Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Joinery is published by DriverCube ("we", "us"). For the purposes of the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR we are the data controller for the processing described in this policy, except where stated otherwise in section 6 — several advertising partners act as independent controllers of the data they receive.

Questions, requests, or complaints: [email protected].

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers the Joinery iOS app and this website. It does not cover Apple's own services (the App Store, Game Center, iCloud), which are governed by Apple's Privacy Policy, nor the practices of the advertising networks listed in section 6, each of which publishes its own policy.

We do not ask you to create an account and we have no server of our own. There is no Joinery database with your name in it, because we never collect a name.

3. Data kept on your device

Most of what the game knows about you never leaves your phone. It is written to the app's own local storage and is deleted when you delete the app. This includes:

• Your high score, current and best daily streak, and lifetime totals (lines cleared, blocks placed, best combo, dailies played).
• Campaign progress — which levels you have unlocked and completed.
• Your XP, level, and which palettes and board surfaces you have unlocked and equipped.
• Which achievements you have earned.
• Your daily results and any banked streak freezes.
• An interrupted run, so you can resume it.
• Settings: sound, appearance, and whether the daily reminder is on.
• Whether you have bought Remove Ads, and counters that pace how often an ad may appear.
• Your consent choices, stored in the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework format.

If you enable the daily reminder, the notification is scheduled locally by iOS on your device. No reminder is sent from a server and we are not told whether you opened it.

4. Apple services

iCloud sync

If you are signed in to iCloud and have iCloud Drive enabled for Joinery, a small set of values — your streak, best scores, XP, campaign progress, unlocked cosmetics, and whether you own Remove Ads — is mirrored to your own iCloud key-value store so it survives a new device or a reinstall. This is a few kilobytes. It is stored in your personal iCloud account, under your Apple Account; we have no access to it and cannot read it. You can turn it off in iOS Settings under your name → iCloud.

Game Center

Game Center is optional and only active if you are signed in at the iOS level. When it is, your scores may be submitted to leaderboards (including a daily leaderboard that turns over with the puzzle) and your achievements reported to Apple. What other players see is the Game Center alias you chose with Apple, not anything you told us. Manage or sign out from iOS Settings → Game Center.

In-app purchase

Remove Ads is sold through Apple's App Store using StoreKit. Apple processes the payment. We never see or receive your card details, billing address, or Apple Account. We receive only the fact that a purchase for this product completed, which the app uses to switch advertising off, and which is recorded in analytics along with the product's own list price and currency — figures identical for every buyer, and not personal to you.

5. Analytics and crash reporting

We use Google Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics, provided by Google. Both are held behind the consent gate described in section 7: if you have not agreed to information being stored on your device for this purpose, they do not send anything. A crash captured before you have answered the consent form is held on the device and then either sent or deleted once you do.

What analytics records

Gameplay events only, such as: a run starting and ending, its mode and score, whether it beat your best, lines cleared, best combo, daily puzzle started, completed, target met or shared, hints used, level-ups, cosmetics unlocked and equipped, achievements unlocked, ad delivery outcomes, reminder toggled, and the Remove Ads purchase result. Alongside these Firebase records an app-instance identifier, coarse device and OS information, and an approximate country derived from IP address.

Joinery is configured so that Firebase's advertising features are off: advertising ID (IDFA) collection is disabled, IDFV collection is disabled, ad personalisation signals are disabled, and this data is not used for tracking or advertising. It exists so we can tell whether a change made the game better.

What crash reporting records

When the app crashes, Crashlytics collects a stack trace, the device model, the OS version, and state about the session that failed, together with a Crashlytics install identifier. We use this only to diagnose and fix the crash.

Google acts as our processor for both services. See Firebase's privacy documentation and Google's Privacy Policy.

6. Advertising and our partners

Joinery is free and paid for by advertising. Ads appear as banners, as a full-screen ad after some runs, and as optional rewarded videos you choose to watch in exchange for a rescue, a retry, a hint, or an undo.

Ads are served by Google AdMob, which also mediates demand from the partner networks below. To fill an ad slot these networks may receive: your device's IP address, device model, operating system version, language and coarse region, screen and app information, the ad placement, and — only where you have consented and where iOS App Tracking Transparency permits it — your device's advertising identifier (IDFA). They may also use their own identifiers and similar technologies to measure whether an ad was seen, clicked, or led to an install.

