Spiky Sweeper — Privacy Policy

1. Summary

Spiky Sweeper is a competitive grid-logic puzzle game in which you race a pre-recorded run of another player on the same puzzle. This policy explains what data the App collects, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and your rights.

The App is anonymous-first. You can install and play without an account and without giving us a name, email address, or any other personally identifying information. Your default identity is an opaque, device-bound anonymous account. You may optionally upgrade to Google sign-in to preserve your progress. Sign-in is handled by Firebase Authentication, which holds the link between your Google account and your account here so it can keep you signed in; we do not copy your email address or Google profile data into our game database, and we do not use them for anything beyond signing you in (see Section 4).

We do not sell your data, show ads, build advertising profiles, or offer in-app purchases.

2. Data We Collect

2.1 Stored only on your device

The following stays on your device so the App works offline and across restarts, and is not sent to us:

• In-progress match state — the puzzle you are playing, cells revealed and flagged, your input timeline, and elapsed/paused time, so a match survives an app close, a process kill, or a device restart.
• Cached puzzle and opponent-run assets — downloaded once so a match plays end-to-end offline and survives restarts without re-downloading.
• Queued results awaiting upload — if you finish a match offline, the result is queued locally and uploaded on the next reconnection.
• App settings and your recorded acceptance of this policy.

2.2 Stored on our servers (Google Firebase / Cloud Firestore)

• Opaque account identifier — a random identifier issued by Firebase Authentication when you first play. It contains no personal information — no email, device fingerprint, advertising ID, or provider token — and is the only identity-shaped value we store for an anonymous account.
• Display name — a self-chosen, unique label. New accounts get a generated default you can edit. It is the only identity other players ever see (Section 2.3). Do not put personal information in it.
• Game replays (community-visible — see Section 2.3) — the recorded timeline of your interactions in a match (each reveal, flag, and chord, timestamped from match start), plus the puzzle identifier, the result (cleared or mine-struck), and a snapshot of your rating at recording time.
• Per-difficulty ratings — a Glicko-2 skill rating (a value, a deviation, and a volatility) for each difficulty you have played.
• Match records — the puzzle, opponent, outcome, and rating change for each match, used for your history and re-watch.
• Abuse-prevention counters — rate-limit counters keyed to your account and to puzzles, used to bound how often submissions are accepted.
• Device-integrity attestation tokens — a token from Google Play Integrity / Firebase App Check proving a submission came from a genuine, unmodified App instance (Sections 3 and 4).
• Consent record — an append-only entry recording that you accepted this policy: your opaque account identifier, the policy version and its date, and the server timestamp of acceptance. It carries no personal information.
• Google sign-in link (only if you upgrade) — if you upgrade to Google sign-in, Firebase Authentication binds an opaque provider identifier to your existing account so your progress carries over. We do not copy your email address or Google profile data into our game database (Section 1).

We do not collect your real name, email address, phone number, precise location, contacts, photos, advertising identifiers, or persistent device or advertising IDs, and we do not use device data to track or profile you.

2.3 Community-visible content (replays and display name)

Some content you create is, by design, visible to other players:

• Your best ("canonical") replay for a puzzle may be served to another player as the opponent they race on that puzzle. When it is, they see only your display name and a snapshot of your rating next to the on-screen ghost — never your account identifier, tokens, device, or any other private data.
• Treat your display name and any replay as content other players may see.

Non-canonical replays are kept for your own re-watch history and future integrity validation but are not served to other players.

3. How We Use Data

We use the data above only to:

• Operate gameplay — serve puzzles, choose an opponent replay, render the opponent ghost, and resolve outcomes.
• Maintain ratings and leaderboards — update your per-difficulty Glicko-2 ratings after rated matches and rank players.
• Preserve your progress — keep your ratings, replays, and progression durable, including across an optional upgrade to Google sign-in.
• Prevent abuse and fraud — verify device-integrity attestation and enforce rate limits so fabricated or automated submissions are rejected.
• Diagnose crashes and errors — see Section 4.

4. Third-Party Processors

We use the following service providers ("processors"), each processing data on our behalf under its own data-processing terms:

4.1 Crash and error reporting (required; no opt-out)

Crash and error reports are required app-functionality data — we rely on them to keep the App stable — so they cannot be turned off. This is declared as required app-functionality data in the Google Play Console Data Safety form. Reports auto-delete from our diagnostics processors within approximately 90 days.

