Privacy Policy
9 Card Golf · Effective 7 August 2026 · Replaces the version dated 1 January 2015
This policy explains what 9 Card Golf collects, why, and what you can do about it. It covers the Android app on Google Play and the iOS app on the App Store. Where the two platforms differ, this policy says so explicitly rather than describing them as one.
The short version. You can play the whole game — every board size, against the computer or passing the phone between friends — without an account and without a network connection. Creating an account is what makes us hold your email address, username, and games. Even without an account, the app reports usage analytics, an approximate location worked out from your IP address, and crash diagnostics, on both platforms — section 3 says exactly what, and how to limit it. We do not sell your data, we do not show ads, and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
1. Playing without an account
Playing against the computer and pass-and-play work fully offline and require no account. In this mode the app stores your games, settings, and appearance preferences on your device only. None of it is sent to us. If you never create an account, we hold no account information about you — no email address, no username, and no games on our servers. The usage analytics, approximate location, and crash diagnostics described in section 3 are the exception: those are reported whether or not you have an account.
2. What we collect when you create an account
An account is required only for online play — taking turns with a friend at your own pace. Creating one means the following is sent to and stored on our servers:
| What | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| Email address | Identifies your account, lets you sign in on a new device, and lets you reset your password. We do not send marketing email. |
| Username | The name shown to people you play against. See section 4. |
| Account identifier | A random ID we generate for your account. It ties your games and scores together. |
| Notification token | A device identifier issued by Apple or Google that lets us tell you it is your turn. It identifies your installation of the app, not you personally, and resets if you reinstall. |
| Your games | The state of each online game — the cards on the board, the moves played, the score, and which accounts are playing. This is what makes a turn-based game work across devices. |
| Basic account activity | When you were last active, which game you are currently viewing, your points total, whether you allow random opponents, and the app version you are running. These drive matchmaking, rankings, and support. |
Our servers also automatically receive your device's IP address when the app connects, as any internet service does. We use it to operate and secure the service; we do not use it to build a profile of you.
The app never asks your device for your location — it has no location permission and does not use GPS. An approximate location is worked out from your IP address, which is described in section 3 rather than here, because it happens whether or not you have an account. We do not collect your contacts, your photos, your health data, or any payment information. The app has no in-app purchases and no advertising.
3. Analytics and crash reporting
Both apps use the same services for this — Google Analytics for Firebase and Firebase Crashlytics — and collect the same things in the same way. Earlier versions of this policy described real differences here; those are gone, so this section is no longer split by platform. The one remaining iOS-only point is called out at the end.
On both platforms:
- Analytics records in-app activity — screens viewed, buttons tapped, sign-ins, and games started — to help us understand which features people use. If you are signed in, these events are associated with your account identifier.
- Approximate location is worked out from your IP address by the same analytics service — a country, a region, or a city, and never anything more precise. It is kept and shown to us in the analytics reports, alongside the activity above. Apple and Google both class this as collecting coarse or approximate location, and our app store listings declare it as such. It is not GPS and it is not a device permission: the app never asks your device where it is. Like the rest of this section, it happens whether or not you have an account.
- Crashlytics records diagnostic information when the app crashes — the device model, the operating system version, and where in the code the failure happened — so we can fix it. It records the same kind of report for errors the app recovers from, which is how we find problems that would otherwise be invisible. Unlike the analytics above, these crash reports are not associated with your account, whether or not you are signed in.
- Firebase Installations issues a per-installation identifier for your copy of the app. Firebase needs it to route turn notifications to your device and to keep the above reports apart. It identifies the installation, not you, and resets if you delete and reinstall the app.
- These run automatically and the app does not currently offer an in-app switch to turn them off. You can limit some collection through your device and Google account settings.
On iOS only, one thing is additionally true: Apple may provide us with anonymous aggregate crash and usage statistics if you have opted into sharing those with developers in your iOS settings. That is controlled entirely by you, in iOS, and is separate from everything above.
4. What other players can see
When you play online, the people in your game can see your username and the moves you make. They can also see whether you are currently present in the game — a live indicator that shows while you have that game open, and disappears shortly after you leave. They do not see your email address.
If you turn on Allow Random Opponents in Settings, your username also appears in the list of players available for matchmaking, so people you have not met can invite you to a game. Turning that setting off removes you from that list. Your email address is never shown to other players in either case.
5. Turn notifications
If you allow notifications, we use a token provided by Apple Push Notification service (iOS) or Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) to tell you when it is your turn. The notification itself says whose turn it is; it does not contain your email address or the contents of your hand. You can turn turn notifications off inside the app at any time, or revoke the permission in your device settings — the game remains fully playable either way.
6. Who we share information with
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers to run the game, and they process data on our behalf:
- Amazon Web Services — hosts our servers and database, and provides account sign-in (Amazon Cognito). Your email, username, account identifier, and games are stored here.
- Google — through Firebase, delivers turn notifications and provides analytics and crash reporting on both platforms, as described in section 3. This includes deriving your approximate location from your IP address. Google also carries the feedback you send us from inside the app, which reaches us as email.
- Apple — delivers turn notifications on iOS.
We may also disclose information if we are legally required to, or where necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of our users or ourselves.
7. Keeping and deleting your data
We keep your account information for as long as your account exists.
You can delete your account from inside the app: go to Settings → Delete account and confirm. This deletes your sign-in account — your email address, username, and password — along with your user record. Any online games still in progress are closed out and marked as no contest for the other players, so nobody is left waiting on a turn that will never come. Games stored only on your device are removed when you uninstall the app.
Some records that reference your account identifier are not removed by that. Any feedback you sent us, your entry in the world rankings, and the rows that link you to games you have played remain on our servers. They are keyed to the random account identifier rather than to your email address or username, so they no longer identify you by name — but we would rather say so than let you assume otherwise. If you want them deleted too, email GolfCardGame@iksydk.com and we will remove them by hand.
Information about requests your app makes also appears in our server logs, which can include your account identifier. We do not currently apply a fixed retention period to all of those logs, and some are kept indefinitely. Deleting your account does not remove them. If you want us to purge what we hold about you, email GolfCardGame@iksydk.com and we will.
8. Your choices
- Play without an account. We then hold no email address, username, or games — but this is not "nothing": the usage analytics, approximate location, and crash diagnostics in section 3 are still reported.
- Allow Random Opponents — controls whether strangers can find and invite you.
- Turn notifications — on or off, in Settings or in your device settings.
- Delete your account — in Settings, at any time, without contacting us.
Wherever you live, you may ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email GolfCardGame@iksydk.com and we will respond. Depending on where you live you may also have the right to object to or restrict certain processing, to receive a copy of your data in a portable form, or to complain to your local data-protection authority. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of on that front.
9. Children
9 Card Golf is a card game suitable for all ages, and it can be played entirely offline with no account, in which case we collect no personal information about the player — though the usage analytics, approximate location, and crash diagnostics in section 3 are still reported, as they are for everyone. Account creation and online play are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child has created an account, email GolfCardGame@iksydk.com and we will delete it.
10. Security
Traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit using HTTPS, and passwords are handled by Amazon Cognito rather than stored by us. No service can promise perfect security, but we limit what we collect in the first place, which is the most reliable protection there is.
11. Where your data is processed
Our servers are operated by Amazon Web Services in the United States. If you use the app from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed there.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and change the effective date at the top. Significant changes will also be called out in the app's release notes.
13. Contact
Questions about this policy, or about your data: GolfCardGame@iksydk.com.