Dino Loco game privacy policy
Last updated 27 October 2026. This covers the Dino Loco mobile game for iPhone and Android. We wrote it in plain English so players and grown-ups can read it in a few minutes.
The short version. Dino Loco reads your activity totals to power the game, uses your rough location while the app is open to place dinos near you, and keeps your game on your phone. We don't show ads, we don't sell data, and we don't use tracking tools.
Who we are
Dino Loco is created by Charbel A. Zeaiter and published by Velvet Onion & Friends in Sydney, Australia. You can contact us about privacy at charbel@velvetonion.com.
What the game uses, and why
- Activity totals. With your permission, the game reads daily totals of steps, wheelchair pushes and workout minutes from Apple Health on iPhone or Health Connect on Android. These totals feed your dino, find food, open story chapters and track missions. The game only reads. It never writes to Apple Health or Health Connect.
- Motion. With your permission, the phone's motion sensor notices when you're walking with the game open, so Barke can remind you to look up and put your phone away.
- Approximate location, only while the app is open. This places wild dinos on paths and streets near you. Your location stays on your phone and is never stored or sent to us. You can play without it in Nexus mode.
- Your birthday month and year. This sets up the right features for your age. It stays on your phone.
- Your Dinonaut name and game progress. Your dinos, levels, missions and settings are saved on your phone.
- Notifications. If you allow them, the game sends reminders and step milestones from your phone. At most one a day, plus milestones, and never after 8pm.
Map data
To keep dinos out of the sea and off private property, the game downloads a map of nearby footpaths and streets from OpenStreetMap's public Overpass service. The request names an area about one kilometre across. It doesn't include your exact position, your name or anything about you. The map is kept on your phone for 30 days.
Health data
Activity data is used only to run the game. It's never shared, sold, used for advertising or used to make decisions about you. Dino Loco's use of information received from Health Connect will adhere to the Health Connect Permissions policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Apple Health data is handled under Apple's HealthKit rules in the same way.
Purchases
If the game offers purchases, they're handled by the App Store or Google Play. We never see your card details. For players under 15, purchases go through Apple's Ask to Buy or Google's family approval.
Children and grown-ups
Dino Loco is made for families. When a player under 15 starts the game, a grown-up gives permission on the phone before any activity or location is used. Grown-ups can open the Parent Zone, behind the same check, to see the week's activity, set play hours, turn off the real-world map, or delete the game. There's no chat and no way for strangers to contact a player.
Keeping and deleting your data
The game itself lives on your phone, with no account, email or password. If you switch on Friends, a small amount of game data is also stored on our server (see below). Deleting the game from the Parent Zone or your profile removes everything on your phone and on our server. Turning Friends off in the Parent Zone deletes the online data and keeps the game on your phone. You can also revoke health, motion, location and notification permissions at any time in your phone's settings.
Friends
Friends are optional and off until a player switches them on. When they're on, the game connects to our server (Supabase, hosted in Sydney, Australia) without an email, phone number or password, and stores only what friends need:
- your Dinonaut name, a 6-letter friend code, and the species and realm of your buddy dino;
- your friend list, and whether a grown-up has approved each friend;
- dinos you give or swap with friends, and the preset stickers you send;
- for a team walk, your step total for that day, shared only with the friends on that walk.
Your location is never sent to the server or shared with another player. There is no chat and no way to send messages, only a small set of preset stickers. Players can only add each other by sharing their code, so nobody can search for a player. Every friend of a player under 15 must be approved by a grown-up in the Parent Zone on that player's phone, and any friend can be removed or blocked at any time.
Changes
If we change how the game uses data, we'll update this page and the date at the top, and tell players in the game when the change matters.