and recovery insights, estimate training load, understand recent activity, personalize workouts, and support coach features when you allow access.

HealthKit access is controlled by Apple. You can grant, deny, or revoke access in Apple Health or iOS settings. We do not use HealthKit data for advertising, marketing, or referral targeting.

Profile, preferences, and app data

Whistle may store data you enter or configure in the app, including your name, profile picture, biological sex, birthday, preferred units, preferred start day of the week, saved location, activities, goals, coach preferences, notification preferences, privacy permissions, and automatic-summary settings.

Whistle also stores app data you create or generate, such as scheduled workouts, workout templates, training programs, saved plan details, completed or skipped workout state, cached summaries, training-load caches, usage-limit records for coach cost control, and coach memory entries.

This data is stored on your device and may sync through your private iCloud / CloudKit account where enabled. Some local data is stored in the app group so the iPhone app and Apple Watch app can work together.

AI coach messages, images, and context

When you use the AI coach, Whistle processes your messages and the data needed to respond. Depending on the request and your permissions, the coach may use:

  • your message and recent conversation context
  • images you attach
  • selected HealthKit-derived summaries
  • workout history and statistics
  • scheduled workouts, templates, and training programs
  • sleep, recovery, vitals, heart, activity, body, and training-load summaries
  • weather forecasts for your saved or current location
  • coach memory entries, such as goals, injuries, equipment, preferences, or durable training constraints
  • tool results produced inside Whistle to answer your request or modify your plan

The coach uses permission categories for sensitive access. You can choose whether the coach should ask first or always allow access for categories such as health data, workout history, training plan data, weather, and plan changes. Some modification actions, such as creating, editing, or deleting workouts, require the app to show the action before applying it.

Whistle does not use AI to make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects. AI outputs may be incomplete or wrong and should be treated as training guidance, not medical advice.

Automatic summaries and notifications

If automatic summaries are enabled, Whistle may process selected health, workout, sleep, recovery, activity, and plan context to generate morning summaries, midday check-ins, evening wrap-ups, completed-workout summaries, or related notifications.

You can turn automatic summaries off in privacy settings. When disabled, Whistle stops generating new automatic summaries and clears stored day-summary cache data controlled by that feature.

Camera, photos, microphone, and speech recognition

If you grant permission, Whistle may use:

  • camera access to take photos for coach interactions
  • photo library access to attach images to coach interactions
  • microphone access to record voice input
  • Apple speech recognition to convert voice input into text

Speech recognition is used to create text from your voice input. If you then send that text to the coach, it is treated like any other coach message.

Calendar and Apple Watch

If you grant permission, Whistle can add scheduled workouts to your calendar. Whistle asks for write-only calendar access for this purpose.

Whistle also supports Apple Watch. Workout and schedule data may be transferred between your iPhone and Apple Watch so you can view upcoming workouts, start workouts, and keep the watch app in sync.

Location and weather

Whistle can use weather information to help plan outdoor workouts. Weather features may use your current location, if you grant location access, or a manually saved location. Location data is used to fetch relevant weather forecasts and plan context. The coach can access weather data only according to the coach permission settings.

Purchases and subscriptions

If you buy a subscription or one-time purchase, Apple processes the payment through the App Store and StoreKit. We do not receive your full payment card details.

Whistle may process product IDs, subscription status, entitlement tier, purchase date, expiration date, transaction status, offer eligibility, storefront, price, currency, and purchase outcome so we can unlock paid features, restore purchases, show paywalls, and understand purchase performance.

Product Insights

When Product Insights is enabled, Whistle sends product analytics data to Mixpanel. This helps us understand app usage, feature adoption, onboarding, screen flows, paywall performance, purchase flows, subscription state, coach usage cost limits, settings adoption, and general product quality.

Product Insights can include app and device context, app activity, screen and button events, onboarding context, entitlement and renewal status, paywall context, product IDs, storefront, price and currency context, offer metadata, notification preference states, coach preference states, and token usage metrics such as prompt token count, output token count, model name, and estimated cost.

Whistle may use a pseudonymous internal user identifier for Product Insights so we can avoid double-counting across devices and understand product behavior over time. This identifier is not your real name or email address.

Whistle does not send your HealthKit samples, workout routes, coach chat text, attached photos, payment card details, or real email address to Mixpanel.

Feedback, diagnostics, and support

If you contact us by email, we process your email address, message, attachments, and related metadata.

If you submit feedback or report a problem from inside Whistle, you may be asked whether to include diagnostics. Diagnostics can include app logs, device and app context, error information, selected app state, and, for coach feedback, an optional transcript of the conversation plus coach preference and usage-limit information. These attachments are sent only if you choose to include them.