Where you have not consented to personalised advertising, or you have not allowed tracking under App Tracking Transparency, we request non-personalised ads. These are still ads, and the network still needs basic technical data to deliver and measure one, but they are not selected using a profile built about you.

Each of these companies determines its own purposes for the data it receives and is an independent controller of it. Their policies:

Attribution and measurement

Joinery supports Apple's SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit, Apple's privacy-preserving install attribution systems. These let an advertiser learn that an install happened without identifying you; the reports are generated and sent by iOS itself. We also include Google's on-device conversion measurement, which processes conversion signals on your device rather than by uploading identifiers.

Buying Remove Ads

Once Remove Ads is purchased, the app stops requesting advertising altogether and the advertising SDKs are no longer asked for an ad.

US state privacy

Where the device region indicates the United States, we signal Limited Data Use to our advertising partners for that session. Depending on your state, sharing data for cross-context behavioural advertising may count as a "sale" or "share" under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. You can opt out at any time using Settings → Privacy options in the app, and by disabling Allow Apps to Request to Track in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.

7. Your consent, and changing it

On first launch — and wherever the law requires it, including the EEA and the UK — Joinery presents a consent form built with Google's User Messaging Platform, following the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework. It asks separately about storing information on your device and about building and using profiles for personalised advertising, and your answers are recorded per purpose.

We treat "no answer recorded" the same as a refusal. If you decline, you will still see ads, but non-personalised ones, and analytics and crash reporting stay switched off.

To change your choices at any time: open the game, tap Settings, then Privacy options. This reopens the same form and your new answer takes effect immediately.

Separately, iOS asks whether Joinery may track you across other companies' apps and websites (App Tracking Transparency). That answer controls access to your device's advertising identifier and can be changed at any time in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.

8. Legal bases (UK and EU GDPR)

• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — advertising, ad personalisation, analytics, and crash reporting. Withdrawable at any time as described in section 7; withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out.
• Performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — delivering the game itself, saving your progress, and honouring a Remove Ads purchase.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — keeping the app secure and preventing fraudulent or abusive use of ads and purchases, balanced against your rights.

9. Children

Joinery is a general-audience game. It is not directed at children under 13 (or under the applicable age of digital consent in your country, which is up to 16 in parts of the EEA), and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. We do not ask for age, name, or any other identifying detail.

If you believe a child has provided personal data through the app, contact us at [email protected] and we will work with the relevant partner to have it deleted. Parents can also disable personalised advertising for a device using iOS Screen Time and App Tracking Transparency controls.

10. Retention

• On-device data is kept until you delete it or uninstall the app.
• iCloud data is kept in your own iCloud account until you remove it or sign out.
• Analytics is retained by Firebase on our configured retention window, after which event-level data is deleted.
• Crash reports are retained for up to 90 days.
• Advertising data is retained by each partner under its own policy, linked in section 6.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. Under US state laws you may also have the right to opt out of sale or sharing and of targeted advertising, and not to be discriminated against for exercising any of these.

Because we hold no account and no server-side profile, the fastest routes are usually direct:

• Delete everything we hold on your device — delete the app. To also clear the iCloud copy, remove Joinery's data in iOS Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage.
• Stop analytics, crash reporting, and personalised ads — Settings → Privacy options in the app.
• Reset your advertising identifier — iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
• Anything else — email [email protected]. We will respond within one month. Please tell us which country you are writing from so we can apply the right law. We may need information to locate the relevant records, and where we genuinely cannot identify you from the data we hold, we will say so.

If you are in the UK you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office; in the EEA, to your national supervisory authority.

12. International transfers

Our analytics and advertising partners operate globally, so data described in sections 5 and 6 may be processed outside your country, including in the United States. Where data leaves the UK or the EEA, transfers rely on the safeguards those partners have put in place — typically the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or the EU–US and UK–US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified.

13. Security

All network traffic between the app and its service providers uses encrypted connections. Because Joinery holds no account and stores no personal data on any server we control, the largest part of your data is protected by your device's own security — your passcode, Face ID or Touch ID, and iOS's app sandbox. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when the app changes — for example if an advertising partner is added or removed. The "last updated" date at the top always reflects the current version. Where a change materially affects your rights, we will ask for your consent again inside the app rather than relying on you noticing this page.

15. Contact

DriverCube
[email protected]