EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 29, 2026
Ghost in the Gears Privacy Policy
This notice covers Ghost in the Gears from The Flins App Vault, LLC., including the version 1.0 Build 1 candidate being prepared with optional discovery sharing. It does not announce a public release or certify that the candidate has completed device testing. Earlier local-only development builds do not send discovery submissions.
On your device
Campaign progress, settings, local scores and hidden-discovery completion are stored locally. The participating candidate retains consented pending publication intent and credentials in account-bound native secure storage. This is not a developer account or cloud-save service. Removing app data can remove progress; uninstalling an app does not necessarily remove platform secure-storage records.
Apple Game Center
Apple Game Center independently processes account-linked leaderboard scores and achievement completion for app functionality under Apple's privacy practices. The app receives provider identity information for supported Game Center features. Signing in does not grant permission to publish a name on the company website. Native Game Center and website discovery sharing are separate.
Your discovery-sharing choice
Normal launch, menus, gameplay, Game Center sign-in and native leaderboards send no Golden Egg requests. Only a locally verified discovery followed by an explicit publishing choice activates that service.
- Home / Don't Post before publishing consent: keep the discovery local. No bootstrap, identity, discovery or retry request is sent.
- Post Anonymous: authenticate privately and publish the discovery as Anonymous without a public Game Center name.
- Post Game Center name: review and approve the server-returned provider name before publication. There is no typed replacement-name option.
Apple's signature authenticates player identity, not the display name itself. Names are provider-reported metadata associated with verified identity. Different players are not combined merely because their names match.
Information used by the discovery service
After publishing consent, the service processes app and game identifiers, private player bindings, Game Center identity-verification fields, provider-reported display name, bounded discovery evidence, consent choices and retry identifiers. This information is linked to the player for authentication, discovery verification, duplicate prevention and leaderboard functionality—not advertising tracking.
Public results include the approved name or Anonymous, game, public discovery reference and public code, server-assigned ranks and server discovery time. Private player identifiers, identity signatures, credentials and session tokens are not public leaderboard fields. A public code is not an ownership credential.
Offline attempts and changing accounts
A failed or pending request is not a published result. Consented pending intent remains bound to its original account and is recovered explicitly; it must not silently move to another account. Home returns you to play, but cannot undo a request already committed by the server. An uncertain retry uses the same logical discovery to avoid creating duplicates.
Updates and connection metadata
The separate required-update service receives the bundle identifier and platform over HTTPS on the configured startup and foreground paths. It does not receive Golden Egg discovery evidence on that path. Hosting and security providers may process IP addresses and request metadata to deliver and protect these services. Provider logging and retention have not been fully verified; this notice does not promise that no metadata is retained or invent a fixed retention period.
Purchases and excluded uses
The game is planned as a free download; the App Store controls current availability. The developer does not receive full payment credentials. The candidate does not use advertising, developer marketing analytics, cross-company tracking or data-broker sharing, and does not request precise location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone or health data. It has no chat or free-form user-content feature.
Retention and your choices
Discovery records support a continuing leaderboard history. Withdrawing public-name consent changes public presentation to Anonymous; it does not itself erase the discovery, rank or server timestamp. Use the authenticated discovery privacy controls when available, or contact us for verified access, correction, anonymization or deletion requests. We may need to verify ownership and retain information needed for security, dispute handling or applicable legal obligations. Do not send authentication secrets to prove ownership.
We cannot remotely retrieve device-only saves. Apple handles requests about its own services. If you email support, we receive the information you choose to send and use it to address the request. Parents or guardians may contact us about a child's privacy; do not send a child's personal details unnecessarily.
Contact and changes
Email theflinsappvaultllc@gmail.com with privacy questions. We update this notice when enabled data practices change and reconcile those practices with the applicable store disclosures.