Privacy policy
The short version
- We collect as little as we can. For an account that's your email address, the username you pick, and your own quest progress and saved games.
- We never sell your data, never show you ads based on it, and never share it with publishers.
- It's locked down. Your data is encrypted while it travels and while it's stored, held in the UK, and only you can see your own account.
- You're in charge. You can see, fix, download or delete your data at any time. Deleting your account removes it straight away.
1. Who we are
The Player Code is an independent gaming media platform based in Worcestershire, England. We run this website and The Player Code iPhone app: game reviews with a clear Buy, Wait or Skip verdict, Slop Watch, release lists, life quests, Tech Sanctuary gaming setup consults and our charity work.
For the purposes of UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), the controller of your personal data is:
We're a small business, so we haven't appointed a formal Data Protection Officer. Any privacy question comes straight to the person responsible for this policy at the email above.
2. What we collect
You can read every review, list and article without an account, and we don't ask who you are to do it. We only collect personal data in the situations below.
| When | What we collect |
|---|---|
| You create an account | Your email address, the username you choose and your password. Your password is stored by our account provider as a one-way scrambled "hash", so nobody at The Player Code can ever see it. |
| You sign in with Apple (if offered) | The email address Apple shares with us. That can be Apple's private relay address if you choose "Hide My Email". We don't receive your Apple password. |
| You use your account | Your quest list, the quests and weekly bosses you tick off and when, the XP and streaks that come from them, the games you save, any short note you add to a saved game (like "pre-ordered"), your alert settings, and a display name if you choose to add one. |
| You ask about a Tech Sanctuary consult | Your name, email address, a short description of your setup and your message. |
| You email us | Your email address and whatever you choose to tell us. |
| You visit the site or use the app | Basic technical information our providers log automatically to keep the service running and secure: your IP address, browser or device type, the pages requested and the time, and when you sign in. |
What we don't collect: your real name (unless you put it in an enquiry), your date of birth, your location, your contacts, payment card details, or anything from your phone beyond what's listed here. We don't use advertising or analytics trackers.
About life quests: some quests are about everyday habits like a walk, a glass of water or getting to bed on time. We store only that you ticked a quest off and when. We don't treat this as health information, we don't draw conclusions about your health from it, and we never share it.
3. Why we use it, and our legal basis
The law says we must have a valid reason, called a lawful basis, for each thing we do with your data. Here are ours.
| What we do | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Create and run your account, sign you in, save your quest progress and saved games, and let you reset your password | Contract. It's needed to give you the service you signed up for. |
| Send the alerts you switch on, such as release days and new Slop Watch reports | Contract. You asked for them, and you can switch each one off in your account at any time. |
| Send essential account emails, like confirming your email address or a password reset | Contract. These aren't marketing and we only send them when needed. |
| Reply to a Tech Sanctuary enquiry and arrange a consult | Steps before a contract, at your request. |
| Answer questions and messages you send us | Legitimate interests. Replying to people who contact us. |
| Keep the site and app secure, stop abuse and fix faults, using technical logs | Legitimate interests. Protecting you, our other players and the service. |
| Keep business and tax records for paid consults | Legal obligation. UK tax law requires it. |
We'll only send you marketing emails, such as a newsletter, if you've opted in, and every one will have an unsubscribe link. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we've checked that our interest doesn't override your rights. You can ask us for details of that check.
We don't make decisions about you using fully automated processing that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you, and we don't build profiles of you for advertising.
4. Who we share it with
We don't sell or rent your data to anyone. We only share it with trusted providers who help us run the service. They act as our processors: they can only use your data on our instructions, under a written contract, and must keep it secure.
- Supabase runs our accounts and database: sign-in, your profile, quest progress and saved games, Tech Sanctuary enquiries, and account emails like password resets.
- IONOS hosts our website and keeps standard server logs.
- Google Fonts supplies the fonts on our website. When a page loads, your browser asks Google's servers for the font files, which shares your IP address with Google.
- Apple delivers our iPhone app through the App Store, and if you choose it, Sign in with Apple. Apple handles that data under its own privacy policy.
We may also share data if the law requires it, for example a valid request from the police or a court, or to protect someone's safety. If The Player Code is ever sold or merged, your data would pass to the new owner under this same policy, and we'd tell you first.
5. Where your data is stored
Your account data is stored by Supabase in data centres in London, UK (eu-west-2). Our website is hosted by IONOS.
Some of our providers are based outside the UK, or may give their support staff limited access from outside the UK. Supabase, for example, is a US company. Where that happens, we make sure your data has the protection UK law requires, either because the UK has approved that country's protections, or through approved contract terms such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards we rely on.
6. How we keep it secure
Security and privacy come first at The Player Code. In practice that means:
- Encryption everywhere. Data is encrypted in transit using HTTPS and TLS, and at rest in our database.
- Only you can see your account. Our database is set up so each player can only read and change their own records.
- Passwords are never stored in readable form, and we'll never ask you for yours.
- Collecting less. The less we hold, the less there is to lose.
- Limited access. Only The Player Code's owner can reach the admin side, and only when needed to run the service or help you.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever puts your data at risk, we'll tell the regulator within 72 hours where the law requires it, and we'll tell you without delay if it's likely to affect you.
7. How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account, quest progress, saved games and settings | Until you delete your account. It's removed from our live database straight away, and drops out of our automatic backups within 7 days. |
| Tech Sanctuary enquiries and emails | 12 months after our last contact, unless they lead to paid work. |
| Records of paid consults, such as invoices | 6 years, as UK tax law requires. |
| Technical and security logs | A short period set by our providers, then deleted automatically. |
8. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Access your data and get a copy of it.
- Correct anything that's wrong or incomplete. You can change your username, display name and alerts yourself in your account.
- Delete your data. On the website, go to My quests, then Delete account. Everything linked to your account is removed straight away. You can also email us and we'll do it for you.
- Restrict how we use your data, for example while we check a concern you've raised.
- Object to anything we do based on legitimate interests, and to any marketing at any time.
- Data portability: get the data you gave us in a common, machine-readable format, or have it sent to another provider.
- Withdraw consent at any time, wherever we rely on it, such as for a newsletter. This doesn't affect anything we did before.
To use any of these rights, email hello@theplayercode.com. It's free. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, usually by replying from the email address on your account. We'll respond within one month. If your request is complex we may need up to two more months, and we'll tell you if so.
9. Cookies and similar storage
We don't use advertising cookies, tracking pixels or third-party analytics. When you sign in, our website saves a small sign-in token in your browser's local storage so you stay logged in, and the app keeps one on your phone. This is strictly necessary for the service you asked for, so we don't need to ask your consent for it. Signing out removes it.
If we ever add optional cookies, such as analytics, we'll ask for your permission first and update this policy.
10. Children
You must be at least 13 to create an account. If you're under 18, please check with a parent or guardian first. We don't knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you think a child under 13 has made an account, email us and we'll delete it. We design our services to keep privacy settings high by default, and we don't use children's data for marketing or profiling.
11. Changes to this policy
We'll update this policy if what we do with your data changes. The date at the top will always show the latest version. If a change is significant, we'll tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect.
12. Contact and complaints
If you have a question or a concern about how we handle your data, please email hello@theplayercode.com or write to us at The Player Code Ltd, 85 Forest Gate, Evesham, WR11 1XZ. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it properly and tell you the outcome.
You also have the right to complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commission (formerly the Information Commissioner's Office, or ICO). You can do this at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. We'd appreciate the chance to sort things out with you first, but you can go to them at any time.