Hello Strava Developer Community,
I’m exploring a fitness app concept and would appreciate clarification from the Strava team about whether it would be permitted under the current API Agreement and API Policy.
The concept turns an athlete’s walking, running, cycling and hiking into progress through a persistent virtual world. Each athlete would authorize access to their own activities through OAuth. Supported activity distances would be converted into game movement points that advance a virtual traveler. The traveler’s virtual location would be independent of the athlete’s actual GPS location.
Persistent personal world
The athlete’s journey would continue across months and years, with visited destinations, passport stamps, levels and earned cosmetic rewards.
May an application retain this derived game state beyond the seven-day activity cache period, while deleting the underlying activity records? Which parts would need to be removed or recalculated when an activity is deleted or the athlete revokes authorization?
Game points and country rankings
Athletes could optionally choose a country team. Their game movement points would contribute to that team’s total and position in a country leaderboard.
Other users would see country-level game scores and rankings, rather than individual activity records, GPS routes or heart-rate data. Individual contributions could remain visible only to their respective owners.
Is this country-level aggregation permitted with explicit opt-in? Would the answer differ if the leaderboard also displayed individual athletes’ derived game points?
How the policy provisions interact
I’m trying to understand how the owner-only requirements in sections 2.3 and 6.2 apply alongside the athlete-capacity wording in section 6.1, and how sections 5.4 and 5.5 apply to derived game scores and persistent virtual progress.
I understand that converting activity data into points, anonymizing it or obtaining user consent does not automatically make a use permissible.
Could someone from the Strava team clarify which parts of this concept are permitted under standard API access, which would require redesign, and whether a separate written agreement or partnership could authorize the broader use case?
I’m asking about policy permission rather than a rate-limit or athlete-capacity increase. I would like to establish the permitted design before proceeding.
Thank you for your guidance.