Prospectour Privacy Policy
This policy explains what personal data Prospectour collects, why, the legal basis for using it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have. It reflects how the app actually works.
1. Who we are
Prospectour ("Prospectour", "we", "us", "our") is a location-based idle-mining mobile game for iOS and Android. The data controller responsible for your personal data is Prospectour (United Kingdom).
For any privacy question, or to exercise your rights, contact our Data Protection Officer, Mark Deakin, at delete@prospectour.co.uk.
We process personal data in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (and, for users in the EEA, the EU GDPR).
2. Age requirement
Prospectour is rated 18+ and is intended only for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it. See also Section 12.
3. What we collect and why
| Data | Why we collect it | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To create and secure your account and to contact you about it. Stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM) with a one-way blind index for lookup | Art. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract |
| Username | Your public display name. Shown to other players on leaderboards and in referral lists (see below) | Art. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract |
| Password | To authenticate you. Stored only as a one-way Argon2id hash, never in plain text | Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (account security) |
| Sign-in with Google / Apple | If you choose these, we receive a verified identifier and email from the provider to create or match your account. We never receive your Google or Apple password | Art. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract |
| Precise location (GPS) | Core gameplay — to let you claim and own real-world map "squares" near you, and as an anti-cheat speed check. Used only while the app is in the foreground. We keep only your single most-recent fix (no location history) and purge it after ~24 hours of inactivity | Art. 6(1)(b) contract; Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (anti-cheat) |
| Claimed-square coordinates | The map squares you own are part of your game state; they indicate places near where you have played | Art. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract |
| Coarse location (weather) | To show in-game weather, we send an approximate location (rounded to ~11 km, with no account identifier) to our weather provider | Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (game feature) |
| Device identifier | Referral anti-fraud only. Stored as a one-way HMAC index — the raw device ID is never stored | Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (fraud prevention) |
| Purchase records | To deliver in-app purchases and to meet accounting and tax obligations | Art. 6(1)(b) contract; Art. 6(1)(c) legal obligation |
| Referral graph & activity days | To run the referral reward feature and calculate rewards | Art. 6(1)(b) performance of a contract |
| Advertising & device identifiers | Used by our ad partner to serve ads (see Section 4). Personalised advertising is used only with your consent | Art. 6(1)(a) consent (personalised ads); Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (non-personalised ads) |
| IP address | Security and abuse-prevention logs only, kept briefly | Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (security) |
| Crash & diagnostic data | App version, OS, device model and stack traces to fix bugs. Personal data is scrubbed before sending — no account ID, email, or location | Art. 6(1)(f) legitimate interest (reliability) |
We do not intentionally collect any special-category (sensitive) data. Because precise location can infer sensitive information (for example, proximity to a place of worship), we treat it as high-risk and minimise it as described above.
What other players can see. Only your display name and your game progress. Never your email address, your location or your balances. Your display name is the username you chose; if you have not set one, we show a name derived from the first part of your email address (so sarah.kline@example.com appears as "Sarah Kline") and never the address itself. This name appears on leaderboards, and to the person whose invite code you used and the people who used yours. You can set or change your username at any time in the app.
We do not sell your personal data.
4. Advertising
Prospectour shows optional rewarded video ads (you choose to watch one for in-game nuggets or a temporary mining boost). Ads are served by Google AdMob, provided by Google. To serve ads, AdMob and its partners may collect and process device information and advertising identifiers.
- Consent (EEA / UK / Switzerland). Before any personalised ads load, you will see a Google-managed consent prompt (via Google's User Messaging Platform). If you do not consent, you can still play, and you may see non-personalised ads instead.
- Apple App Tracking Transparency (iOS). On iOS you will also see Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. If you do not allow tracking, we and our ad partner will not use the device's advertising identifier to track you across apps.
- How Google uses this data is described in Google's Privacy Policy and in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services. A list of the ad technology providers Google may work with is available through the consent prompt.
