Bridge Buddies privacy policy

Bridge Buddies is a puzzle game made by Echo, a software studio: you plan the bridges, lead the pets home and decorate their village. It is played on your device, with no account and no online play. This policy covers the game on Android, on iPhone and iPad, and on every other platform it is released on.

In short

• The game has no account or sign-in and no in-app purchases, and the game itself sells no data.
• Your progress, coins, village and settings stay on your device.
• The Android version sends data to Google's Firebase services, which process it for us:
  • crash reports, always, so that errors can be found and fixed;
  • usage statistics, only if you agree. The game asks once. Until you answer Yes, nothing of them is collected.
• You can change your answer about usage statistics at any time, in Settings → Share usage statistics.
• The Android and iOS versions are free and show ads from Google AdMob: a video you choose to watch for coins, and an occasional full-screen ad at a natural break. Google collects data for them as the Ads section below describes, and in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and wherever else the law requires it, asks for your consent first; on iPhone and iPad, Apple's tracking question comes first.
• The iOS version sends no crash reports and no usage statistics: besides the ads, it sends nothing, and the only permission it asks for is Apple's tracking permission, for the ads.
• The game on other platforms (for example on a desktop, through Steam) sends nothing and shows no ads.

Crash reports (Android)

When the game crashes or runs into an error, it sends a crash report to Firebase Crashlytics. A report holds:

• what went wrong: the error and where in the game's code it happened;
• what the game was doing: the screen, the level that was open, and a short log of the screens and levels before it (for example how a level ended, a purchase in the village, an ad that was shown);
• your device: its model, its Android version, its free memory and storage, the graphics chip, and the game's version;
• a random installation identifier, which counts how many players a problem hits. It isn't tied to you, your Google account or anything else on the phone.

Crash reports don't depend on your answer about usage statistics: they are needed to keep the game working.

Usage statistics (Android, only if you agree)

The game asks once, on its main menu, after Google's consent form where that applies, whether it may send usage statistics. If you answer Yes, it sends two kinds.

How the game is used, to Google Analytics for Firebase:

• which of the game's screens you open: the main menu, the level choice, the daily challenge, a level, the village;
• each level you open and how a try ends: the level, whether it worked, the stars, the number of moves, how many tries you took, how many times help was shown, and the reason it failed;
• what you buy in the village: the item, its price in the game's coins and its category;
• the ads you see and the rewards you get, and when the game deliberately shows no ad (which rule held it back);
• which settings you change, and to what: sound, vibration, reduced motion, tips, full screen;
• Firebase's own information about the app's use: when the app is installed, opened and updated, how long it is used, and in which session.

How well the game runs, to Firebase Performance Monitoring:

• how long the game takes to start and to open a level;
• how smoothly a level plays: how many frames it drew, how many were slow, how long they took, and the most memory the game used, with the chapter and the graphics renderer;
• the app's start and how long it stays on the screen, and in some sessions how much of the processor and memory it used.

With either, your device's model, its Android version, the game's version and your language, and for performance data your mobile network operator and connection type (Wi-Fi or mobile). Google works out your approximate location from your IP address: the country, and for usage statistics also the region and city. The game never asks for your location. Each comes with a random identifier of the app's installation, which counts players and sessions and is reset when the game is reinstalled.

Usage statistics never include your name, email, contacts, files, precise location or anything you type. Usage statistics turn off everything advertising-related: they don't use the advertising ID, don't collect the Android ID, and deny Firebase every use of the data for ads or ad personalization. The ads are separate, and the Ads section below describes them.

If you answer No, or later turn Share usage statistics off, Google Analytics and Performance Monitoring stop collecting on your device. What was already collected is deleted after the times below.

