LingoLatch1. Progress, accounts, and competition
You do not create a separate LingoLatch account. The app stores gameplay information on your device, including settings, scores, attempts, and history. Apple services support the online features you choose to use:
- iCloud Player Save: when available, your private iCloud account stores selected game results and history, including found words, streaks, and multiplayer history. Apple account and game identifiers associate this information with the right player. Not every device setting or unfinished round is backed up.
- Game Center: Apple handles authentication, player profiles, leaderboard scores, and multiplayer matches. The app uses your Game Center player identifier and display name to submit and retrieve your scores and manage matches. Other players can see profile and competition information according to the feature and your Apple privacy settings.
- Private groups: creating or joining a group shares its name, membership information, your display name, iCloud and Game Center identifiers, and selected game results with accepted members through Apple's CloudKit sharing. Shared results include scores, rejected-submission counts, and completion dates. The app also retrieves members' leaderboard scores. Group history can remain in the shared records until removed; it does not automatically expire.
Private group results do not include the words you entered, available answers, your full private save, or private multiplayer history. However, group members have collaborative access to the shared data. Only join groups with people you trust. Apple's sharing screens may show additional Apple account identity information to participants.
See Apple's Game Center privacy information and Apple's Privacy Policy for Apple's handling of these services, including its separate TestFlight diagnostics and feedback.
2. Optional analytics and crash reports
These are two independent switches in LingoLatch Settings. They are on by default in App Store and TestFlight versions unless you switch them off. Existing choices are preserved when updating. Normal developer builds do not report unless explicitly enabled for a test. Beta and public-release events are labeled separately.
Usage analytics — Aptabase
When enabled, Aptabase receives events such as opening the app, selecting a mode, starting or ending a round, multiplayer actions, and selecting leaderboard filters. Events may include word length, score, duration, word counts, rejected-entry and penalty counts, and whether a round was practice. The service also processes app and operating-system versions, device-model and language information, temporary session information, and network information that may indicate approximate location.
We do not send entered words, names, email addresses, Game Center player IDs, or precise GPS location in these analytics events. Our analytics project uses Aptabase's U.S. region. Aptabase describes its identifier handling and retention in its Privacy Policy; it currently states that app analytics can be retained for up to five years and may not be attributable to a particular person for deletion.
Crash reporting — Sentry
When enabled, Sentry receives crash stack traces, long app freezes, selected technical failures, and app/build, operating-system, and device-model details. Brief gameplay-event summaries accompany reports only when usage analytics is also on. Our code removes player identifiers and raw error descriptions and does not attach screenshots, screen recordings, or session replay. Services still receive network connection information when reports are transmitted.
We use reports to investigate reliability problems, not to create advertising profiles. Sentry processes these reports as a service provider; see its security information and data-processing information. Contact us about LingoLatch reports rather than treating Sentry's own website policy as the policy for our game.
3. Advertising
App Store versions may show Google AdMob ads at supported breaks between completed rounds, not during timed play. TestFlight and developer versions use Google's test ads, not paid live impressions. Live ads require a verified App Store installation. Missing ads, an unverified installation, or consent failures do not prevent you from continuing the game.
When consent or ad requests are enabled, Google may process IP addresses and approximate location, device or app identifiers, diagnostic and performance data, ads viewed, and ad interactions to deliver and measure advertising and prevent fraud. Non-personalized and test ads can still involve data processing. LingoLatch does not provide Google with your player name, game account identifier, entered words, private saves, or precise GPS location.
Applicable regional privacy choices are handled first. Where required, Google's consent form offers consent, refusal, and detailed options. If those choices allow personalized advertising, the app may then ask for Apple's App Tracking Transparency permission. The advertising SDK starts and ads are requested only after this sequence resolves. Google's publisher first-party ID remains disabled.
Personalized advertising is eligible only when you allow Apple's tracking request and applicable regional privacy choices permit it. With permission, Google may use your device's advertising identifier to link information across other companies' apps and websites for personalized advertising and advertising measurement. We do not use alternative identifiers to bypass an Apple tracking denial. If you decline Apple permission or tracking is restricted, the app requests non-personalized ads. Google also applies regional consent and opt-out signals and determines which, if any, limited ads are eligible. Non-personalized advertising still involves data processing; it does not mean no data is collected.
In Settings, Ad privacy choices lets you revisit applicable regional choices; Review ad privacy can retry an unavailable form. Apple's tracking permission is controlled separately in iOS Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking. Regional choices never override an Apple denial. Refusing permission does not lock game modes, and the app does not repeatedly ask after an Apple denial. Permission changes are checked before new ad requests and when the app returns to the foreground; cached ads are discarded when choices change.
