Relaxing Puzzle — Privacy Policy

1. What stays on your device

The game saves your progress locally, using Android's own app storage: how many levels you have finished, your hints and suns, your day streak and the date you last played, the board of a puzzle you left half-finished, and your sound, music, vibration and dark-mode settings.

We have no server-side copy of your progress and no way to look at it. Two things leave your phone, both described in section 3: your puzzle counts and chosen name, for the Hall of Fame; and - only if you sign in with Google Play Games - a copy of your progress kept in your own Google account by Google.

2. Downloading puzzles

The game fetches its picture catalogue so new puzzles can be added without you updating the app. This is hosted on Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore and Cloud Storage). For the puzzle catalogue the game only ever reads; it writes to Firebase only for the Hall of Fame and when you use Send a Puzzle or Play Together, which section 3 describes.

What	Why
Your IP address	Unavoidable in any internet request. Google logs it briefly to deliver the files and to stop abuse. We do not store it or look at it.
A random installation identifier	Created by Google's Firebase libraries so the service can tell one app install from another. It is not linked to you or to any account, and we do not use it to build a profile.

3. Other players: Send a Puzzle, Play Together and the Hall of Fame

Send a Puzzle and Play Together send something of yours to one other person. Both are optional, and if you never open them, sections 3.1 to 3.3 do not apply to you. The Hall of Fame (3.4) lists every player, and Google Play Games (3.5) is an optional sign-in.

3.1 The picture you send

When you turn one of your photos into a puzzle, that photo is uploaded to Google Firebase Storage so the person you give the code to can download and solve it. Nobody else can reach it: the eight-digit code is required, and once one person has opened the puzzle, only the two of you can read it.

The picture is deleted from our server the moment the puzzle is solved. If nobody ever opens it, it is deleted automatically within 24 hours. Neither we nor anyone else keeps a copy afterwards, and a picture cannot be recovered once it is gone.

If you choose View once, the receiving phone blocks screenshots and screen recording while the picture is on screen, and the picture bursts into confetti about ten seconds after they finish. If you choose Extra private, the photo is encrypted on your own phone before it is uploaded and the key travels only inside the message you send, so what sits on our server is bytes we have no way to read.

3.2 What the other player sees

The display name and animal you pick are shown to the person you are playing with, so they know who they are solving with. It is free text, we do not check it, and it does not need to be your real name. The short note you can attach to a puzzle is shown to the receiver when they finish it. While you are both solving, your moves are shared live so each of you can see the other playing.

3.3 Reporting a picture

If someone sends you something that should not have been sent, the Report button sends a copy of that picture to us for review, blocks that sender on your phone, and ends the puzzle there and then. This is the one case where a picture outlives the game, and it exists so that we can act on abuse.

3.4 The Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame ranks players by puzzles solved, this week and of all time. To appear in it, the game keeps one small entry per installation on Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore): the display name and animal you chose in Play Together - or, if you never chose one, a name the game makes up such as "Sunny Fox" - your number of puzzles solved this week and of all time, and when it last changed. The entry is filed under a random identifier, not your name or any account. Your entry - name, animal and puzzle counts - is visible to every player of the game. The name is free text you typed, does not need to be your real name, and you can change it in Play Together at any time.

If you are signed in to Google Play Games, the entry also holds a scrambled code made from your Play Games player ID with a one-way function. It is used only so the Hall of Fame does not list you twice, and it cannot be turned back into your player ID or your Google account. Players whose Play Games profile Google shows appear with their Play Games name and picture; players Google does not show appear with their in-game name and animal instead - never with their Google identity.

To be removed from the Hall of Fame, email us at the address in section 14 and we will delete your entry.

3.5 Google Play Games (optional)

You can sign in with Google Play Games from Settings or the Hall of Fame; the game also accepts Play Games' own automatic sign-in on phones where you already use it. When you are signed in, Google provides the game with your Play Games player ID, gamer name and picture; your progress is copied to your Google account with Play Games Saved Games, so a new phone can carry on; and your puzzle counts are posted to the game's two Play Games leaderboards. This is provided by Google under Google's privacy policy. You control who sees your Play Games profile, and can delete Play Games data, in the Play Games app's settings. If you never sign in, none of this happens.

