We don't know who you are — and we'd like to keep it that way.
5K&Stay is built to help you find a parkrun and a bed nearby without ever asking who you are. No account, no sign-up, no personal profile. This page explains, plainly, exactly what happens with data when you use the site or the app.
Last updated: 3 September 2026
The short version
- No account, ever. You never sign up, log in, or give us your name, email or phone number.
- No personal data stored. We don't keep a database about you. There's nothing of yours for us to lose, sell, or hand over.
- No ad tracking, no ad cookies, no data sold. We show no display adverts and run no cross-site tracking.
- Anonymous, aggregate analytics only — on our own server, so we can see which features get used, not who used them. You can switch it off in the app.
- We earn from bookings, not from you. If you book a stay through a partner link we may get a small commission — never a fee to you — and we give 10% of profits back to parkrun.
What we collect about you
Effectively nothing that identifies you. There is no account system, so we never ask for — or hold — your name, email address, phone number, or payment details. Browsing the directory, checking a start pin and searching an area all work without you telling us anything about yourself.
Usage analytics
To understand which features are worth building on, we count anonymous, aggregate events — page views and which buttons get tapped — using Umami, self-hosted on our own server. It is cookieless, collects no personal data, does no device fingerprinting, and is never shared with an advertising network. We see totals ("X people used area search this week"), not individuals.
In the iOS app the same anonymous analytics can be turned off entirely under Privacy → Share anonymous usage data. The app sends no device identifiers (no IDFA/IDFV) and never sends the text you search.
Error reporting
So we can find and fix bugs, the site sends us a report when something breaks in your browser, using GlitchTip, self-hosted on our own server. A report contains the error message, a short technical stack trace, and the page URL it happened on — enough to reproduce the fault, and nothing that identifies you. It carries no name, email, location, cookies, or device identifiers, and is never shared with an advertising network.
Your location
If you tap "Use my location", your browser or phone asks your permission and then shares your coordinates with the page, on your device, so we can sort parkruns by distance. It is used to rank the list in front of you and is not sent to us or stored. Prefer not to share it? Type a town or postcode instead — we pass just that text (not your identity) to a mapping service to turn it into coordinates, then rank parkruns the same way.
Maps, fonts & other services
A few things load from other providers to make the site work. When they load, those providers can see your IP address, as they would on any website. We pick providers that don't build advertising profiles, and we're moving what we can onto our own servers.
We do not run Google Analytics, advertising pixels, or social "like" trackers. Nothing above receives your identity — at most the town you typed (for a map lookup) or an error message (to fix a bug).
Booking links & how we make money
5K&Stay is free to use and carries no adverts. Our booking links go through our partner Booking.com, via the Commission Junction affiliate network — tapping "Check availability" or a "search stays" link sends you to Booking.com through a Commission Junction tracking redirect, which records the click (and which parkrun page it came from) so a booking can be attributed to us. If you then book, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That commission, less our pledge to give 10% of profits back to parkrun, is how the project sustains itself.
Once you follow the link you'll be on the partner's own website, under their privacy policy and cookies — which we don't control and can't see. We won't receive your booking details, dates, or payment information.
Start-point data
Verified start pins are proposed from public GPS activity data and then checked by a person on satellite imagery before they go live. This is about run locations, not runners — we don't collect, store, or publish anyone's individual activity, name, or times. 5K&Stay is an independent project and is not affiliated with parkrun or Strava.
Your rights & getting in touch
Because we hold no personal data about you, there's nothing of yours to request, correct, or delete. If you have any question about how the site or app works — or spot something that looks wrong — email hello@5kstay.com and a real person will reply.
This page describes current practice and will be updated as the product grows; material changes will be dated above.