Privacy Policy • Playthroughs

Who is responsible for your data

Callum Byrne, trading as Playthroughs in the United Kingdom, is the controller of your personal data. For privacy questions or requests, contact [email protected].

This policy covers the Playthroughs apps, website and related services.

What we collect

Account and profile details: email address, username, optional name and biography, social profile identifiers, preferences and authentication records. Passwords and verification codes are stored as protected hashes, not readable text. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your provider subject identifier and verified email address from the provider. We never receive your provider password. Apple may give us a private relay address instead of your real one; we record that it did so that account recovery keeps working.
Your game record: playthroughs, journal entries and sessions, ratings, reviews, lists, comments, tags, collection entries, statuses, platform details and the dates or notes you choose to add.
Community activity: follows, blocks, likes, comments, feature requests, votes and activity created when you use the service.
Safety and support information: reports, the reason and details supplied, a reference to the reported content, moderation decisions and messages you send to support. A moderation decision records a fingerprint of the content it concerned, not a copy of what was written.
Technical and security information: IP address, browser or device type, request timing, essential session records, diagnostics and errors needed to secure and operate the service. Playthroughs does not use this information for advertising or cross-site tracking.
Information stored on your device, including drafts, recent searches, scanner preferences, temporary import state, and the analytics identifier and any analytics events not yet sent.
Notification registrations and preferences: device push tokens, an installation identifier, your platform, your category preferences, and records of the notifications sent and their delivery, including who triggered them and what they relate to. Notification alerts name the person whose action prompted them and the game or list involved, including a list title you wrote. They carry no review, note or comment text. The accompanying routing data carries a game identifier derived from its title for playthrough and review notifications, a list or playthrough identifier, and a username only when a single person follows you.
Product analytics: which screens and features are used, and how far people get through journeys such as signing up or adding their first games. The app records them automatically. They carry a random installation identifier before you sign in and an account identifier afterwards, together with bounded descriptions of what happened, which game an entry relates to, and technical details about the app and device such as the app version, device type, language and timezone. They do not include your password, verification codes, tokens, import credentials, comments, reviews, journal entries, report details or biography.
Crash reports: what went wrong when the app fails, with the technical details needed to fix it. These carry an account identifier and bounded descriptions of the fault. They do not include your password, verification codes, tokens, import credentials, or anything you have typed into Playthroughs.

Profile photos and avatar storage

If you choose a profile photo, the app selects it from your photo library and sends it to Playthroughs over an encrypted connection. The API checks the file, applies its orientation, centre-crops it and stores a fresh, small copy without the original filename or embedded metadata. Current visible avatars are delivered publicly through the Playthroughs media domain, so anyone who can see the profile may fetch that image. Photos are stored with a cloud storage provider in the EU.

Replacing, removing or resetting a profile photo stops the old image being shown by Playthroughs and queues its bytes for deletion. If another person has reported that exact image, we retain the immutable evidence until a human decides the report, even if the owner has replaced it or deleted their account. We retain the avatar identifier, a fingerprint of the image and moderation audit records needed to resolve that report after the bytes are deleted.

A report may temporarily hide an avatar after reports from three distinct eligible accounts. Hiding is a precaution and says nothing about the person or the image. A person then reviews the report and can approve or remove the exact avatar.

What other people can see

Playthroughs is a social game journal. Your username, profile information and content you publish may be visible to other people and, on public web pages, to people without an account. Reviews, comments and public profile fields are intended to be public.

Some playthrough notes, lists, likes and other areas have Public, Friends or Private controls. The audience shown when you publish is the audience we use. Blocking prevents the two accounts from seeing each other’s profiles and content through Playthroughs, but it cannot erase copies someone made while content was visible.

Do not publish personal information you would not want that audience to keep or share.

Imports and barcode scanning

Imports run only when you ask for them. We use the information retrieved to prepare matches for your review; nothing is added to your Playthroughs library until you confirm it.

