Privacy Policy

SudokuGM — a mobile Sudoku game published by Youness Marahi.

Last updated: 24 September 2026 · Effective: 24 September 2026

1. Scope and Applicability

This Privacy Policy explains how Youness Marahi (“we”, “us”) handles personal information in connection with the SudokuGM mobile application for Android (com.sudokugm.app) and the server that supports it (together, the “Services”). It applies when you download, open or play the game, when you sign in, and when you contact us by email about the game.

We are the controller of the personal information described here. We operate as an individual developer: there are no affiliates or group companies with which information is shared.

2. Personal Information That We Collect

What we collect depends on how you use the Services. Much of the game stores data only on your device. The table below lists everything that can be collected; in any given session we collect only what that use of the game requires.

Information visible to other players

If you sign in, your display name and country flag are shown to other players on leaderboards and in Battle matches. Nothing else in the table above is made visible to other players.

What we do not collect

• Precise or device location. The app never requests location permission. The only location-related information is the country code described above.
• Photographs or camera images. The puzzle scanner recognises the grid entirely on your device. No image is uploaded, stored or transmitted by us. The app requests no storage permission — choosing an existing photo uses Android's system photo picker, which grants access to only the image you select.
• Audio. The app has no microphone permission and makes no recordings.
• Analytics or crash telemetry. The app contains no analytics or crash-reporting software. We do not record which screens you open, how long you spend on them, or any browsing behaviour.
• Contacts, messages, call logs, documents, financial or health information.
• Payment information. The app contains no purchases; coins are earned in play.

3. Why We Collect Your Personal Information

• To operate the game. Creating and maintaining your account, saving your progress, keeping your statistics, ranks, coins and streaks, and making them available on any device where you sign in.
• To provide competitive features. Showing leaderboards, running the Daily Challenge, and matching you with an opponent in Battle.
• To display your profile. Showing your name and country flag to you and to players you compete against.
• To show advertising. Serving rewarded video ads, measuring whether an ad was completed so a reward can be granted, and — where you have consented — personalising the ads you see.
• To keep the Services secure. Detecting and preventing cheating, abuse and fraudulent reward claims, and protecting the integrity of scores and leaderboards.
• To answer you. Responding to support requests, privacy requests and account deletion requests.
• To comply with the law. Meeting legal obligations and responding to lawful requests from public authorities.

We do not use your personal information to send marketing or promotional messages.

4. How We Disclose Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information. It is disclosed only as set out below.

4.1 Service providers

Advertising networks act as independent controllers of the advertising data they collect and handle it under their own privacy policies, linked above. Mediation means that not every network receives data in every session: Yodo1 MAS selects which network fills a given ad request.

4.2 Data that Google Play collects on its own account

The game is distributed through the Google Play Store and uses Google Play services for sign-in, achievements, leaderboards and cloud saves. Google collects and processes some information directly, as an independent controller — that is, for its own purposes and under its own privacy policy rather than on our instructions. We do not choose what is collected in this way, we cannot switch it off, and in most cases we never see it.

This includes, in broad terms:

• Google Play Store — that the app was installed, updated or uninstalled on your device, together with your Google account and device information.
• Google Play services and Google Play Games services — your Google account identifier, your Play Games player profile, and the achievements, leaderboard scores and cloud saves you generate while playing.
• Android vitals — crash reports, application-not-responding events and similar stability and performance measurements gathered by Google Play from devices running the app. We receive these only in aggregated, de-identified form through the Google Play Console, and we use no crash-reporting service of our own.
• Google Play billing — if in-app purchases are offered in a future version, the record of the transaction. Payment card details are handled by Google and never reach us.

Google explains what it collects through these services, why, and what choices you have, in the Google Privacy Policy. You can review and change what is associated with your Google account at Google Account — Data & privacy, and manage your Play Games profile and its visibility in the Google Play Games app. Deleting your SudokuGM account removes the data we hold, as described in section 9, but it does not delete data Google holds under its own policy.

4.3 Legal and protective disclosures

We may disclose personal information where permitted by applicable law:

• to comply with a law, regulation, subpoena, court order or other legal process;
• to respond to a lawful request from a public authority;
• where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, enforce our terms, investigate fraud or cheating, or protect the safety of any person.

4.4 Business transfers

If the game or its assets are sold or transferred, personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will require the recipient to handle it in a manner consistent with this Privacy Policy, and will notify you of any material change.

5. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights:

• Access. Obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or a list of its categories.
• Correction. Have inaccurate personal information corrected.
• Deletion. Have your personal information erased.
• Portability. Receive your information in a portable format.
• Objection and restriction. Object to, or ask us to restrict, certain processing.
• Withdraw consent. Where processing is based on consent, withdraw it at any time. This does not affect processing already carried out.
• Opt out of advertising personalisation. See section 6.
• Non-discrimination. Exercise these rights without being treated differently. Deleting your account does end access to features that require one.

5.1 How to exercise them

Deleting your account is immediate and self-service: in the app, go to Settings → SUPPORT → Delete Account and confirm. For any other request, or if you have already uninstalled the app, email [email protected] from the address associated with your account. We respond within the period required by applicable law, normally within 30 days. We may need to ask for information to verify your identity before acting on a request.

6. Advertising and Your Choices

SudokuGM shows rewarded video ads that you choose to watch in exchange for an in-game benefit. The app itself sets no cookies; our advertising partners use device identifiers, chiefly the advertising ID, and may use cookies or similar storage inside the ad views they display.

You have two independent controls:

• The in-app privacy prompt. The first time you run the game, our advertising provider displays its own consent prompt and applies your answers — including under the GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA and COPPA — to how ads are personalised.
• Android's system setting. Open Settings → Google → Ads on your device to reset or delete your advertising ID, or to opt out of ad personalisation. This applies to every app on the device.

Opting out does not remove ads; it limits the use of your data to personalise them.

7. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical and organisational safeguards to protect personal information. Traffic between the app and our server is encrypted in transit, and access to stored data is restricted by per-user database rules so that one player's account cannot read or modify another's. Authentication credentials are held by Google Play Games and our authentication provider, not by the app.

No information system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We are not responsible for the security of networks we do not control.

8. Transfers of Your Personal Information

Our service providers operate internationally, so your personal information may be processed in countries other than your own, including countries whose data protection laws differ from those of your jurisdiction.

Where the law requires a safeguard for such a transfer, we rely on an appropriate mechanism — Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, an adequacy decision, or your consent where that is the applicable basis.

9. Retention and Deletion

• Account and game data: retained while your account exists. When you delete your account it is erased immediately and permanently; it is not archived and cannot be restored.
• Server logs: an anonymous request record may be kept for up to 30 days for security and abuse prevention. It is not linked to your account once the account is deleted.
• Data on your device: removed when you delete your account, and when you uninstall the app.
• Correspondence: kept for as long as needed to handle your request and to show that we handled it.
• Information we must retain by law: kept only for as long as the law requires.

Uninstalling the app stops further collection from your device but does not by itself delete information already stored on our server. Use the in-app deletion or email us. Step-by-step instructions: Delete your account.

10. Children

SudokuGM is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, or under the higher minimum age set by the law of your country (16 in parts of the European Economic Area). The game is not marketed to children and is not listed in Google Play's Families programme.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, email [email protected] with the subject line “Child data deletion request” and tell us the display name or the email address used in the game, so that we can find the account. We delete the account and its data promptly and confirm to you by reply.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last changed, and changes take effect on that date. If a change materially affects your privacy rights we will give additional notice, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent before the change takes effect. Earlier versions are available on request.

12. Contact Us

Youness Marahi, individual developer, publisher of SudokuGM.
Privacy questions and requests: [email protected]

13. Additional Notice for California Consumers

If you are a California resident, this section applies to you in addition to the rest of this Privacy Policy. The California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CCPA”) requires the following disclosures.

13.1 Categories collected, used and disclosed

We retain each category for the periods described in section 9. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16 years of age.

13.2 Your California rights

You have the right to know, to delete, to correct, to opt out of sale or sharing, and to be free from discrimination for exercising those rights. To opt out of sharing for cross-context behavioural advertising, use either control described in section 6, or email us. To exercise any other right, use the routes in section 5.1. You may designate an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf; we may ask for proof of that authority.

14. Additional Notice for the EEA, UK and Switzerland

14.1 Controller

Youness Marahi is the controller of the personal information described in this Privacy Policy. Our service providers act as processors on our instructions, except for the advertising networks in section 4.1, which act as independent controllers of the advertising data they collect.

14.2 Legal bases for processing

14.3 Your rights

In addition to the rights in section 5, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority — for example your national data protection authority in the EEA, the Information Commissioner's Office in the United Kingdom, or the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner in Switzerland. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first, at [email protected].

We do not use automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects concerning you.