Website, beta, waitlist, and newsletter data

If you use the Whistle website, join the beta, sign up for updates, or submit a waitlist form, we process the information you provide. This may include your email address, training notes, next goal, whether you have an Apple Watch, whether you want updates, and related signup metadata such as which form or app page the signup came from.

If you sign up for updates, we use your email address to send product updates you requested. You can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us.

How we use data

We use personal data to:

  • provide Whistle and its core features
  • read and interpret HealthKit data you choose to share
  • create, schedule, adapt, and explain workouts
  • calculate workout, training-load, recovery, sleep, activity, and readiness insights
  • personalize AI coach responses
  • generate automatic summaries and notifications when enabled
  • sync app data through Apple services where available
  • support Apple Watch features
  • fetch weather forecasts for workout planning
  • process purchases, restore purchases, and manage entitlements
  • understand product usage and improve Whistle
  • diagnose problems, respond to support requests, and review feedback
  • manage beta, waitlist, and newsletter signups
  • protect the app, prevent misuse, enforce usage limits, and maintain service reliability

We do not sell your data. We do not use health or fitness data gathered in the health, fitness, or medical context for advertising, marketing, or referral targeting.

If you are in the EEA, we generally rely on the following legal bases:

  • your consent, where required, for HealthKit access, health-related processing, notifications, location access, camera, photos, microphone, speech recognition, newsletter signups, and analytics settings based on consent
  • performance of a contract, where processing is needed to provide Whistle, operate paid features, restore purchases, maintain app functionality, or provide requested coach features
  • our legitimate interests, where appropriate, to secure Whistle, prevent abuse, maintain service continuity, improve the product, understand app performance, and respond to support requests

Health-related data is treated as sensitive data under EU law. Where Whistle processes such data and EU law applies, we rely on your explicit consent unless another lawful basis or condition applies.

Service providers

We use the following main service providers:

Apple, for platform services including HealthKit, CloudKit / iCloud, StoreKit, the App Store, Apple Watch, notifications, calendar integration, speech recognition, TestFlight, WeatherKit, and related Apple services.

Google and Firebase, for Firebase Core, Firebase AI / Google AI processing, Firebase App Check where applicable, and related AI infrastructure.

Mixpanel, for Product Insights. Whistle is configured to use Mixpanel’s EU endpoint, with automatic tracking disabled and IP-based geolocation disabled.

Loops, for newsletter and email-update signups that you request.

Google, for support email handling through Gmail.

Website hosting and form providers, for operating the Whistle website, beta signup forms, update signup forms, and related website infrastructure.

These providers process data on our behalf or under their own roles, depending on the service and context.

International transfers

Some service providers may process or access personal data outside the EEA, including in the United States. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses, adequacy decisions, or another lawful transfer mechanism.

Your controls

You can manage HealthKit permissions in Apple Health or iOS settings.

You can manage Product Insights in Whistle’s privacy settings. Turning Product Insights off stops new Mixpanel analytics events from the app going forward.

You can manage coach data permissions in Whistle’s privacy settings. You can choose whether the coach asks before accessing categories such as health data, workout history, training plan data, and weather.

You can turn automatic summaries off in Whistle’s privacy settings.

You can manage notifications in Whistle or iOS settings.

You can manage camera, photos, microphone, speech recognition, location, calendar, and other system permissions in iOS settings.

You can manage or delete data stored on your device, in Apple Health, or in iCloud through the app, your device, Apple Health, and iCloud settings.

You can unsubscribe from newsletters at any time using the unsubscribe link in the email or by contacting us.

Retention

We keep data only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including providing Whistle, protecting the service, complying with legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements.

Product Insights data in Mixpanel is retained according to our Mixpanel project settings, currently up to 1 year unless we configure a shorter period.

Coach usage-limit records are stored locally and are pruned for the rolling usage windows used by the app.

Support emails, feedback, diagnostics, and optional transcripts are retained for as long as reasonably needed to respond to you, improve Whistle, and keep appropriate business records.

Newsletter data is retained until you unsubscribe or we otherwise stop operating the mailing list. We may keep limited suppression information after unsubscribe so we can honor your opt-out.

Data stored only on your device or in your private CloudKit / iCloud account remains under your control and can be deleted by you from your device, Apple Health, the app, or iCloud settings.

Deletion

Deleting Whistle from your device does not automatically delete data stored in Apple Health, iCloud, email systems, newsletter systems, analytics systems, or support records.

To request deletion of personal data we control, contact contact@vogel.haus. For data stored only on your device or in Apple services, the practical way to access or delete that data may be through Whistle, your device, Apple Health, or iCloud settings.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or receive a copy of your personal data. If processing is based on consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

If you are in the EEA, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

To exercise privacy rights relating to data we control, contact contact@vogel.haus.

Children

Whistle is not intended for children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided personal data to us, contact us so we can take appropriate action.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we may notify you in the app, on the website, or by other appropriate means.

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