Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy explains how Elite Checkers (“the App”, “we”, “us”) collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use our checkers / draughts game. We have written this policy to be honest and specific about exactly what the App does. Elite Checkers is developed by weltekx-dev and is identified by the package name com.weltekxdev.elitecheckers.app.

2. What This App Is

Elite Checkers is a checkers (draughts) game for Android. It offers nine global variants, a single-player AI engine, local two-player (“pass & play”) mode, online multiplayer rooms, leaderboards, and optional in-app purchases for premium themes and an ad-free experience.

• 9 global variants — Kenyan, International (10×10), Brazilian, Russian, Spanish/Czech, Italian, Thai, Turkish Dama, and Suicide mode
• 10 AI difficulty levels (Novice to Grandmaster)
• Online multiplayer: quick match, private rooms with shareable codes, real-time play, and leaderboards
• Premium themes, move-helper highlights, and an ad-free experience via Google Play Billing

3. Account & Identity — Anonymous Firebase Auth

When you open the App, it automatically signs you in to Firebase anonymously. This means:

• We do not collect your email, password, phone number, or any social/Google sign-in.
• The App generates a Firebase UID and a Firebase Installation / app-instance ID automatically.
• You choose a username (3–20 characters). Your username is stored locally on your device and on Google Firebase, and is public to other players in rooms and on the leaderboard.

You can change your username at any time, but it remains visible to other signed-in players while you play online.

4. Information We Collect & Store (on Google Firebase)

4.1 Username & profile

• Username (chosen by you) — stored in Firestore under users/{uid} and usernames/{username}.
• This username is public to other signed-in users (see Section 9, Security Rules).

4.2 Game statistics & leaderboard (Firestore)

• We store per-variant results in leaderboard/{variant}/scores/{uid}: username, wins, losses, draws, points, matches played.
• These are written authoritatively by a Cloud Function when a match finishes.

4.3 In-app purchase history (Firestore)

• We store only the product IDs and purchase timestamps of your purchases under users/{uid}.purchases.
• All payment and card data is processed by Google Play. The App never receives, stores, or sees your payment details.
• Available products include theme tiers (theme_premium_tier_1/2/3), premium_3_months, premium_1_year, and lifetime_premium.

4.4 Push notification token (FCM)

• The App reads your device's Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) registration token and stores it in users/{uid}.fcmToken.
• This is a per-device identifier used only to deliver server-side push notifications.

4.5 Multiplayer room data (Firebase Realtime Database)

• When you play online, a room record (rooms/{code}) holds: player index, username, connection state, last-seen time, moves, match summary, and chat.
• In-game chat text (capped at 500 characters) is stored as { fromUid, username, message, timestamp } and is visible to the other players in the room.
• Room data persists until the match/room is cleared.

5. Analytics & Crash Data (automatic)

• Firebase Analytics: automatically collects app opens, screen views, device/OS/app version, and usage information.
• Firebase Crashlytics: automatically collects crash reports, device model, OS version, app version, and stack traces to help us fix bugs.
• These SDKs are enabled automatically; we do not add custom event logging beyond what these services collect by default.

6. Advertising (Google AdMob)

The App displays banner ads via Google AdMob. The AdMob SDK automatically accesses your device Advertising ID (GAID) and may personalize ads based on it.

• No special Advertising ID access is written in our app code — collection happens inside Google's SDK.
• Premium users (ad-free upgrade) are not shown these ads.

7. Data Stored Locally on Your Device Only

The following data never leaves your device:

• DataStore (user preferences): username, helper/sound toggles, language, play-as side, and your last game state.
• EncryptedSharedPreferences (AES-256 via AndroidX Security MasterKey): premium status, unlocked themes, unlocked AI levels, active theme, and a consecutive-losses counter.
• Room database: local game-session history (variant, player names, winner, moves, duration, AI tier, timestamp) and local tournaments (room code, player names, scores).

8. What We Do Not Collect

We have verified that Elite Checkers does not collect:

• Your email, real name, phone number, or any third-party / social login.
• Your precise or coarse location.
• Contacts, camera, microphone, or file/storage access.
• Explicit IP-address collection by app code (Google/Firebase infrastructure necessarily sees network-layer IPs).
• Data via Firebase Storage, Remote Config, Dynamic Links, or ML Kit.
• There is currently no in-app account-deletion flow; see Section 11 for how to request removal.

9. Who Can See Your Data (Firebase Security Rules)

Firestore

• users/{uid} — readable by any signed-in user; writable only by the owner.
• usernames/{username} — readable by any signed-in user.
• leaderboard/{variant}/scores/{uid} — readable by any signed-in user; writable only by the owner (multiplayer results are written by a Cloud Function).

→ Your username and leaderboard stats are visible to any signed-in user. Your push-notification token is stored privately and is only used to deliver notifications to your device.

Realtime Database

• rooms/{code} (meta, match, results, players, chat, moves) — readable by any signed-in user; writes restricted to the owner or Cloud Functions.
• In-game chat and moves are visible to any signed-in user who can read the room.

10. Third-Party Services

The App communicates only with Google Firebase services listed above. We do not sell your personal information to any third party.

11. Your Rights & Choices

Advertising personalization

• On Android: Settings → Google → Ads → Opt out of Ads Personalization. You can also reset your Advertising ID there.
• Opting out may result in less relevant ads.

Local data

• All preferences, locally cached premium/theme entitlement flags, and local game history are stored on your device only.
• Clear it by clearing the App's storage in your device settings.

Account & data deletion

• Because sign-in is anonymous, uninstalling the App removes the local anonymous account from your device.
• To delete your Firebase-stored data (username, stats, FCM token, purchase product IDs, and any room/chat records), send us an email. We will action deletion requests within 5–10 business days.

12. Data Security

• All connections to Google Firebase use encrypted HTTPS transport.
• Premium status, unlocked themes, unlocked AI levels, active theme, and consecutive-losses counter are stored with AndroidX EncryptedSharedPreferences (AES-256).
• We never collect passwords, financial data, contacts, location, camera, or microphone.
• Third-party providers (Google) maintain their own security measures.

13. Children's Privacy

Elite Checkers is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Because the App uses anonymous sign-in and automatic analytics/advertising SDKs, we encourage parental supervision. If you believe we have collected data from a child under 13, contact us and we will delete it.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the App evolves. Significant changes will be reflected by the “Last Updated” date above and, where appropriate, communicated through the App or its store listing. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

15. Contact

If you have any questions or requests about this policy or your data, please contact us:

• Email: Send us an email
• App: Elite Checkers
• Package: com.weltekxdev.elitecheckers.app

We respond to inquiries within 5–10 business days.