RAT RACE's Privacy Policy

Effective August 10, 2026

Rat Race Privacy Policy

Welcome to RAT RACE's Privacy Policy, which is a part of RAT RACE's User Agreement. This Privacy Policy explains how RAT RACE collects, uses, and discloses personal data (as defined herein) related to your use. When we mention "BuzzFeed", "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Policy, we mean BuzzFeed, Inc., or the relevant BuzzFeed company or business division responsible for processing your data.

United States users can find out about your privacy rights in the Privacy Information for United States Residents section.

EU/UK users can find out about your rights in the Privacy Information for EEA and UK Users section. For all other users, please see Privacy Information for All Users, Regardless of Location.

1. About this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how RAT RACE collects, uses, and discloses your personal data. We collect personal data when you use the RAT RACE™ mobile application, its associated website, and the services, features, and content available on the application or website (collectively, "RAT RACE").

2. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We're likely to update this Privacy Policy in the future and when we make changes, we will revise the date at the top of the policy. When we make significant changes, we will notify you through the mobile application of RAT RACE, via email or other communication.

3. How To Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about the information in this Privacy Policy, our handling of your personal data more generally, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

BuzzFeed, Inc.
50 West 23rd Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10010
Attn: Legal Department
data-privacy@buzzfeed.com

4. What Personal Data We Collect And How

4.1. Personal Data You Provide To Us, Including Health Data.

We collect data you provide directly to us.

  • Account data. When you create an account with us ("Account"), we will collect your Google or Apple accounts to enable third party authentication. We will also collect and maintain your username.
  • Payment data. To order products or services through RAT RACE, we will collect your payment information through your payment processor. Please note that your financial information is collected and stored by a third party payment processing company. Use and storage of that data is governed by the third party payment processor's applicable privacy policy.
  • Purchase data. If you make a purchase on RAT RACE, we will receive data about the purchase.
  • App Restriction Information. To provide app-blocking functionality, we will collect a list of applications you choose to restrict, your configured goals, and device authorization status necessary to enforce restrictions. We do not collect the content of other applications or monitor your activity with those applications.
  • Other data you share through RAT RACE. You may provide us with data when you upload a picture of yourself, update or add information to your Account, respond to surveys, post to forums, provide us with feedback, participate in promotions, or use other features of RAT RACE.

With your permission, Rat Race may access health and activity information from your device or authorized third-party health platform ("Health Data"), including:

  • Daily step count
  • Walking distance
  • Activity history
  • Activity timestamps
  • Goal progress
  • Device motion information

We access only the information you authorize. We do not collect medical records, diagnoses, prescriptions, or healthcare provider information.

When we conduct research or carry out surveys and you participate in our research or surveys, we may collect sensitive personal data or sensitive personal information ("SPDI") about you, for example, information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life or sexual orientation. We will get your explicit consent for our collection, use, or sharing of this data as required by law. We do not collect or process SPDI for any other purpose other than those permitted by applicable law.

4.2. Data That We Collect Automatically About Your Browser And Device.

When you access or use RAT RACE, we use cookies and similar technologies that collect information about your browser and device:

  • Log Data. We automatically receive and record information from your device or web browser when you interact with RAT RACE. For example, we may collect your device model, app model, device identifier, internet protocol (IP), time zone setting, language preference, operating system, platform, and internet service provider (ISP).
  • Account ID. If you create an Account ID, we will use this information to collect data about your activities through RAT RACE.
  • Usage and Analytics Information. We automatically collect information regarding your use of RAT RACE including, features used, session duration, goal completion statistics, notification interactions, screens or pages viewed, buttons clicks, app launches and exits, crash and performance information, and other diagnostic and usage information.

4.3. Data That We Collect From Third-Parties.

RAT RACE uses information provided by your mobile device and may request permission to access the following information:

  • Motion and fitness activity
  • HealthKit
  • Health Connect and/or
  • device administration permissions.

You may revoke permissions at any time through your device settings. However, revoking your permissions may disable certain functionalities.

5. How We Use Your Personal Data

We use the data we collect to provide, maintain, and improve RAT RACE. Specifically, we use your data to enable creation of your account, maintain your account and statistics, track your activity goals, display your statistics, and restrict selected applications according to your settings.

We also use the data we collect to:

  • Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts and support and administrative messages and to respond to your comments, questions and customer service requests;
  • Communicate with you about products, services, offers, and events offered by RAT RACE and others, and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you;
  • Monitor and analyze trends, usage and activities in connection with RAT RACE and personalize and improve RAT RACE;
  • Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights and property of BuzzFeed and others; and
  • Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the data was collected.