4. Adverts — one kind, only if you choose it

The game shows a single kind of advert: a rewarded video you press a button to watch in exchange for hints. There are no banners and nothing that interrupts a puzzle. If you never press that button, no advert is ever shown to you.

Adverts are served by Google AdMob. To select and measure an advert, Google's advertising software collects information from your device. This is collected by Google, not by us, and we never receive any of it in a form that identifies you.

What	Why
Your device's advertising ID	A resettable identifier Android provides for advertising. Google uses it to limit repeated adverts, measure whether an advert worked, and — where permitted — choose which advert to show.
IP address and approximate location	Used to serve region-appropriate adverts and to detect fraud. This is a coarse, IP-derived location; the game has no location permission and cannot read your GPS.
Device and app information	Model, operating-system version, language, and the fact that the advert was requested by this app.
Advert interaction	Whether an advert was shown, watched to the end, or tapped — which is how the reward is paid out and how the advert is billed.

5. Statistics and crash reports

The game uses Google Analytics for Firebase and Firebase Crashlytics so we can see how the game is doing in aggregate and fix it when it breaks. What we actually send is a short, deliberate list: a level was opened, a level was finished, a level was skipped, a hint was used, a rewarded advert paid out, and a picture download failed. Each carries the level number and its chapter name — nothing about you.

The most useful of these is the skip: a level skipped far more often than its neighbours is a level that is too hard or not enjoyable, and nothing else would ever tell us that. Crashlytics records the technical details of a crash — where in the code it happened, your device model and Android version, and which level was open at the time — so a bug can be found and fixed.

Firebase generates a random app-instance identifier for these reports. It is not your name, not your email, and not your advertising ID, and we cannot use it to work out who you are.

6. Session replay

The game uses Microsoft Clarity, which reconstructs an anonymous playback of a session — the screens that were drawn and where the screen was tapped — plus heatmaps of where people tap. We watch these to find the places where the game is confusing: taps that do nothing, repeated frustrated taps, a board people give up on.

This records the game's own screen and nothing else. It cannot see other apps, your notifications, your keyboard, or anything outside Relaxing Puzzle, and the game has no text fields, no login, and no personal information on screen to capture. Clarity also reads the Google Play install referrer — that is, which link led you to install the app.

Microsoft's handling of this data is covered by the Microsoft Privacy Statement and the Clarity Terms of Use.

7. What we do not do

We do not collect your email address, phone number, contacts, precise location, files, or any account information — there are no accounts of our own; the optional Play Games sign-in in section 3.5 is Google's. There are no in-app purchases and no subscriptions. We never sell your information, and we do not hand it to advertisers or data brokers. None of the statistics or crash reports described above arrive with anything that identifies you.

There are deliberate exceptions, and they are the whole point of the features in section 3: your Hall of Fame entry (chosen name, animal and puzzle counts) is shown to every player; and if you use Send a Puzzle or Play Together, the photo you chose, the display name you typed and any note you wrote are shared with the single person you sent the code to, and the photo passes through our server until it is solved or expires. We do not look at these pictures, and the only one that ever reaches a person here is one you report to us.

7.1 Permissions

The game asks for one runtime permission, and only if you ask it to. On Android 9 and older, saving a picture someone sent you into your gallery needs permission to write to storage, so Android prompts you at that moment; decline it and everything else works as before. On Android 10 and newer there is no prompt at all. The game has no access to your camera, microphone, contacts, calendar or precise location, and it never browses your gallery — it only ever receives the one photo you pick yourself in Android's own picker.

It does declare a number of install-time permissions, most of them added automatically by the advertising and analytics libraries rather than written by us. For completeness, that is the whole list:

Permission	What it is for
Internet, network state	Downloading puzzle pictures, and loading an advert when you ask for one.
Write storage (Android 9 and older only)	Saving a picture someone sent you to your gallery, if you tap Save. Not requested on Android 10 and newer.
Vibrate	The small haptic tap when pieces fuse. You can turn it off in settings.
Advertising ID, and the related ad-services permissions	Added by Google's advertising library. Used to select and measure the rewarded advert, as described in section 4.
Install referrer	Added by Microsoft Clarity. Records which link led you to install the game.
Wake lock, foreground service	Added by the analytics libraries so a queued upload can finish rather than being cut off mid-way.

