Privacy Policy
In short. Piececalm doesn't ask you to sign up, or for your name or email: your puzzles, progress and settings are stored on your phone. Photos you turn into puzzles stay on your phone unless you gift one: then it is uploaded to our server, stripped of its hidden data, and deleted automatically after 30 days. When it opens, and for gifts, invites, the daily race and playing with a friend, the app talks to our server using a device code that doesn't say who you are; that way we know how many phones play each day, from which country and on which app version, without knowing whose they are. The free version shows Google AdMob ads: rewarded videos you only see if you choose to, and now and then one when you finish a puzzle. Plus is an optional subscription charged by Apple or Google, never by us, and it removes the ads. There are no third-party analytics.
Who is responsible for your data
Consultoría EHERO S.L.U. (Spanish tax ID B72671100), Rúa Emilia Pardo Bazán 25 A2, 36204 Vigo (Pontevedra), Spain.
Contact for anything on this page: info@consultoriaehero.com.
What is stored, and where
On your phone, and only there
- Your progress: finished puzzles with their piece count and your best time, the puzzle in progress, your daily puzzle streak and the pictures you have unlocked.
- Your settings: sound, vibration, guide image and table colour.
- The photos you turn into puzzles. You pick them with the system's own photo picker, so the app has no permission to see your library: it only receives the photo you tap. If you tap Take photo, the app opens the camera for that one photo. It keeps a copy inside the app so you can play it, and forgets the oldest ones as you pick new ones. It is not uploaded anywhere unless you gift it (explained below).
- The photos gifted to you, while they last: they are deleted from your phone after 30 days or if you report them.
We receive none of this. If you delete the app, it goes with it.
On our server
Piececalm has its own server, piececalm.cehero.com, hosted on a server of ours at OVHcloud in the European Union. The app says hello to it when it opens (from version 0.7) and talks to it when you use one of these features; this is what it stores:
- A device code. The app takes the identifier the system gives each app on each phone (on iPhone, the "identifier for vendor"; on Android, the ANDROID_ID), runs it through a one-way function (SHA-256), and the server mixes it again with a secret key. It is not the advertising identifier, it can't be used to follow you across other apps, and it carries no name or anything about you. It lets the server know that two requests come from the same phone, so it can give you your hints or your place in the race.
- Which days you open the app. From version 0.7, the first time you open it each day, the server notes that day and the time, the system (iPhone or Android), the app version and the country the connection comes from. The country is worked out from the IP address on the spot, with a country database kept on our own server, and the IP is not stored for this. We use it to count how many phones play, how many come back and which versions are still in use; only we see it, as numbers, and it is never sold or shared. The days are deleted after 400 days.
- The photos you gift. When you gift a puzzle made from your own photo, the photo is uploaded so the person who receives it can play it. The server saves it again from scratch: it strips all hidden data (GPS location, camera model, date) and shrinks it to 1600 pixels at most. Anyone with the gift link can see it; the link is long and random, and the photo appears in no list or search engine. It is deleted automatically after 30 days.
- Reports. Whoever receives a photo can report it (sexual content, violence, harassment or another reason). The photo is hidden immediately, we review it and, if it breaks the rules, we delete it. We keep the reason and the device code that reported it.
- Invites. Your invite code, who redeemed it and the hints you both get, between device codes.
- The daily race. Your time and the hints you used on the daily puzzle, with a nickname the app makes up (an animal and a number), never your name. Deleted after 60 days.
- Two-player games. The room's puzzle and which pieces each player places. Deleted after 6 hours without play.
- Your progress backup, only if you turn it on in Settings › Your progress in the cloud: the puzzles you've finished and how long they took, your streak, achievements and their numbers, unlocked pictures and hints. No photos and nothing that says who you are. We store it under a code we give you and keep only a fingerprint of it, so without the code nobody can read it, us included. It updates each time you finish a puzzle and is deleted after a year without updates.
- Your IP address, only to stop abuse (for example, too many photos in a row): it is stored mixed with the secret key, not as is, and deleted within a day at most.