Your Health Data is processed only as necessary to restrict selected applications according to settings, monitor and track your health, and display your results. We do not use your Health Data to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

6. Disclosures; Sharing Or Selling Your Personal Data

In general, your personal data will remain with BuzzFeed but we may disclose personal data about you as follows or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

  • Within BuzzFeed. We share your personal data within BuzzFeed's legal entities where necessary to fulfill a contract or precontractual measures, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so or a legal obligation to do so.
  • With vendors, consultants, and other service providers who process your data on our behalf when they provide services to us, for example cloud hosting, authentication, payment processing, analytics, crash reporting, and fraud prevention.
  • In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company;
  • We may be legally required to disclose or share your personal data without your consent in some circumstances, for example to comply with a court order or law enforcement. In such circumstances, we will only disclose your personal data if we have a good-faith belief that such sharing is required under applicable legal obligations.

We do not sell or share your personal data, including your health data, for advertising.

7. Aggregated Data

We analyze and aggregate personal data we collect, such as the number and frequency of your visits to the Services, to produce anonymized metrics and statistical information that does not identify you as an individual.

We combine information about you with information about other users to create audience segments of aggregated data, for example, statistical, demographic and usage data. If we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data, we treat the combined data as personal data and treat it in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

8. International Transfer Of Your Personal Data

RAT RACE is operated from the United States. If you access RAT RACE from outside the United States, you acknowledge that your personal data may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States and other countries where we or our service providers maintain facilities.

These countries may have data protection laws that differ from those in your jurisdiction and may not provide the same level of protection as the laws of your country.

Where required by applicable law, we implement appropriate safeguards for international transfers of personal data, including the use of the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses ("SCCs") or other legally recognized transfer mechanisms.

By using RAT RACE or otherwise providing us with your information, you acknowledge that your personal data may be transferred as described in this Privacy Policy.

9. Retaining Your Personal Data

We keep your personal data for as long as we need it for the purposes for which it was collected.

When we decide how long we will keep your information we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, why we need it, and any relevant legal requirements (such as legal retention and destruction periods).

We may anonymize your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes.

10. Privacy Information For EEA And UK Users

10.1. Information For EU Users (Including Legal Bases)

We will use your personal data only for the purposes for which we collect it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason that is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for another purpose, we will explain the legal basis we rely on.

Depending on the purpose, we process your personal data according to the following basis:

  • Your consent,
  • Performance of a contract,
  • Our legitimate interest,
  • Compliance with legal obligations

The table below shows what we use your personal data for and the lawful basis for processing it in each case.

PurposeType of DataLawful Basis
Creating and maintaining your accountAccount DataPerformance of Contract
Measuring your stepsHealth DataYour Consent
Enforcing app restrictionApp Restriction InformationYour Consent, Performance of Contract
Accessing HealthKit or Health Connect dataHealth DataYour Consent
Fraud Prevention and securityAccount Data, Health Data, Log DataLegitimate Interest
Compliance with Applicable LawsAny (as requested)Legal Obligation
Product analytics and improvementAny (as needed)Legitimate Interest

10.2. Legal Rights For EEA Users

If you are an EU resident, you have certain rights in respect of the information that we hold about you. Below is a short overview of those rights:

  • Access. With some exceptions designed to protect the rights of others, you have the right to a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. Where the data is data that you have given to us, you have the right to receive your copy of it in a common electronic format, and to provide copies of it to other people if you wish.
  • Correction. You have the right to have the personal data we hold about you corrected if it is factually inaccurate. This right does not extend to matters of opinion, such as views expressed in editorial content.
  • Deletion. In some limited circumstances, you have the right to have personal data that we hold about you erased (the "right to be forgotten"). This right is not generally available where we still have a valid legal reason to keep the data (for example, because we are obliged to do so by law).
  • Objection. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on "legitimate interests" as our legal basis for processing, but we may be able to continue processing if our interest outweighs your objection.
  • Withdrawing consent. If we are processing your personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, in which case we will stop that processing unless we have another legal basis on which to continue.

10.3. How To Exercise Your Rights

To exercise your rights, please go to the settings in RAT RACE or contact us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com. In order to protect your privacy and that of others, we will ask you to prove your identity before we take any steps in response to a request you have made. If a third party is making a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove that they have your permission to act for you.

We may contact you to ask you for further information to help you exercise your legal rights or to speed up our response. We will try to respond to requests within one month and we will let you know if we need to take longer, for example because your request is complicated. We may have an overriding lawful basis for processing your personal data, or certain exemptions may apply. If we refuse your request, we will explain why. You may also reach us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com to exercise your data privacy rights described above, including the right to deletion. You may also contact our data protection office (DPO) or our EU Representative.

Our Data Protection Officer (DPO) is DP Dock DPO Services GmbH. Their contact details are:

DP Dock DPO Services GmbH, Grüffkamp 10, 24159 Kiel, Germany
+49 (0) 1515 7868665
buzzfeed@dp-officer.com

Our EU Representative is EU-REP.Global GmbH. Their contact details are:

EU-REP.Global GmbH, Attn: BuzzFeed, Inc., Hopfenstraße 1d, 24114 Kiel, Germany
buzzfeed@eu-rep.global

11. Privacy Information for United States Residents

Residents of certain states have additional rights and choices. This section addresses those additional rights.

