The camera does not keep the video

ShakeFit needs a camera to work, and a camera pointed at your living room deserves a straight answer about where the picture goes. The short version is that the picture is read on the phone and then it is gone.

What happens to a camera frame

Each frame goes from the camera to a pose model that runs inside the app, on your phone. The model returns the positions of 16 body joints, and the frame is discarded. No video and no image is stored, and none is sent anywhere.

Three details matter here.

• Face landmarks and fingertip landmarks are dropped before the rest of the app can see them. The figure drawn on screen has no face and no hands
• The joint positions exist in memory for the length of the session, drive the score, and are then gone. They are not written to storage and they are not sent
• The app contains no code that encodes video and no code that sends camera data over a network. That absence is the safeguard. It is not a setting you have to trust

During a session you see a live preview so you can frame yourself. The preview is drawn and discarded frame by frame like everything else.

What does leave the phone

Some things do leave, and it is better to list them than to imply that nothing does.

When you finish a session, the app sends a short numeric summary. It holds fields such as the track, the reps that counted, the best combo and the seconds the camera had you in view. The app also sends its own product analytics events. Those record things like a session starting or finishing, or the subscription screen being opened, and they carry simple values only. Neither contains video, images or joint positions.

Both are tied to an account identifier, which is anonymous unless you choose to sign in. Like any network request, they also carry your IP address and a timestamp, which our hosting provider logs.

If you subscribe, the purchase is handled by Apple or Google, and the subscription state is kept by RevenueCat under an identifier it generates itself.

There is no advertising and no analytics kit from another company, and nothing is sold. The privacy page lists every field that leaves the device, one by one.

What stays on the phone

Your profile, your workout history, your weight log and your progress are stored on the device. Your age stays there too, along with the height and weight you choose to enter. None of them is uploaded.

Signing in is optional

Every part of the app works if you never sign in. Signing in exists for one reason, which is to let a second phone pick up where the first left off. If you do sign in, the email address your sign-in provider shares is held with your account. On Android the name on your Google account comes with it.

Sharing and deleting

When you share a result, the app draws a card from your own numbers. The card holds no camera image.

You can delete your records from inside the app. That removes what is on the phone and asks the server to delete the session summaries, the analytics events and the account itself. The account deletion page gives the exact steps.

If you want the other half of the story, how ShakeFit grades a rep explains what the app does with those joint positions.