Privacy Policy for Crossplay Solver by TWF

1. Who we are

Crossplay Solver by TWF is published by MPL Ventures LLC, 330 N Wabash Ave, Floor 23, Chicago, IL 60611-7619, United States.

For anything relating to this policy or to your personal information, contact us at [email protected].

Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation, MPL Ventures LLC is the data controller for the processing described below.

2. The short version

There is no account in Crossplay Solver, no sign-in and no profile. We do not ask for your name or your location, and we do not build a record of who you are. The only time we would have your email address is if you choose to give it to us when sending feedback, and that is always optional.

Three things do leave your device, and we would rather set them out plainly than bury them:

• The letters you look up go to our own server so it can work out your moves. Nothing else goes with them, and we cannot connect a lookup to you.
• Board photos never leave your phone. The text recognition runs on the device itself.
• Google's text recognition library sends Google technical diagnostics about how it performed. That includes your device model, our app's name and version, and an identifier for your installation of the app. It does not include your photos, your letters, or anything you typed.

The detail is below, and the detail governs.

3. What we do not collect

Crossplay Solver does not collect:

• Your name, phone number or postal address
• Your email address, unless you choose to give it to us when you send us feedback. See Section 7.
• Your precise location
• Your contacts, calendar, or anything else from elsewhere on your device
• An advertising identifier
• Your photos, or anything recognised inside them

There is no advertising in the app and no advertising software inside it. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for advertising.

4. Requests to our word server

Crossplay Solver is not an entirely offline app. When you ask it to find words, it sends the letters on your rack and the current state of your board to a server we operate, over an encrypted HTTPS connection. The server works out the possible moves and sends them back.

We run that server ourselves, on a machine rented from DigitalOcean in New York, United States. No advertising network, analytics provider or other third party sees or handles these requests.

Like almost every web server, ours keeps a routine access log. Each entry records the time of the request, the address requested (which includes the letters you asked about), the type of device and browser that made it, and the size of the response. IP addresses are truncated as the log is written, so an entry cannot be traced back to a particular device or person. Logs are kept for 14 days and then automatically deleted.

There is no account, no session identifier and no device identifier attached to these requests. We cannot connect a lookup to you, and we do not attempt to.

We keep these logs so we can see that the service is working, diagnose faults and identify abusive traffic. We do not use them to build a profile of anyone, and we do not share them.

5. Photos and board scanning

Crossplay Solver lets you import a screenshot of your board rather than entering it by hand.

When you use this feature, your phone shows you its own photo picker. You choose one image, and only that image is shared with the app. Crossplay Solver never receives access to your photo library as a whole through this route.

The image is read on your device to work out the board layout. It is never uploaded to us or to anyone else. Images do not leave your phone. Once the board has been created, the app does not keep it.

If you turn on the option to delete a screenshot after importing it, the app will ask for permission to your photo library, because deleting a photo requires that access. You can decline, and everything else in the app will continue to work.

6. Diagnostics sent to Google by the text recognition library

Reading the letters off an imported board photo is done by Google ML Kit, a text recognition library built into the app. The recognition itself happens entirely on your device. Google does not receive your photo, the board it contained, or the words you looked up.

Google does receive technical information about how the library performed. Google's own documentation sets out what this covers, and we are required to tell you about it. Each time the feature runs, Google collects:

• Device information, such as manufacturer, model, operating system version and build, and which machine learning hardware your device has
• Application information, meaning our app's package name and version
• An identifier for your installation of the app. Google describes this as a per-installation identifier that is not intended to identify you or your device
• Performance metrics, such as how long recognition took
• API configuration, such as the image format and resolution passed in
• The size of the input and output, not their content
• The version of the feature, the type of event, and any error codes

Google uses this to measure performance, fix bugs, maintain and improve the library, and detect misuse. Google states that this data is encrypted in transit and is not passed to third parties. Google's handling of it is governed by Google's Privacy Policy, and the specifics are published in Google's ML Kit terms and ML Kit data disclosure.

We do not see this data. It does not reach us, we hold no copy of it, and it tells us nothing about you. Google's library does not offer a way to switch it off, so the honest position is that using the photo import feature means Google receives these diagnostics. If you would rather it did not, enter your board by hand instead. Everything else in the app works without the photo import.

7. Sending us feedback

There is a feedback link in the app. Tapping it opens your browser and takes you to a Google Form, which sits outside the app.

