"Is This Legal?" Why a Loyalty Card Can Show Up on Your Lock Screen, Explained for Owners

A guest walks past your restaurant, glances at their phone, and there's your loyalty card on the lock screen. Their first thought might be: is this even legal?

It's a fair question, and your team should be able to answer it in one breath. This post isn't legal advice. Privacy rules depend on where you operate, so check with a lawyer for your own business. What it does is explain how a Wallet loyalty card actually works, so you and your staff can answer that question honestly.

Who put the card there? The guest did

A Wallet loyalty card never shows up on a phone on its own. The guest adds it:

1. They scan your QR code at the counter, the front desk or the chair, or they open your card link.
2. They sign up with the details you ask for.
3. They tap "Save to Apple Wallet" or "Save to Google Wallet".

If someone never saved your card, there's nothing on their phone to show up. That's the short answer to "who did this?": the guest did, on purpose, to keep their stamps.

How the lock-screen moment works

The card carries your location on the map, so it can show up on the guest's lock screen when they're near.

Two details matter here:
• The phone and the wallet app decide when. You don't push anything and you don't choose the moment. On Android, Google Wallet may also show a nearby notice. Google decides how close someone needs to be, how long they stay and what the text says, and it only shows it to people who turned on notifications and gave the Google Wallet app precise, always-on location access (Google Wallet developer docs: developers.google.com/wallet/retail/loyalty-cards/use-cases/trigger-push-notifications). Apple Wallet uses the locations saved on the pass in a similar way (Apple developer docs: developer.apple.com/documentation/walletpasses/pass/locations-data.dictionary).
• On iPhone, the card can show a short line you write in Westify. For example: "You are nearby. Show your card when you pay."

So treat the lock screen as a bonus that can happen, not a promise that it will.

What the phone checks, and what the business sees

This is the part guests care about most, so say it plainly:

Your phone checks the location, not the restaurant. Westify never gets your location.

Your business's location goes onto the card, and the comparison happens on the guest's own phone. Nothing sends the guest's location back to you or to Westify.

What you do see is what any loyalty program needs: the member's name and the signup details you ask for, their stamps, their rewards and their visits. Be upfront about that too. "We see your stamps, not where you are" is a sentence guests understand.

How guests turn it off

The guest stays in control the whole time. They can turn off lock screen suggestions in their phone's Wallet settings, and they can delete their card and their data at any time from their card link.

Tell them that before they ask. It turns a "this feels creepy" moment into a "fine, that's fair" moment.

What to tell a guest who asks "is this legal?"

Give your team three lines and nothing more:
• "That's our stamp card. You saved it when you scanned the QR code."
• "Your phone checks the location, not the restaurant. Westify never gets your location."
• "If you don't want it on your lock screen, you can turn that off in Wallet, or delete the card."

No jargon, no defensiveness, no legal claims. Just how it works.

Restaurants, hotels, barbershops, shops

The same card works across businesses that live on repeat visits:
• Restaurants and cafés: one stamp per visit. The lock screen moment fits the walk past your door on a normal Tuesday.
• Hotels: one stamp per stay, scanned at check-in or check-out.
• Barbershops and salons: one stamp per cut.
• Shops: a stamp for purchases above a minimum spend you set.

Because stamps and rewards give guests a reason to come back, and a card on their phone is a card they can't leave in a drawer.

What it costs in Westify

The Westify loyalty card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet is a $7.99 USD a month add-on per location on the Basic plan, and it's included in the Growth and Enterprise plans. Current pricing: westify.app/pricing

Want to try a Wallet loyalty card first? Westify has a free loyalty card in its free tools: westify.app/free-loyalty-card

Bottom line

"Is this legal?" is really "did I agree to this, and who knows where I am?" The honest answer: the guest saved the card themselves, the card can show up on their lock screen when they're near, their phone checks the location, not the restaurant, and Westify never gets their location. They can turn it off or delete the card whenever they want.

See Westify's loyalty card: westify.app/loyalty-card

Related: westify.app/blog/loyalty-card-apple-wallet-google-wallet · westify.app/blog/replace-paper-punch-card-with-wallet-card · westify.app/blog/turn-first-time-customers-into-regulars

Sources: Google for Developers, "Trigger Push Notifications | Loyalty cards" (Nearby Notifications), developers.google.com/wallet/retail/loyalty-cards/use-cases/trigger-push-notifications · Apple Developer, "Pass.Locations", developer.apple.com/documentation/walletpasses/pass/locations-data.dictionary