Steam: you sign in through Steam’s official OpenID page. We receive your Steam identifier and visible library from Steam. We retain only whether a game has positive playtime, without exact playtime or last-played dates.
Xbox: you give us a public gamertag. OpenXBL returns visible title and achievement information, which we use to suggest Played or Completed statuses. We do not receive your Microsoft password or retain exact achievement progress.
PlayStation: you give us a public online ID. Playthroughs uses its own PlayStation account to read publicly visible game and trophy-title information. We never receive your Sony credentials and do not retain trophy details, playtime or play dates.
Nintendo, where offered: the one-time sign-in happens with Nintendo. Session and access tokens are not kept for future use. Nintendo title identifiers are held only in the temporary preview, and a confirmed import adds Played status and does not record ownership.
For completed imports, we keep the Playthroughs entries you selected, the source and username used, and a small factual report of what happened. You can edit or delete imported library data like data added by hand.
Barcode scanning: camera frames stay on your device and only the decoded digits are sent to Playthroughs and ScanDex. We keep a shared barcode-to-game match without a user identifier and do not keep scan history. An unresolved match you submit is linked to your account until it is reviewed or your account is deleted; the reviewer does not see who submitted it.

Why we use personal data

To perform our contract with you: create and secure your account, provide the journal and community features, carry out imports you request, sync your data and send necessary account messages.
For our legitimate interests in running a safe and reliable service: diagnose faults, prevent abuse, investigate reports, enforce our rules and understand whether core features work. We balance those interests against your rights and do not use behavioural advertising or cross-site tracking.
To comply with law, respond to lawful requests and protect someone’s vital interests where there is a genuine safety emergency.

Who receives it

We share personal data only where the service needs it. Hosting, content delivery, storage and transactional email providers process data for us. PostHog processes the product analytics described above and Sentry processes the crash reports described below. They process data for Playthroughs under their own security and data-protection commitments.

When you start an import or barcode lookup, relevant identifiers are sent to the provider named above: Valve, OpenXBL, PlayStation, Nintendo or ScanDex. IGDB supplies game catalogue data but does not receive your Playthroughs journal.

When push notifications are enabled, Expo processes device tokens and notification payloads to hand them to Apple Push Notification service or Firebase Cloud Messaging for delivery. Apple and Google receive what delivery needs, including device tokens and the notification copy with its routing identifiers. A successful provider receipt confirms handoff to Apple or Google. It does not show that an alert was displayed. An alert already accepted by Apple or Google cannot be recalled by logging out, blocking, changing preferences or deleting content.

We may disclose information where law requires it, to respond to a valid legal process, or where reasonably necessary to protect a person, investigate abuse or defend the service. If Playthroughs changes ownership, personal data may transfer with the service subject to this policy and applicable law.

We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share it for targeted advertising.

Product analytics

We use PostHog to see how Playthroughs is used. For example, we count how many people asked to sign in mid-action go on to finish, and how many new accounts add their first games.

Events carry a fixed set of descriptions (the kind of action, which path through a flow, a count) together with an internal account identifier, which game an entry relates to where there is one, and technical details about the app and device such as the app version, device type, language and timezone. They do not include your email address, your username, anything you have typed into Playthroughs, or any credential.

We do not use analytics for advertising or cross-site tracking, and we do not record your screen. Analytics is disabled in development builds. It runs automatically in the released app, and there is currently no setting to switch it off. You can object to it, or ask us to erase analytics linked to you, by emailing [email protected].

When you delete your account, the app discards analytics it had not yet sent and we ask PostHog to delete the events and recordings linked to your account identifier. PostHog carries out deletions asynchronously, so we treat an accepted request as submitted, not as proof that the data has already gone. We cannot promise that events recorded before you first signed in are linked to your account and removed with it.

Crash reporting

We use Sentry to find out when the app fails, for example an error that appears after an update or a screen that crashes on some devices only.

A crash report describes the fault. Reports carry an internal account identifier together with technical details such as the app version, device type and the error itself. They do not include your email address, your username, anything you have typed into Playthroughs, or any credential.