11.1. Privacy Rights

  • Right to Deletion. You have the right to request that we delete certain personal data we have about you.
  • Right to Access. You have the right to request that we inform you about the categories of personal data we collect or disclose about you; the categories of sources of such data; the business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal data; and the categories of third parties with whom we share/disclose personal data. Such information is also set forth above in this Privacy Policy. You may also request that we provide you access to and/or a copy of the specific pieces of personal data we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
  • Right to Correction. If you feel that any of the records of personal data we have about you are incorrect, you have a right to request that we correct those inaccuracies. This right does not extend to matters of opinion, such as views expressed in editorial content.
  • No Discrimination. You have the right to not be discriminated against (as provided for in the applicable US Privacy Law) for exercising your rights.
  • Right to Opt-Out. You have the right to opt-out of the "sale" of your personal data, or the "sharing" of your personal data for interest-based or other targeted advertising on third party websites. Note that "sale" is defined broadly and may include allowing third parties to receive certain data, such as cookies, IP address, and/or browsing behavior, to deliver targeted advertising on our Services or other sites and apps. We do not engage in the sale/sharing of your personal data for targeted advertising.

11.2. Notice for California Users

This section provides you with our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal data in the 12 months prior to our last update to this Policy (see the date at the top). It also explains your rights regarding your personal data that we collect pursuant to applicable U.S. state privacy laws.

Categories of Information We Collect:

  • Your contact details (e.g. your user name; your Apple or Google sign-in information).
  • Purchase history & preferences (e.g. records of services purchased or obtained).
  • Internet activity information (e.g., browsing history, search history, information on a consumer's interaction with a website, application, or questions and other messages you address to us directly through online forms or by email).
  • Online identifiers (e.g. IP address, ADID/IDFA, internal identification numbers).

Categories of Sources:

  • You
  • Automatically from our device
  • From Apple, Google, or other third-party services that you authorize

Purpose of Collection

  • To provide and maintain RAT RACE, including the ability to track your health data and provide restriction functionality on your selected apps.
  • To register and authenticate your Account.
  • To communicate with you, including to process your requests for products/services and/or information.
  • To improve RAT RACE, including to better understand our customer base.
  • To enforce our User Agreement, and for the administration and protection of our business.
  • To comply with applicable law, regulations, and legal and regulatory processes.

Disclosures. We do not sell or share your personal data for targeted advertising. We may disclose your personal data, including health data, with our service providers and business partners only as needed to provide RAT RACE. We provide details of our disclosure below:

Categories of Data DisclosedCategories of Vendors or Other Entities We Disclose Data To
Your contact detailsOur authorization partners and service vendors who assist in providing services on our behalf.
Your health data.Our service providers who assist in providing RAT RACE.
Payment informationOur payment processing vendors.

We may share your personal data with government entities when required to do so by law.

Your privacy rights. As a California resident, the following rights are available to you. You may exercise these rights by going to your settings or emailing us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com.

  • Right to Know the categories of specific personal data we maintain about you.
  • Right to Correct inaccurate personal data we maintain about you.
  • Right to Delete your personal data;
  • Right to Obtain a Portable Copy of the personal data we hold about you;
  • Right to Limit the Use and Disclosure of sensitive information.
  • Right to Appeal the Denial of Your Request.
  • Right to be Free from Discrimination for exercising your privacy rights.

11.3. California Shine the Light Disclosure

Under California Civil Code sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask for a notice identifying the categories of personal customer data which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. RAT RACE does not share any personal data for direct marketing purposes.

12. Privacy Information for All Users, Regardless of Location

As described above, depending on your place of residence, you may have certain data privacy rights afforded by law; however, we allow you to exercise select privacy rights regardless of your jurisdiction.

Deletion and Access

If you would like to have us delete your personal data or provide you with access to the personal data we have about you, you can make the request by going to settings or email us at data-privacy@buzzfeed.com. We may request additional information to verify your identity before processing your request. Authorized agents may submit requests on your behalf in accordance with applicable law.

Opt-out of Sale/Share/Targeted Advertising.

We do not sell or share your personal data for targeted advertising.

Disclaimer and Appeal.

Please note that certain data may be exempt from such access, data portability, correction, and deletion requests under US Privacy Law. For example, we need to retain certain data in order to provide RAT RACE to you or to comply with our legal obligations.

If we are unable to honor your request or you are not satisfied with the outcome of your request, you have the right, within a reasonable period of time, to appeal our decision. Please send your appeal by email to data-privacy@buzzfeed.com with "Privacy Appeal" in the subject line.