The name and message you add when gifting travel inside the link you send yourself, through the app you choose; they don't go through our server. The gift web page only stores a random code in your browser if you report a photo from it.
You can delete everything of yours anytime in Settings › Delete my data from the server: your gifted photos are deleted (they stop showing), along with your code and everything linked to it, including your progress backup.
Advertising
The free version shows two kinds of ads, served by Google AdMob, whose component is built into the app:
- Rewarded videos, only when you tap to watch one: they unlock a picture for good, give hints or place the edges.
- An ad between puzzles, at most one every five minutes, when you leave a finished puzzle. Never while you play.
With Plus the app requests no ads and asks you nothing about them.
- To serve an ad and measure that it was seen, Google receives device data: the IP address (from which it derives an approximate location such as the country), model, operating system and language, device and app identifiers, and which ad you saw and whether you tapped it.
- The device's advertising identifier is only used if you allow it: on iPhone, through Apple's "allow tracking" prompt; on Android, according to the ad settings of your Google account. If you say no, ads are not personalised.
- In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, we ask for your consent with Google's consent form before the first ad. You can change your answer anytime in Settings › Ad privacy.
- We don't receive that data: all the app learns from an ad is that it finished, so it can give you the reward.
How Google uses this data: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Purchases
Piececalm Plus is a monthly or yearly subscription that renews automatically until you cancel it in your store settings. It is optional. Payment is handled by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) with the account on your phone: we never see your card or payment details. The app asks the store whether you have Plus and, if so, unlocks every picture and removes the ads.
This page
These web pages set no cookies and carry no analytics. The host keeps the usual web server logs.
What we do NOT collect
- No name, email, phone number or date of birth: there is no account.
- No location, contacts, microphone or access to your photo library. The camera only opens when you tap Take photo.
- No payment data: charges are made by Apple and Google.
- No third-party analytics or crash reporting. The only component from another company in the app is Google's ads component.
Who it is shared with
| Who | What for |
|---|---|
| Google Ireland Limited (AdMob) | Serving and measuring ads. It receives the data in "Advertising" directly from your device, and may process it outside the European Union with the safeguards described in its policy. |
| OVH SAS (OVHcloud), France | Hosts our server, in the European Union, as a data processor: it stores the data on our behalf and uses it for nothing else. |
| Whoever receives your gift | Sees the photo you gift, and your name and message if you add them. |
| Apple and Google, as app stores | Charging the subscription. They are the ones who process your payment details. |
We don't sell data or hand it to anyone else.
Legal basis
- Your consent: showing you ads and, if you accept, personalising them. You can withdraw it anytime in Settings › Ad privacy.
- Providing what you asked for (performance of a contract): the Plus subscription, if you buy it, and gifts, invites, the daily race, two-player games and the cloud backup, when you use them.
- Our legitimate interest in the service not being used to cause harm: stopping abuse with the mixed IP and reviewing reported photos.
How long
- What the app stores on your phone: until you delete it or uninstall the app.
- On our server: gifted photos, 30 days; the race, 60 days; rooms, 6 hours without play; the progress backup, up to a year without updates; the mixed IP, one day; the days you opened the app, 400 days; the device code and invites, until you delete your data from Settings or ask us to.
- Ad data: kept by Google under its policy; we don't have it.
- The subscription: managed by your store; you cancel it in its settings.
Your rights
You can ask us for access to your data, to correct or erase it, to restrict what we do with it, to object to processing, or to receive it in a portable format. The quickest way to delete what we hold is the Settings › Delete my data from the server button. For anything else, or to have a specific photo taken down, write to us at info@consultoriaehero.com and we will reply within one month. For ad data you can also contact Google.
If you think we got something wrong, you can complain to the Spanish Data Protection Agency, www.aepd.es, or to the authority where you live.
Age
Piececalm is not intended for children under 14.
Changes
If we change how the app handles your data, we will update this page and the date at the top.