We do not record your screen or take screenshots for crash reports. Crash reporting is disabled in development builds.

Individual crash reports are not currently erased automatically when you delete your account. To ask for reports linked to your account identifier to be erased, email [email protected].

Cookies and local storage

On web, an essential HttpOnly cookie keeps the signed-in session secure. Without Remember me it lasts for the browser session; with Remember me it can remain for up to 60 days. It is not an advertising or cross-site tracking cookie.

The apps and website also store the local preferences and temporary data described above. You can clear this by using the relevant feature controls, signing out where applicable, clearing browser or app data, or removing the app.

How long we keep it

Account, profile and journal data remains while your account is active, unless you delete individual content sooner.
Import previews normally expire within 24 hours and short-lived provider sign-in attempts within about ten minutes. They are also cleared after confirmation, cancellation or failure. The source username and bounded import report remain until account deletion.
Remembered sessions can last up to 60 days. Related security records may be retained for a further 30 days so token theft and reuse can be investigated.
Push registrations unused for about three months are revoked. Notification records are removed within about a week.
Expired pending sign-up credentials are scrubbed on the next hourly clean-up and the remaining rate-limit record is deleted after two days.
Sign in with Apple or Google keeps single-use challenges and confirmation tickets for minutes, unfinished registrations for an hour, and Apple connection records while the method stays connected. If you disconnect Apple or delete your account, revocation is retried until Apple confirms it; a short-lived completion record then remains to block replayed credentials.
Reports and moderation decisions are kept for as long as needed to resolve the report, enforce our rules, prevent repeat abuse or meet a legal obligation. We do not set a fixed period. Deleting an item removes its text from the service and we do not keep a copy of it for the report; the exception is an exact reported profile photo, described above. If an account is deleted, identifying links and relevant free text are removed from retained moderation records.
Messages you send to support are kept for as long as needed to deal with your request and any follow-up, to establish or defend a legal claim, or to meet a legal obligation.
Security and diagnostic records, including logs and crash reports, are kept only as long as needed to secure and operate the service and to investigate faults or abuse. Analytics events stay with PostHog until deleted by an account deletion or erasure request.
Deleted content can remain in the hosting provider’s backups until those backups expire. Backups are kept for disaster recovery only.

You can deactivate your account, which hides your profile and content until reactivation, or permanently delete it in Settings. When you delete a playthrough, review, list, comment or your whole account, it is removed from the live service immediately and cannot be undone. Some things are handled separately and can take longer: profile photo files are deleted from storage shortly afterwards, analytics deletion and Apple revocation are requested from those providers and retried until accepted, and limited safety records and backups are kept as described above.

International transfers

Some providers may process information outside the United Kingdom or European Economic Area. Where the destination is not recognised as providing adequate protection, we use an approved transfer mechanism, such as contractual data-protection clauses, or another safeguard allowed by law.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may ask for a copy of your personal data, correct it, delete it, restrict its use, receive portable data or object to processing based on legitimate interests. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, tell us at [email protected] and we will review it. You can also complain to your local data-protection authority at any time. In the UK, that is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

To exercise a right, email [email protected]. We may need to verify that the request concerns your account. You will not be treated differently for making a privacy request.

Children

Playthroughs is not for children under 13. A higher minimum applies wherever local law requires it. Everyone creating an account must confirm they are at least 13. If you believe an under-13 has created an account, contact [email protected] so we can investigate and remove the data.

Security and automated decisions

We use access controls, encrypted connections, protected credentials, short-lived access tokens and server-side session revocation to protect the service. No online service can promise absolute security, so tell us promptly if you believe an account has been compromised.

Reports and moderation decisions are reviewed by a person. Playthroughs does not make solely automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

Changes and contact

We will update this policy when the service or its data use changes. The date above shows the latest revision, and material changes will be brought to users’ attention in the app or by email where appropriate.

For privacy questions or requests, email [email protected]. For general support or a safety concern, email [email protected].