None of these can read anything personal from your device. Android classes all of them as install-time permissions, which is why none of them produce a prompt.

8. Who receives data, and why

Service	What it gets	What it is for
Firebase Firestore & Storage	IP address, install identifier, your Hall of Fame entry (section 3.4), and — only if you use Send a Puzzle or Play Together — the photo you send, your display name and your note, until the puzzle is solved or expires	Delivering the puzzle pictures, the Hall of Fame, and carrying a puzzle you send to the person you send it to
Every player of the game	Your Hall of Fame entry: chosen name and animal (or Play Games name and picture, if Google shows them), puzzles solved this week and of all time	The Hall of Fame
Google Play Games Services (only if you sign in)	Your Play Games player ID, gamer name and picture, your saved progress, your puzzle counts	Saving progress to your Google account, and the Play Games leaderboards
The one person you send a puzzle to	The photo, your display name and animal, your note, and your moves while you both solve	Send a Puzzle and Play Together
Google AdMob	Advertising ID, IP, device info, advert interaction	The optional rewarded advert
Google Analytics for Firebase	App-instance ID, the game events listed above	Knowing which levels work
Firebase Crashlytics	Crash details, device model, Android version, level open	Finding and fixing crashes
Microsoft Clarity	Anonymous screen playback, taps, install referrer	Finding confusing parts of the game

Google's privacy policy: policies.google.com/privacy, and how Google uses information from apps that use its services.

9. Your choices

• Don't watch adverts. The rewarded video is entirely optional and the game is fully playable without it.
• Reset or delete your advertising ID in Settings → Privacy → Ads (or Settings → Google → Ads). You can reset it, or delete it so apps can no longer request personalised adverts.
• Opt out of personalised advertising at adssettings.google.com. You will still see adverts, but they will not be based on your interests.
• Opt out of Clarity through Microsoft's general opt-out at choice.microsoft.com.
• Choose your Hall of Fame name in Play Together, or ask to be removed from the Hall of Fame by emailing us (section 14).
• Don't sign in to Play Games, sign out, or change who can see your Play Games profile, in the Play Games app's settings.
• Clear everything. Clearing the app's data, or uninstalling it, removes everything the game has stored on your phone and resets the random identifiers used for statistics and session replay. There is no server-side copy of your progress to delete, because we never made one; a copy you saved to your Google account through Play Games is managed in the Play Games app.

10. Children

The game is rated for a general audience and is not directed to children. Because players can now send each other pictures, we ask parents to be aware that a child could receive a picture from whoever they share a code with; every received picture carries a Report button that also blocks that sender. It is not distributed in Google Play's Kids tab. We knowingly collect no personal information from anyone, children included. Because the game serves adverts through Google AdMob, we ask that children under 13 (or the equivalent age in your country) use it only with a parent's supervision. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, contact us at the address below — although, as described above, we hold no personal information to remove.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict the use of your personal information, or to object to it being processed. The only information about you that we hold ourselves is your Hall of Fame entry (section 3.4), which we will show you or delete on request; the saved game is on your own device and under your control, and the rest of the data above is held by Google and Microsoft under their own policies. You may still contact us with any request or complaint, and you have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

12. Data retention

A photo sent through Send a Puzzle is deleted from our server as soon as the puzzle is solved, and in every case automatically within 24 hours, whether or not anyone opened it. A picture you report is kept only for as long as we need to review the report. A Hall of Fame entry is kept while the game offers the Hall of Fame, or until you ask us to delete it. Apart from that we keep no database of our own. Data on your device stays until you clear the app's data or uninstall it. Data collected by Google and Microsoft is retained according to their own retention policies.

13. Changes

If the game ever adds purchases, accounts, or a new kind of advert or tracking, this page will be updated before that version is released, and the date at the top will change.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy: extremetech24@gmail.com. We reply within 2 business days.