Privacy

Privacy policy

Last updated 7 November 2026

Deckfolk is run by Vectalon, in India (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what the Deckfolk apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, and this website, collect and why. Questions or requests: deckfolk@gmail.com.

What we collect

If you play without an account

Practice games against the computer, your preferences, lesson progress, quiz scores, drill results, scorecards and your game log are stored only on your device. If you have an account, a summary of them is shared with your friends unless you turn that off (see Stats shared with friends below); the games themselves stay on your device.

Your contacts. If you choose Invite friends → Choose from contacts, the app asks for access and reads names, phone numbers and email addresses on your phone, only to show the list. They are never sent to us or stored by Deckfolk. An invite goes out only when you send it from your own Messages, WhatsApp or email app, with your personal invite link and friend code.

If you create an account

• Account details: your email address and how you sign in (Apple, Google or a one-time code sent by email). With Sign in with Apple you can choose to hide your email address from us.
• Profile photo, only if you add one: the picture you choose or take in You → your picture. The app crops it to a square and shrinks it to 256 pixels on your phone before uploading; nothing else from your photo library or camera is read or sent. It is stored privately in Supabase Storage, and reports of it are kept for review.
• Profile: the display name and playing level you choose, an optional table nickname, the built-in avatar you pick, and which kind of device (iPhone, Android or web) you signed up on and last used, with the day you last used it, so we can see how Deckfolk is used on each platform.
• Friends and safety: your friend code, friend requests and friendships, the people you block, and any messages you report along with the reason. If a report is upheld we keep a record of the decision, a copy of the removed message and any pause on your chat. Chat messages are checked automatically against a list of offensive words before they’re posted; nothing is sent to another company for this.
• Rooms and games: the rooms you create or join, your seat, the calls and cards you play, and results and scores. For online Call Break games, and Bridge games at public tables, we also keep each finished game’s settings and every seat’s final score and place; seats held by the computer are not linked to anyone, and deleting your account unlinks your seat. Nothing new is collected from your phone.
• Stats shared with friends: unless you turn off Share my stats with friends in Settings, your app sends us a summary of your play so your friends can see it on your profile: how many boards and games you’ve played and on which days in the last 13 weeks, your streaks, contracts made and beaten, games and slams, your average and best scores and the scores of your last few boards, daily-deal results, Call Break wins, bids made and level, lessons finished and achievements. Your friends also see your ratings and your recent online results. Nobody else sees them. The deals, bidding and play themselves are not sent. Turning sharing off deletes the summary from our servers straight away.
• Weekly event: if you enter the weekly event, your results on its boards (the contract, who declared, tricks and score) are kept with the name and built-in avatar you play under, and every signed-in player can see your place and percentage in the standings and how you played each board once they’ve played it themselves. Photos are never shown there.
• Today’s deal and challenges: when you finish today’s deal with an account, your app sends us that board (the cards, the calls and the cards played, and how many hints you used) so your friends can compare their result on the same cards after they’ve played it themselves. While Share my stats with friends is off, friends don’t see yours, though you still see theirs. When you challenge a friend on a board, we keep that board and theirs so you can both see the result. Only accepted friends see these, never strangers; no chat, photos or other details are attached.
• Play with anyone: while you search for a table, the game and your rating, when the search started and when your app last checked in, so we can seat you with players near your level. Other searchers, and players looking at the list of live searches, see your table nickname (or display name), built-in avatar and rating, how many have joined you and how long is left; if you joined someone else’s search, we note whose. When you start a search of your own, your friends get a notice that you’re looking for players, at most once an hour (they can turn these off in Settings → Notifications). For each game you play at public tables we keep your rating, how many rated games you’ve played and each rating change with its table, and when you leave a public table early, so frequent leaving can mean a short wait. Leaderboards show your table nickname (or display name) and rating to other players unless you turn off Show me on leaderboards in Settings; your rating still changes while you’re hidden. We don’t show your account, email address or anything else.
• Groups and chat: the groups you create or join, their names, chosen icons, descriptions, games, chat language and memberships, requests to join a public group (with any note you add), and the messages you send in room or group chat.
• Messages to friends: the messages you send to and receive from friends, when they were sent and whether they have been read.
• Activity, if you share it: only if you turn on Share when I’m active, the last time you had the app open. It is cleared when you turn sharing off.
• Notifications: if you allow them, a push token for your device, whether it is iOS or Android, and your notification settings.
• Live Activities (iPhone): while you sit at an online table, a token for that table’s lock-screen activity, so we can show whose turn it is, the timer and the score with the app closed. Apple delivers these updates; we keep the token only until the table ends or you leave it. The home-screen widget shows your streak and today’s deal from what’s already on your phone and sends nothing.
• Progress backup, only with Deckfolk Plus: while you have Plus, a copy of your lesson progress, quiz scores, drill results and game log (the deal, bidding and play of your practice and online Bridge boards and Call Break games, including the display names of the players at your online tables) and your Call Break personal level. Without Plus these stay only on your device and are not linked to your account.
• Hosting and reviews: how many sessions you’ve hosted and full board reviews you’ve requested, to apply the free allowances.

