Terms of Use
Last updated and in force from: 9 October 2026
In short
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BudaPast is free, and you do not need an account to use it.
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You are responsible for your own safety: look up, follow the traffic rules, and stay on public ground.
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The stories are researched and sourced, but they are there for curiosity. They are not a professional guide or official information.
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Do not cheat the location check, copy the content in bulk, or misuse the service.
1. About these terms
These terms are an agreement between you and the operator of BudaPast (budapast.app) (“we”). We operate BudaPast: the budapast.app website and web app and the BudaPast mobile apps. You can reach us at contact.budapast@gmail.com.
By using BudaPast you accept these terms. If you do not agree with them, please do not use it. How we handle personal data is described in our Privacy Policy, which applies alongside these terms.
Hosting provider: Google Cloud EMEA Limited, 70 Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland (Firebase and Google Cloud); contact: firebase.google.com/support.
2. The service
BudaPast lets you find short stories about real places in Budapest. A story opens when you reach its location and answer a few questions about it. It is free of charge, and it works without an account. If we ever offer paid features, we will show the price and the conditions before you buy anything.
We may add, change, pause or remove stories, locations, themes and features at any time, and we may end the service. We work to keep BudaPast available and correct, but we do not promise that it will always be available or free of faults.
3. Who can use BudaPast
You may use BudaPast if you are 16 or older. If you are younger, use it only with the agreement and supervision of a parent or guardian, who accepts these terms for you. You must follow the laws that apply where you are.
4. Your safety comes first
BudaPast is used outdoors, among traffic and other people. You alone decide where you go and how, and you are responsible for your own safety and for the safety of anyone with you.
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Look up while you walk. Stop somewhere safe before you look at the screen.
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Follow traffic rules and signs. Never use BudaPast while driving, cycling or riding a scooter.
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Stay on public ground. A pin or a story never gives you the right to enter private property, closed or restricted areas, building sites or anywhere unsafe.
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Respect memorials, cemeteries, places of worship and the people who live nearby. Follow each site's own rules and opening hours.
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Take account of the weather, darkness, crowds and your own physical limits. If a place looks unsafe or cannot be reached, do not go. Use the observation fallback where it is offered, or come back another time, and tell us through “Report a problem”.
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Children should use BudaPast only together with an adult.
Pins and distances are approximate, and the city changes. We do not check locations in real time, and we do not promise that a place is open, accessible, safe or unchanged when you get there.
No story, star or collection is worth a risk. In an emergency, call 112.
5. Location checks and progress
Arrival is confirmed from your device's position. GPS can be inaccurate, especially between tall buildings, so a check may fail even when you are standing in the right place. You have no claim to a particular story opening.
Progress, stars and collections exist only for your enjoyment. They have no monetary value and cannot be exchanged, transferred or sold. We may correct or remove progress that was gained through an error, a fault or a breach of these terms.
6. Stories and other content
We research every story and name its sources, and we say so when something is a legend, a rumour or an interpretation. History is still debated, and mistakes are possible. If you find one, please use “Report a problem”.
The content is for general interest and education. It is not professional, academic, legal or tour-guide advice, and it is not official information from any institution, authority or site operator.
Unless we say otherwise, we are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the places, institutions or businesses the stories mention. BudaPast links to other websites and services, such as the sources of a story or a maps app for directions. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content or their terms.
7. What you must not do
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Fake or manipulate your location, use automated tools, or trick the arrival check in any other way.
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Try to obtain hidden coordinates, quiz answers or locked stories by going around the app.
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Copy, scrape or republish the content in bulk, or collect it by automated means.
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Interfere with the service, overload it, or try to gain access you were not given.
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Use BudaPast for anything unlawful, to harass other people, or to disturb the places you visit.
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Send reports that are abusive, unlawful or deliberately false, or that contain other people's personal data.
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Use someone else's account, or pretend to be someone you are not.
8. Ownership and what you may do with the content
The BudaPast name and logo, the app, its design and the stories, questions and other texts belong to us or to our licensors. We give you a personal, non-commercial licence to use them through BudaPast. We may withdraw it if you break these terms.