Ads (Android and iOS)

The Android and iOS versions of Bridge Buddies are free and show ads from Google AdMob, which Google runs:

• a short video you may choose to watch for coins: the +30 coins card in the village's Shop, at most three times a day. Watched to its end, it pays 30 of the game's coins; closed early, it gives nothing;
• an occasional full-screen ad when you leave a level you solved: never on the day you started playing, never in your first session, never during a level, in the village or in the daily challenge, and only after several solved levels and several minutes of play;
• no banners.

What AdMob collects. To show ads, measure them and prevent fraud, Google's Mobile Ads SDK collects and shares with Google: your device's IP address, from which Google estimates your approximate location; how you interact with ads (the app's launches, taps, video views); diagnostic information about the app's and the SDK's performance; and device identifiers: on Android the advertising ID and the app set ID; on iOS the identifier for vendors, and the advertising identifier (IDFA) only if you allow tracking. It travels encrypted. Google uses this data as its own policy says, not only for us: How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

Your consent. In the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and wherever else the law requires it, Google's consent form (Google's User Messaging Platform) asks you, on the game's main menu and before any ad is requested, whether Google may use your data for personalised ads. Your choice decides whether the ads you see are personalised. Settings → Ad privacy options opens the form again whenever it applies to you.

On iPhone and iPad you are asked first. Apple's tracking permission is the only way an app may read the device's advertising identifier (IDFA). Bridge Buddies asks for it once, before any ad is requested, and takes your answer: refuse, and Google never receives the IDFA and shows ads that are not personalised from it. You can change your answer at any time in iOS's settings (Privacy & Security → Tracking).

Your choices. In Android's settings (Privacy → Ads, or Google → Ads, depending on the device) you can reset or delete your advertising ID, after which no app can use it. On iPhone and iPad, turning off Allow Apps to Request to Track refuses every app the IDFA. The video for coins is yours to choose: you never have to watch it, and the whole game can be played without it.

Permissions. For the ads, the Android version also has the advertising ID permission, which Android grants at install without asking. The iOS version asks one question, Apple's tracking permission above, and no other.

How the data travels and how long it is kept

Everything goes over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). Google processes what Firebase's services receive for us, as a service provider, and keeps it for a limited time (the ads' data excepted, which Google uses under its own policy, as the Ads section says): crash reports for 90 days; performance data for 30 days where it is linked to an IP address and 60 days for the rest; usage statistics for the retention period set in Google Analytics, 2 months (Firebase's privacy page).

To send it, the Android version has the internet and network-state permissions, which Android grants without asking, a link to Google Play that tells Analytics where the game was installed from, and, for the ads, the advertising ID permission. Apart from these and the ads, the game sends nothing over the internet.

The iOS version sends no crash reports, no performance data and no usage statistics: besides the ads, it sends nothing, and the only permission it asks for is Apple's tracking permission, for the ads. The game on other platforms (for example on a desktop, through Steam) sends nothing and shows no ads.

What stays on your device

Your progress (the levels you solved with their stars, the daily challenges), your coins, your village, your settings, including your answer about usage statistics, and what the game remembers about the ads (the day you started playing and how many videos for coins you watched today) are saved on your device, in the game's own storage. None of it leaves your device, except what the crash reports and, if you agree, the usage statistics list above (for example the level that was open, the settings you change). Nobody else can see it, and Android's cloud backup is turned off for the game. Uninstalling the game deletes it, on Android and on iOS; on a desktop it stays in the game's user data folder until you delete that folder.

Your choices

• To stop usage statistics, turn off Settings → Share usage statistics.
• To change your choice about personalised ads, use Settings → Ad privacy options where Google's form applies to you, or reset your advertising ID in Android's settings, or, on iPhone and iPad, refuse tracking in iOS's settings.
• To stop crash reports as well, uninstall the game.
• To have the data from your device deleted sooner, use the form at the bottom of this page.

Children

Neither crash reports nor usage statistics hold anything that identifies a player, children included. The game has no chat, no account and no text a player types.

Changes

If a future version changes any of this, this page will be updated before that version is released, and the date above will change.

Contact

Questions about this policy: write to us through the contact form on this website.