If you buy something

Deckfolk Plus and Remove ads are sold through the App Store or Google Play, which take your payment. We receive a record of the purchase: the product, the store, the price and currency, the purchase and renewal dates, whether a subscription is active, in a free trial or has been cancelled or refunded, and a store transaction ID. If you’re signed in, the purchase is linked to your Deckfolk account so it works on your other devices. We never receive your card or bank details.

If you see ads

Free players may see ads, which Google AdMob serves. To show an ad and count it, AdMob receives your IP address, device and app information (model, operating system, language, app version) and how you interact with the ad. On iPhone and iPad, Deckfolk doesn’t ask to track you, AdMob doesn’t receive your advertising identifier (IDFA) and ads are never personalised. On Android, AdMob receives your device’s advertising ID unless you’ve deleted or reset it in your device settings. In the UK, the European Economic Area and Switzerland we ask for your consent first, through Google’s consent form, and show only non-personalised ads if you decline. Your consent choices, and the counters that limit how often ads and free suggestions appear, are stored on your device.

Diagnostics

When the app crashes or runs slowly it sends a report: the error, the app version, the device model and operating system, and timings. Reports don’t include your name, email address or chat messages. Crash reports go to Sentry, which is set not to store IP addresses. Performance timings also go to Google Firebase Performance Monitoring, which receives a random identifier for this installation of the app and may use your IP address to deliver reports and show the country they came from. Neither is linked to your account.

Usage counts

The apps count a few moments so we can tell whether Deckfolk is working for players, for example opening the app, finishing a practice board, seeing an ad or the membership page, making a purchase, finishing a Call Break game or lesson, searching for a public table, joining someone’s search, finding a table or nobody, leaving one early, and creating, joining or sharing a room. Each count carries a random ID created for this install, how many days ago the app was installed, whether this install sees ads, the device platform and the app version. That ID isn’t linked to your account, name, email address or advertising identifier, and counts are stored with our database provider, Supabase. We don’t use an analytics company.

This website

The website uses no cookies and no analytics. If you pick light or dark mode, that choice is saved in your own browser. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address and browser details when you visit, and our host Vercel keeps standard server logs.

How we use it

• To sign you in and keep your account working.
• To let friends find you by your friend code and invite you to rooms.
• To run games fairly. Our server deals the cards, so no other player’s device ever receives your hidden hand.
• To deliver chat messages and the notifications you’ve turned on.
• To keep people safe: limits on how fast requests and messages can be sent, blocking, and reviewing reported messages.
• To find and fix crashes and slow screens.
• To understand, from anonymous usage counts, whether changes such as ads help or hurt how often people play.
• To give you what you’ve paid for, restore it on a new device, and apply the free allowances.
• To show ads to free players, if ads are switched on, and to limit how often they appear.

We don’t sell your data. We don’t give advertisers your name, email address, account details, chat or games. The ad data described above goes to Google AdMob, which uses it under Google’s own privacy policy; on Android, and with your permission, that can include personalising ads and measuring them across other apps and websites.

What other players see

Everyone who sees your name (other players at a table, on leaderboards, in groups) also sees your built-in avatar and, if you have Deckfolk Plus and haven’t hidden it in Settings, a small Plus badge beside it (it says only that you’re a member, nothing about your purchase). Your photo is seen only by your accepted friends and people in a private group with you, never by strangers at public tables or on leaderboards, and never by someone you’ve blocked or who has blocked you. Players you play with see your table nickname if you set one, otherwise your display name; your friends see your display name. Your friends also see your playing level, when you became friends, how many private tables you’ve shared and the groups you both belong to. A message to a friend is seen only by that friend. If you both share your activity, friends see whether you were active now, today or this week, never an exact time. People you’ve shared a private room with may see you under “Played with recently” and can send you a friend request. People in a room see the chat messages sent there and the cards played on the table, following the rules of the game. Members of a group see each other’s display names, the group’s chat and the tables shared in it. Only the owner sees the group’s invitation code. A group is private unless its owner makes it public: then every signed-in player can find it and see its name, emblem, description, games, chat language, member count, how recently it was active, who runs it (display name and built-in avatar) and which of their own friends are in it. They never see its chat or member list unless they join. When you ask to join a public group, its owner and moderators see your display name, built-in avatar, note, when you joined Deckfolk, how many of your friends are in the group and, if you show on leaderboards, your game ratings. Photos are never shared through a public group: its members see each other’s built-in avatars unless they are already friends. Someone you block isn’t told, and stops seeing your requests, invitations and messages, and can no longer message you.