You are welcome to share links to stories and to quote short passages with credit to BudaPast. Any other reuse, including commercial use, needs our written permission.
Some photographs are published under open licences, such as Creative Commons, by the authors credited beside them. Those licences, not these terms, govern what you may do with those photographs. The map uses data © OpenStreetMap contributors and OpenMapTiles, served by OpenFreeMap, under their own licences.
9. Reports and suggestions
If you send us a problem report or a suggestion, we may use it to improve BudaPast without owing you anything for it. Please leave personal information out of what you write.
10. Accounts
A guest account lives on your device. If you clear your browser's data, reinstall the app or lose the device, the progress of a guest account may be lost for good. Register an account if you want to keep it.
Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your account, so tell us if you think someone else is using it. You can delete your account at any time in Settings.
We may suspend or delete an account that breaks these terms. Where we reasonably can, we will tell you first; after a serious breach we may act without notice. As the Privacy Policy explains, we may also delete accounts that have not been used for 24 months.
11. Our responsibility
BudaPast is a free service. We provide it with reasonable care, but as it is: we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or free of errors, that every piece of content is accurate, or that any location is open, accessible or safe at a given moment.
To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for:
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accidents, injuries, loss or damage that result from how you move around the city, from your presence at a location, or from your breaking these terms or the law;
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loss caused by inaccurate positioning, map data or content;
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the loss of progress or other data, for example with a guest account;
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interruptions, changes to the service or its end;
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indirect or consequential loss, or lost profit.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law. In particular, we remain liable for damage we cause intentionally and for damage to life, body or health caused by our breach of these terms. Your statutory rights as a consumer are not affected.
12. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms when the service changes, when the law requires it, or for security reasons. The date at the top shows the version in force. We will announce a significant change in the app at least 15 days before it takes effect. If you do not accept a change, stop using BudaPast; you can delete your account at any time. If you keep using it after the change takes effect, you accept the new terms.
13. Ending the agreement
You may stop using BudaPast at any time, and deleting your account ends this agreement. We may end or suspend your access as described in section 10, or when we close the service. Sections 4, 6, 8, 11 and 14 continue to apply afterwards, as far as they are still relevant.
14. Law and disputes
These terms are governed by Hungarian law. If you are a consumer living in another country of the European Union, you also keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live.
If something goes wrong, please contact us first at contact.budapast@gmail.com. We reply to complaints within 30 days.
If you are a consumer and we cannot settle a complaint with you, you may turn to a consumer conciliation board (in Hungary: békéltető testület), which is free of charge, or to the consumer protection authority. The European Commission lists the dispute resolution bodies of every member state at consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu.
Disputes can be brought before the Hungarian courts. If you are a consumer, you may also bring a claim in the courts of the country where you live.
15. If you got BudaPast from an app store
Apple and Google are not parties to these terms and are not responsible for BudaPast or its content. If you downloaded the app from the Apple App Store, the following also applies:
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These terms are between you and us only, not Apple. We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and its content.
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Your licence covers use of the app on Apple devices that you own or control, as permitted by the usage rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
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We are responsible for any maintenance and support of the app. Apple has no obligation to provide either.
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If the app does not meet a warranty that applies to it, you may notify Apple, which will refund any price you paid for the app. As far as the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app.
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We, not Apple, are responsible for dealing with any claim about the app or your use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app breaks a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection or privacy law.
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If a third party claims that the app infringes its intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are responsible for investigating, defending, settling and resolving that claim.
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You confirm that you are not located in a country under a United States government embargo, or one the United States government has designated as “terrorist supporting”, and that you are not on any United States government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
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You must comply with any third-party terms that apply when you use the app, for example your mobile data agreement.
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Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right to enforce them against you.
16. General
If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest stays in force. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we have not given it up. We may transfer BudaPast and our rights and duties under these terms to another operator; we will tell you beforehand, and your rights will not be reduced.
These terms are available in English and Hungarian. Questions about them are welcome at contact.budapast@gmail.com.