Before any report leaves your device it is scrubbed so it retains only opaque identifiers and technical metadata (such as your opaque account identifier, the opaque puzzle identifier, difficulty, match phase, match identifier, the result code, the rating snapshot, and diagnostic stack fields). Authentication tokens, attestation tokens, display names, and any email-shaped values are stripped on your device and never reach either processor. IP addresses are not included in report payloads, and we configure our diagnostics processors not to store them.

5. Data Retention and Deletion

We keep server-side data for as long as your account exists, except crash and error reports, which our processors auto-delete within approximately 90 days (Section 4.1).

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS). Our infrastructure providers process your device's IP address transiently to route requests and guard against abuse; we do not store it or use it to identify you.

5.1 Account deletion

You can delete your account from in-app settings. The purge begins immediately when you request it and completes promptly, removing your player record, all canonical and non-canonical replays, your rating history, match records, queued submissions, abuse-prevention counters, consent record, and display-name claim. You can also request deletion without opening the App, at https://spikysweeper.prasergames.com/delete-account. Any deletion request made by other means is completed within 30 days. Our deletion process acts only on the authenticated account — it accepts no other-account input and cannot delete anyone else's data. Once your display-name claim is released, the name returns to the pool.

Anonymized aggregate data that identifies no one may be retained. Deleting your account does not un-serve replays already downloaded and cached on another player's device during an earlier match; those local copies expire under that device's caching.

6. Breach Notification

If we become aware of a personal-data breach likely to create a risk to your rights, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within the timeframes required by law (for example, within 72 hours where the GDPR applies) and notify affected players without undue delay where the law requires it, using in-app or public notice because the App's anonymous-first design means we hold no direct contact details for you.

7. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy. Each version carries a version number, an effective date, and a last-updated date (see the header), and substantive changes are recorded in the Changelog and announced in-app or on our site. The current version is always available from in-app settings and the Play Store listing.

Before you can play, the App requires you to explicitly accept the current Privacy Policy and Terms of Service; access is blocked until you do. When a substantive change raises the required policy version, you must explicitly accept the updated policy to keep playing. Acceptance is an affirmative action you take — it is never implied by your continued use of the App.

8. Children's Privacy

Spiky Sweeper is intended for adults and is not directed to anyone under 18. The App is anonymous-first and requires no personal information to play, and we do not knowingly permit its use by, or collect personal information from, anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided us personal information, contact us (Section 11) and we will delete it.

9. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the rights below. Because anonymous accounts are not tied to any contact information, we may need enough information to locate the specific account (for example, your in-app account identifier) to act on a request, and we may be unable to verify a request we cannot tie to an account.

9.1 EU/UK GDPR (Articles 15–22)

• Access (Art. 15) — confirmation of whether we process your data and a copy of it. We have no self-serve export; request a copy via Section 11 and we fulfil it manually.
• Rectification (Art. 16) — correct inaccurate data (for example, by editing your display name in-app).
• Erasure (Art. 17) — delete your data via in-app account deletion (Section 5.1).
• Restriction (Art. 18) — limit how we process your data in certain cases.
• Portability (Art. 20) — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format; request it via Section 11 and we provide it manually.
• Object (Art. 21) — object to certain processing.
• Automated decision-making (Art. 22) — our skill-rating and matchmaking affect only in-game matching and rankings and produce no legal or similarly significant effects. Automated anti-cheat controls may restrict, suspend, or terminate an account; where such a decision significantly affects you, you may contact us (Section 11) to request human review.

You may also lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

9.2 CCPA/CPRA (California residents)

• Know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose.
• Delete personal information we hold (Section 5.1).
• Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Opt out of "sale" or "sharing" — we do not sell or share your personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA.
• Non-discrimination for exercising your rights — we will not discriminate against you.

To exercise any right, use in-app account deletion where applicable (Section 5.1) or contact us (Section 11).

10. Governing Law

This policy and any dispute relating to it are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws provisions, except where mandatory consumer-protection or data-protection law in your place of residence applies. Nothing here deprives you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence.

11. Contact

For privacy questions, requests, or to exercise your rights, contact the Operator:

• PraserGames LLC
• support@prasergames.com

Changelog