Uncipher Privacy Policy

Introduction

Uncipher ("the app") is developed by Grisu Studio. This policy describes what the app stores, what it sends, and what it never touches. Uncipher has no accounts, no login and no servers of ours. Your streak, coins, achievement progress, today's in-progress board and your settings are written to local storage on your device and stay there. The only data that leaves your phone is what Google's advertising SDK sends in order to serve the ads that keep the app free, and you control whether those ads are personalised.

Scope

This privacy policy applies solely to the Uncipher mobile application.

Data We Collect

Stored on your device only, never transmitted to us: your streak and coin counters, your achievement and badge progress, which Cipher Academy ciphers you have mastered and at which packs, today's in-progress cryptogram board (your letter mappings so far), and your settings (daily puzzle language, theme, sound, haptics, keep-screen-awake). We also store the answer to the one-time age question as a bracket only — either "under 13" or "13 or over". If you pick a birth year it is converted to that bracket and immediately discarded; the app never stores a date of birth. Collected by Google AdMob, not by us, in order to serve ads: your device advertising identifier (IDFA on iOS, Advertising ID on Android), IP address, coarse device information such as model and operating system version, and ad interaction data. The app never asks for your name, email address, phone number, contacts, photos or location.

How We Use Your Data

Your progress, board state, streak, coins and achievements are used only inside the app: to stop the daily being played twice, to compute your streak and stats, to schedule Cipher Academy packs, and to award badges. They are never uploaded, never shared and never analysed by us — the app contains no analytics and no crash reporting. Advertising data is used by Google to deliver and measure ads: a banner on the home and settings screens, and an occasional interstitial after a daily solve or an academy round — never mid-puzzle. A rewarded video ad is shown only when you tap to watch one, and pays out coins only when Google's SDK reports the reward as earned. In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom the app shows Google's consent form before any ad loads, and on iOS it shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. Declining either one keeps ads non-personalised rather than removing them, and you can revisit both choices at any time from Settings → Privacy → Ad consent options. The app also caps the content rating of every ad it requests. Uncipher has no in-app purchases and no paywall — every cryptogram and every academy cipher is free.

Children's Privacy

Uncipher is a puzzle app listed for ages 13 and over and is not directed to children. The app asks one neutral, skippable age question and keeps the answer as a bracket rather than a date of birth. If you indicate you are under 13, the app switches to child-directed ad treatment on that device: ads are restricted to the "General audiences" rating, are never personalised, no advertising identifier is used, and Apple's tracking prompt is never shown. The setting can be changed at any time in Settings → Privacy. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children, and the app has no mechanism to do so.

Data Security

Because we run no servers and hold no database of our own, there is no copy of your data anywhere for us to lose or be compelled to hand over. Your streak, coins, achievement progress, board state and settings live in the app's private storage on your device, protected by the operating system's sandboxing and by whatever device encryption you have enabled. "Delete my data" in Settings erases everything the app has saved, and uninstalling the app removes it too. Sharing your cracked quote hands an image to your system share sheet — you decide where it goes, and nothing is uploaded in the process. Data handled by Google AdMob is governed by Google's own privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We will update this policy whenever the app's behaviour changes in a way that affects it, and the "Last Updated" date above will change with it. Continuing to use the app after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact Us

Questions, corrections or a request to delete data: email support@grisu.co with "Uncipher privacy" in the subject. Because all of your data is held on your own device, a deletion request is fulfilled by deleting it in the app or uninstalling it — we hold nothing to delete on our side.

Company Privacy Policy

For our general company privacy policy, see Grisu Studio.