- Changing your choice. On iOS you can change tracking permission at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking; on Android you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device's Google settings. You can also manage ad personalisation at Google Ad Settings, or contact us (Section 14) to have your consent choice reset.
5. Who we share data with
We use a small number of processors and partners. We do not sell your data.
| Recipient | Role | What they receive | Safeguard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Processor — hosting, managed database, backups | All stored data, on an encrypted volume | Data Processing Agreement in place; region pinned to London, UK (lhr) |
| Sentry (Sentry GmbH) | Processor — crash & error diagnostics | Crash/error reports: app version, OS and device model, stack traces — no account ID, email, or precise location (personal data is scrubbed before sending) | EU data residency (ingest in Germany); DPA available |
| Open-Meteo | Weather provider | Coarsened approximate location only (~11 km), with no account identifiers | Public keyless API; no PII sent |
| Google (AdMob) | Advertising partner | Device and advertising identifiers, subject to your consent (Section 4) | Governed by Google's policies |
| Apple / Google | App stores & payment processors | Purchase transactions you make | Governed by their own terms and privacy policies |
6. International transfers
Our own processing is kept in the UK: hosting, database and backups are pinned to the London, UK (lhr) region, and our diagnostics processor stores data in the EEA.
Some third-party partners you interact with — Google (AdMob), Apple, and the app stores — operate global infrastructure and may process data outside the UK/EEA under their own safeguards (such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or an adequacy decision). Their handling of your data is governed by their own privacy policies, linked above.
7. How long we keep data
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Live location fix | Most-recent fix only; purged after ~24 hours of inactivity |
| Ad records | ~30 days |
| Security / audit logs (incl. IP) | ~180 days |
| Purchase records | ~6 years, pseudonymised (UK accounting requirements) |
| Account data (email, balances, claims, referrals) | Until you delete your account (see Section 9) |
8. How we protect your data
Your email and live location are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM; passwords are hashed with Argon2id; all traffic is over HTTPS/TLS; access to production data is role-restricted, requires multi-factor authentication, and is audited. Encryption keys are managed so that destroying a key renders the related data unrecoverable ("crypto-shredding").
9. Your rights (UK / EU GDPR)
Under the UK GDPR (and EU GDPR, if you are in the EEA) you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, and port your personal data, and to object to processing based on our legitimate interests. Where we rely on your consent (for example, personalised ads), you can withdraw it at any time without affecting processing that already happened.
To delete your account and personal data, you can either:
- delete it in-app: open Profile → Delete Account and confirm; or
- request deletion via our web page: https://prospectour.co.uk/delete-account.
To exercise any other right, contact our DPO (Section 1). We respond within one month.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) or, if you are in the EEA, your local data protection authority.
10. California privacy rights (CCPA / CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the right to:
- Know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, and the purposes for collecting it;
- Delete the personal information we hold about you;
- Correct inaccurate personal information;
- Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information; and
- Not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.
We do not sell your personal information for money. Under California law, allowing our advertising partner to use identifiers for personalised (cross-context behavioural) advertising may be considered "sharing." You can opt out of this at any time by declining the ad-consent prompt, turning off App Tracking Transparency on iOS, or resetting your advertising ID on Android — this is our "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" mechanism. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16 (and the app is 18+).
The categories of personal information we collect, our purposes, and the parties we disclose it to are described in Sections 3 to 5. To make a request, contact us (Section 12); we will verify your request through your account and respond within the timeframes California law requires.
11. Automated decisions
We do not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you based solely on automated processing.
12. Children
Prospectour is not directed at children and is rated 18+. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. See Section 2.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. We will post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date. We will notify you in-app of material changes.
14. Contact
Controller: Prospectour (United Kingdom) Data Protection Officer: Mark Deakin — delete@prospectour.co.uk Account deletion: https://prospectour.co.uk/delete-account Supervisory authority: Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), ico.org.uk