The usage-analytics and crash-reporting switches do not control Google's ad processing. A verified Remove Ads entitlement suppresses new ad requests. Read Google's Privacy Policy and Google's Mobile Ads data disclosure.
4. Purchases and sandbox testing
Remove Ads is a permanent, one-time purchase, not a subscription. The app shows Apple's localized price before purchase. App Store purchases charge the displayed price after your confirmation. Where available in TestFlight, purchases use Apple's sandbox and do not charge real money; sandbox ownership is for testing and is not a paid App Store purchase.
Apple processes purchases and provides a verified entitlement that the app checks to enable ad-free play and restore ownership. We do not receive your payment-card details or send your purchase history to our own server or analytics providers. Restoring purchases uses the App Store account that purchased the item, which can differ from your Game Center account. The purchase does not disable optional analytics, crash reports, or Apple game services.
5. This website and support messages
This site is hosted on Netlify. Netlify processes web requests, including network and browser information such as IP address, requested URL, and user agent, to deliver and secure the site. We have not added advertising, analytics scripts, tracking pixels, cookies, or contact forms to these pages. See Netlify's privacy information.
If you email us or send beta feedback, we receive the contact information and content you choose to provide. We use that information to answer your request and investigate the issue. Please do not send passwords, payment details, or screenshots containing unrelated private information.
6. Purposes, sharing, and storage
We use the information described above to run the game, save progress, provide competitions, honor purchases, respond to requests, diagnose faults, and understand which features work well. With the permissions described above, advertising information may also be used for personalized advertising and measurement. We do not sell player information for money; advertising-related sharing may qualify as a sale or sharing under certain privacy laws. Use applicable regional advertising choices to opt out. Information is disclosed to the service providers and, for competition features, other players described in this policy. We may also disclose information when required by law or necessary to protect users and the service.
Where data-protection laws apply, the basis for processing depends on the feature: providing the service you request, legitimate interests in reliability and security, complying with legal obligations, or consent where required. Optional settings are not a substitute for consent where the law requires it.
Information may be processed in the United States and other countries where Apple, Google, Aptabase, Sentry, Netlify, and our support providers operate. Their processing arrangements and safeguards apply to their services. No storage or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure.
Device data remains until removed or replaced. iCloud saves and shared group records can outlive deletion of the app. Diagnostics and analytics follow the providers' applicable retention settings and policies; we do not promise an automatic deletion period that the app does not enforce. Support correspondence is kept as needed to resolve requests and meet legal obligations.
7. Your choices and requests
- Optional reporting: switch off Usage analytics or Crash reporting in Settings to stop new collection on that device. Already queued reports may finish sending; switching off does not erase reports already sent.
- Advertising choices: use Ad privacy choices in Settings, when available, to review or withdraw consent or make applicable U.S. state privacy choices. These choices are separate from optional reporting.
- Apple services: review Game Center visibility and iCloud access in your device's Apple settings. Disabling online services affects saves, rankings, multiplayer, and groups.
- Groups: use Manage Sharing or Manage Membership to review access, leave a group, or stop sharing as the owner. Leaving or removing access is not a promise to erase every historical record or a copy another member already received.
- Deletion: deleting the app removes its local data but does not automatically delete cloud saves, Game Center scores, shared records, or past reports. Contact us for help with data within our control; Apple account and cloud-data controls may also be necessary.
- Privacy rights: depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of personal information, restrict or object to processing, withdraw consent, or complain to your local privacy authority. Contact us to make a request. We may need to verify it, and some de-identified reports cannot be connected back to you.
8. Children and families
LingoLatch is a general-audience game, not specifically designed or marketed for children under 13. This does not mean every player is an adult. Parents and guardians should review the online features and privacy settings before a child plays. Game Center profiles and group results can be visible to other players. Optional analytics and crash reporting can be disabled in Settings. An App Store age rating describes content suitability; it does not itself establish consent for data collection or advertising.
If you believe a child has provided personal information that should not have been collected, contact us. We will review the request and help remove information within our control as required. The app does not ask for a date of birth or verify a player's age. Parents can disable optional reporting and review advertising choices; an ad-removal purchase is not a substitute for parental consent where required.
9. Policy updates
We will update this page when our practices change and revise the date above. Material changes will be communicated through an appropriate in-app or website notice, and additional consent will be requested where required.
10. Contact
Developer: Jared Deason
For privacy questions, data requests, or support: jd@cloudcapstudios.com.