Privacy policy

Last updated 30 September 2026

Commence is a training app for Android and iOS. This policy explains what information the app collects, why, where it goes and how long it stays, and what you can ask us to do with it. Commence is operated by Commence Training Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (“we”), which is the data controller for everything described here. Questions and requests about your data go to privacy@commence.training.

The short version: we collect what the app needs to work, we don’t sell it, we don’t show ads, we don’t run analytics or tracking libraries, and we don’t share it with anyone for their own purposes. It lives on Amazon Web Services in the UK and EU, and the people who can see any of it are you, us, and any coach you choose to work with.

What we collect

Your account

• Email address, used to sign in, to send you a verification or password-reset code, and for coaching mail (an invite from a coach, a check-in reminder). Never for marketing.
• Username and given name. Your username is shown to coaches and clients you connect with, and on anything you publish.
• Password, if you create an account with one. It is stored only by Amazon Cognito, our sign-in service, in hashed form; we never see it.
• If you sign in with Google or Apple instead, that provider gives us your email address and, on first sign-in, your name. With Apple you can choose to hide your email; we then receive a relay address that Apple forwards. We store nothing else from either provider and cannot access your Google or Apple account.
• Optionally, a profile picture, your height, weight and date of birth, and your unit preference. These make programmes and stats fit you; the app works without them.

Your training

• Programmes you create or follow, and how far through them you are.
• Exercise logs: the sets, reps, weights, times and notes you record.
• Workout history: each workout you finish, with its name, date and the sets you logged in it.
• Progress entries: weight over time and any progress photos you add. Photos are stored privately for your account and shown only to you.
• Custom exercises you define.

Coaching, if you use it

• If you apply to be a coach: a bio and a picture, which become your public coach profile once approved.
• Coaching relationships: requests, invites and the coach–client pairs that result.
• Messages and check-ins between a coach and a client, including any photos, videos and food notes you attach. These are private to the two of you. A coach sees only what you send them and which of their programmes you follow — not your exercise logs, workout history, progress entries or photos.
• Programmes a coach publishes to the programme library are public, under the coach’s name.

Community demos, if you post them

You can post a short video demonstrating an exercise. Approved demos are public within the app, under your username, and the most popular one for an exercise may be shown in its place in the exercise catalogue. Posts are reviewed by a moderator before they appear.

Reports and blocks

If you report something, we keep the report: what you reported, the reason you chose and any note you added. If you block someone, we keep the list of people you have blocked, and a block also tells our moderators what prompted it. We use these only to moderate Commence and to hide blocked people’s content from you.

AI features, if you use them

The Smart Coach builds programmes from what you tell it: your goal, the equipment you have and any injuries, in your own words. Insights summarise your logged training and weight history. To do this the app sends that information to a language model on Amazon Bedrock, a service run by AWS in its EU regions. Bedrock does not use your data to train models and does not share it with the model’s provider. We keep the resulting programme; an insight is kept for 30 days and then deleted.

Notifications

To deliver push notifications the app registers a device token with Firebase Cloud Messaging, a Google service, and we store that token against your account. Notifications themselves (a new message, a check-in due) are kept for 90 days. You can turn notifications off in your device settings at any time.

What we don’t collect

No location, no contacts, no health-app data, no advertising identifiers, no analytics or crash-reporting libraries, no tracking of any kind. Camera and photo-library access is used only when you choose to attach a photo or video, or to save a progress photo to your gallery.

Why we use it

To provide the app you asked for, which is the contract between us: your account, your training data, coaching and messaging, community posts and the AI features you invoke. Sending you verification codes and coaching mail is part of that. We rely on our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working, and on your consent for the optional things you switch on, such as notifications and camera access. We don’t profile you and we make no automated decisions about you.

Who can see it

• You.
• A coach you connect with sees your username and name, the messages and check-ins you send them, and which of their programmes you follow; you see the same for anyone you coach. Ending the relationship stops any further exchange; each of you keeps the conversation so far.
• Everyone using the app sees what is public by design: approved coach profiles, published programmes and approved exercise demos.
• Us, for support and moderation. Reports you file are seen only by our moderators; the person you report isn’t told who reported them, and the people you block aren’t told either.

We don’t sell your data, and we don’t share it with anyone for their own purposes. The companies that process it on our behalf, under contract, are:

• Amazon Web Services: hosting, database and file storage, sign-in (Cognito), email (SES) and the AI features (Bedrock). Our data is held in AWS’s London region, in the UK; the AI features may run in AWS’s EU regions.
• Google: push notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging, and Sign in with Google if you use it.
• Apple: Sign in with Apple if you use it.

Google and Apple act under their own privacy policies for the sign-in step itself. Nothing leaves the UK and EU except as part of those two sign-in services and Google’s notification delivery.

How long we keep it

For as long as you have an account, with these exceptions: insights are deleted after 30 days, notifications after 90 days, and unused coach invites when they expire. Messages and check-ins stay with the conversation until one of the two people in it deletes their account. Your coach profile and exercise demos stay public until you remove them or delete your account. Programmes a coach has published to the library stay there after the coach deletes their account, with the coach’s name removed, so that people following them keep them. Reports are kept as a record of what moderators decided, and a block until you undo it; both are deleted when the account that filed them, or the account they are about, is deleted.

Deleting your account

Email privacy@commence.training from the address on your account (or, if that no longer works, tell us your username) and we will delete your account and everything stored under it within 30 days, including your photos and videos, and confirm when it is done. Your coach profile and exercise demos are removed as well; programmes you published to the library stay, without your name. Messages you sent to a coach or client remain in their copy of the conversation without your name attached, with any attachments removed. The steps are also set out on the account deletion page.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to send it to you in a portable form, or to stop using it in a particular way. Most of it you can see and change in the app; for anything else, email us and we will answer within a month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Security

Every connection to the app is encrypted, every request is signed with credentials that expire, and your files are stored in private storage that only your session and, where you have chosen one, your coach’s can reach. We don’t hold your password.

Children

Commence is not for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly hold data about anyone that age. If you believe we do, email us and we will delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top is the date of the current version.