The form asks which of our apps you are writing about, whether you are on Apple or Android, and what you would like to tell us. There is also a field for your email address. That field is optional. You only need it if you want a reply, and the form says so.

If you give us your email address, we use it to reply to you and for nothing else. We do not sell it, we do not share it, we do not add you to any mailing list, and we do not use it for marketing. Our legal basis is your consent, given when you choose to fill the field in.

Responses go to a spreadsheet in our Google Workspace account, where Google acts as our processor. Five people at MPL Ventures LLC can see it. Nobody else has access.

We delete email addresses from that spreadsheet after 12 months. We keep the feedback itself, along with the device type and which app it was about, for longer, because it helps us improve the apps. Once the email address is gone, what remains cannot be connected to you.

If you would like your feedback removed sooner, email [email protected] and we will delete it.

8. Advertising

Crossplay Solver does not show advertising, and it contains no advertising software.

If that changes, we will update this policy and our App Store and Google Play declarations before the version containing advertising is released, and we will ask for your consent where the law requires it. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, that means a consent prompt before any personalised advertising, with the ability to refuse and to change your mind later from within the app.

9. Who else is involved

Google, through ML Kit. The text recognition library described in Section 6. Google receives diagnostics, never your images or your words.

Google, through Workspace. If you send us feedback, the form and the spreadsheet holding the responses run on our Google Workspace account. Google acts as our processor there under its data processing terms. This is separate from the ML Kit diagnostics above.

DigitalOcean. Our word server runs on a machine we rent from DigitalOcean, who act as our processor. They provide the infrastructure and do not handle the content of your requests.

Apple and Google as app stores. They distribute the app and operate the App Store and Google Play. They collect their own information about downloads and, if you have opted in at the operating system level, app usage and crash diagnostics. Apple shows us aggregate reports built from that in App Store Connect. We do not receive anything that identifies you and we cannot see what any individual did. That processing is theirs rather than ours, and is governed by Apple's privacy policy and Google's privacy policy. You can turn it off in your device settings under Privacy and Security.

We do not work with advertising networks, analytics providers or data brokers. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising as those terms are used in United States state privacy laws.

10. Children

Crossplay Solver is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Our declared target audience on Google Play begins at 13.

If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact [email protected] and we will look into it.

11. Your rights

We hold almost nothing about you. There is no account, no identifier we control, and nothing in our logs that points to a person. That limits what most of these rights can practically reach, but they exist and you can exercise them.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where processing relies on it. You also have the right to complain to your national supervisory authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office.

The diagnostics described in Section 6 are held by Google, not by us. To exercise rights over data Google holds, use Google's privacy tools.

If you are in California, you have the right to know what personal information is collected, to delete it, to correct it, and to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

Residents of other US states with comprehensive privacy laws, including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Texas, have comparable rights and can exercise them the same way.

To make a request, email [email protected]. We will respond within one month. Because there is no account, we often cannot verify that particular data relates to you, and where that is the case we will explain why rather than simply refusing. If you sent us feedback and included your email address, we can find that record and delete it on request.

12. Where information is processed

MPL Ventures LLC is based in the United States, and our word server runs in DigitalOcean's New York datacentre. When you use the app, your device sends its request there directly, wherever in the world you happen to be.

The diagnostics described in Section 6 go from your device to Google and are handled under Google's own arrangements, which are set out in Google's privacy policy. Feedback sent through our form is held in our Google Workspace account.

13. How long we keep things

Server access logs are kept for 14 days and then deleted automatically. We keep nothing else from your ordinary use of the app.

Email addresses given through our feedback form are deleted after 12 months. The feedback itself, without the email address attached, is kept for longer so it can inform improvements to the apps.

Emails you send to [email protected] are kept for as long as needed to answer you and for up to 24 months afterwards, so we can follow up on related questions. After that they are deleted.

Google sets its own retention for the diagnostics in Section 6.

14. Security

Traffic between the app and our server is encrypted in transit using HTTPS, as is the diagnostic traffic Google's library sends. Because the app holds no account and stores no personal information about you, there is no stored personal data of yours for us to protect.

Board states and settings you create are saved on your own device and are protected by your device's own security. Deleting the app removes them.

15. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the app changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version.

Where a change is material, particularly one that introduces new data collection or advertising, we will publish the updated policy and update our App Store and Google Play declarations before the new version of the app is released. Where the law requires consent, we will ask for it rather than relying on you having read this page.

16. Contact

[email protected]