Play nearby. While the Play nearby screen or a nearby table is open, your phone announces itself to Deckfolk phones on the same Wi-Fi or hotspot, with your table nickname (or display name) and a short code that lets someone hide you, which is derived from your account but doesn’t reveal it. You can turn this off on that screen. A nearby table runs on the host’s phone and travels directly between the phones at the table, over the local network: it doesn’t pass through our servers, and we don’t receive who you played with. The host’s phone sees your name and that short code while you’re at the table, never your account ID. Each phone keeps the boards it played, as it does for practice.

Service providers

We use these companies to run Deckfolk. They handle data on our behalf and only for these purposes:

• Supabase for accounts, the database and the game service, hosted in Frankfurt, Germany.
• Expo to send push notifications, delivered through Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging.
• Sentry for crash and performance reports, hosted in the United States.
• Google Firebase for performance reports (Performance Monitoring). We don’t use Google Analytics.
• Vercel to host this website, and Google Fonts for its typefaces.
• Apple and Google, only if you choose to sign in with them.
• An email delivery provider, to send one-time sign-in codes.
• RevenueCat, in the United States, to check purchases with the App Store and Google Play and keep track of what each account has bought.
• Apple (App Store) and Google (Google Play), which process payments under their own terms and privacy policies.
• Google AdMob to serve ads to free players, and Google’s consent platform to ask for consent where the law requires it.

Some of these providers are outside India, so your data may be processed in other countries.

We may also disclose data if the law requires it, or to protect players from harm.

How long we keep it

Full board reviews upload a completed practice board only when you explicitly request analysis. The upload includes the deal, auction, played cards and suggestion count, linked to your account. We use it to check your play and enforce your review allowance. Uploaded deals are cleared when analysis finishes or fails. Review results and usage records are kept for about 30 days and are deleted with your account. Local practice and on-device review do not upload your boards.

Old data is removed automatically every day.

Deleting your account

In the app, go to Settings → Delete account. This removes your account straight away, with your profile, friends, blocks, friend code, notification settings and devices, and the chat messages you sent. Groups you still own are deleted with their messages and memberships; transfer ownership first if your friends should keep the group. Your games against the computer are deleted too. In rooms you share with other people, your seat is freed (or the computer takes it over mid-game) so they can keep playing; the room’s record no longer links to your account. See Delete your account for other ways to ask.

Deleting your account doesn’t cancel a subscription, because the App Store or Google Play manages it. Cancel it in your store settings first. We keep purchase records only as long as tax and accounting law requires.

Your rights

Under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and other laws that may apply to you, you can ask us to:

• tell you what personal data we hold about you and how we use it;
• correct or update it (you can change your name and level in the app);
• delete it;
• stop using it where you gave consent, for example by turning off notifications, or changing your ad consent in Settings → Ad privacy choices (shown where the law requires it, such as the UK and EEA), or deleting or resetting your advertising ID in your Android device’s settings.

Email deckfolk@gmail.com from the address on your account. We aim to reply within 30 days. If you’re not satisfied with our answer, you can raise a grievance with the same address, and you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India or your local regulator.

Children

You need to be 18 or older to create an account, or have a parent or guardian’s permission. Deckfolk isn’t directed at children under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal data without that permission, email us and we’ll delete it.

Security

Data travels over encrypted connections. Players can reach game data only through our game service, which checks room membership and blocks on every request. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a sign-in method you keep safe.

Ads and purchases

Playing, playing with friends and joining a friend’s table are free. Deckfolk Plus (a subscription) and Remove ads (a one-time purchase) are optional. Buying either one turns off all ads on your account. What you get, and the prices, are shown in the app and in the store before you pay. The Terms of use explain renewals, cancellation and refunds.

Ads appear only in a few places for free players: between practice boards against the computer, as a card in a list, and as an optional video you can choose to watch for extra suggestions. There are never ads at the table during a game, in multiplayer rooms, in chat, in invitations or during sign-up. Ads and purchases may not be switched on in every version of the app yet; this policy describes how they work when they are.

Changes to this policy

We’ll post any changes here and update the date at the top. For significant changes, we’ll also tell you in the app before they take effect.