Privacy Policy

This policy explains what POLARITY collects, why, and the choices you have. POLARITY runs on Google Firebase (a Google Cloud service) for sign-in, database and live gameplay, and on Netlify for web hosting.

1. What we collect

When you sign in and play, we store:

• Account — your name, email address, and (from Google) profile photo — collected when you sign in with Google or Apple — plus a unique account ID. With Sign in with Apple you can hide your email; Apple then relays a private forwarding address instead. If you sign up with an email address and a password instead, we store that email address and your account ID; the password itself is handled by Firebase Authentication — see below. Your account also records which sign-in methods it has (email and password, Google, Apple), and whether your email address has been confirmed.
• Profile — the username you choose, your avatar selection, and optional region and time zone.
• Your agreement to our terms — when you pick a username (or, for an account made before we asked, when you accept on a one-time screen) you agree to the Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy; we record which version you agreed to (its “last updated” date) and when. Only our server writes this record.
• Gameplay — the games you join, your scores and participation, survey answers, and any drawing you submit in a Final round.
• Notifications (app only) — if you use the iOS or Android app, a push-notification token for your device and your notification settings. We send three kinds: “POLARITY is live” when a show starts, a reminder about 15 minutes before a scheduled show, and “POLARITY replied” when our crew posts a reply to feedback you sent (it names the kind of feedback, never the reply or what you wrote). All three are on by default once you allow notifications on your device, and each can be turned off in the app's Settings. Signing out removes this device's token from your account.
• Feedback — if you send feedback, the message, the page you sent it from, your username and your account ID, so we can follow up. If our crew replies, the reply is stored with your feedback, with the staff account that wrote it and the time; only you and POLARITY staff can read it, and we record how many of your devices the reply notification reached.
• Reports and blocks — if you report a player, we store your account ID and username, the player you reported, the reason you picked and any note you add, where you sent it from (and the show, if it was during one), the time, the sign-in provider your account used, and a copy of what that player's public profile showed at that moment (username, avatar, photo link, region and time zone). If another player reports you, the report holds that copy of your public profile. If you block players, we store the list of their account IDs — nothing else.
• Technical — when your device connects to Firebase or Netlify, their servers log the request: your IP address, your device and browser type, and the time. Those services keep these logs to run and secure the Service. POLARITY itself has no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting code, and does not use your IP address to work out where you are.

We never ask for or store your Google or Apple password. If you use an email address and a password, the password goes straight from the sign-in form to Firebase Authentication, which keeps it in hashed form; POLARITY never stores or logs it, and nobody at POLARITY can read it.

Emails we send about your account. If you sign up with an email address, Firebase Authentication sends it a link to confirm the address. It also sends a password-reset link when you ask for one, and a confirmation link when you change your account's email address. Sign-in sends no other email.

Unconfirmed accounts are deleted. An email-and-password account can't pick a username or play until its address is confirmed. If an account signed up with email and a password has not confirmed its address within 48 hours, and has no other sign-in method, a daily clean-up deletes it and its profile record.

Separately, if you ask to join the mobile beta from the banner on the home page, we store the first name, last name, email address and device type you enter on that form. No sign-in is required to submit it. It is used only to add you as a tester: on iPhone, we add that email address to Apple's TestFlight, which emails you the invite; on Android, we add that Google account to the app's test list on Google Play and email you the link to join. You can ask us to delete it at any time.

2. How we use it

• To run the games — sign you in, show your username, keep score, and power leaderboards and live boards.
• To moderate — filter offensive usernames, profile regions and words guessed on a shared board, review reports, and enforce fair play.
• To operate, secure, and improve the Service.

We do not sell your personal information.

3. What's public

Your username, avatar, scores, leaderboard results, words you guess on a shared board, and survey answers a host puts on a live board are visible to other players and spectators — that's the nature of a public game show. Drawings are seen by the host running the show, not put on the live board. Your email address is never shown publicly.

Reports and your blocked list are never public. Only POLARITY admins see reports, including who sent them; reports about a staff account are seen only by POLARITY's owner (superadmin) accounts, and nobody can read a report about themselves. A report about an owner account can't be sent with Report, because nobody else could read it; email it to legal@polaritylive.com instead. The player you report is not told who reported them. Nobody but you — staff included — can see who you have blocked, and they are not told. If a report is upheld, a staff member may change the reported player's username or reset their picture and region, and their name on past results may be replaced.

Your profile page is visible to other signed-in players. Besides your username and avatar, it shows by default your game record and stats, the month you joined, and your region and time zone if you entered them (and, if you signed in with Google and kept its photo as your avatar, that photo). You can hide each of these, or make your whole profile private, from your profile's privacy settings.

4. Services we rely on

• Google Sign-In, Sign in with Apple, and Firebase Authentication (including email-and-password accounts and the confirmation and reset emails) — sign you in.
• Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore, Realtime Database, Authentication, Cloud Functions) — stores your data and powers live features.
• YouTube — when a host plays a "Daily Double" clip, it's embedded from YouTube, which may set its own cookies and collect data under Google's policies.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (and Apple Push Notification service on iPhone) — delivers app notifications.
• Netlify — serves the website.

Each of these processes data under its own privacy terms.

5. Cookies & local storage

We use cookies and local storage to keep you signed in and remember your session. Embedded YouTube clips may set additional cookies.

Local storage also remembers a few choices you make on a device, such as your sound settings and the Reduce motion switch. These stay on that device and are never sent to us.

6. Keeping & deleting your data

We keep your data while your account is active. You can delete your account any time from your profile (in the app: the round profile button at the top right, then Delete account) — this signs you out and deletes:

• Your profile and your public profile
• Your sign-in account: your email address and every sign-in method on it
• Your list of blocked players
• Your per-game history and your survey answers, removed by our server right after your sign-in account is deleted

A password account confirms the deletion with its password; a Google or Apple account signs in again. Your username is retired, not released — it stays reserved and nobody else can claim it, because finished games record player names as they were at the time.

What deleting your account does not remove by itself:

• Your username, retired rather than freed, so nobody else can ever claim it
• Your results in finished games, with those games' logs
• Feedback you sent, and our replies to it
• Your display name on past live boards
• Reports you sent and reports about your account, kept as moderation records until one year after staff close them

These stay as historical entries; email us (below) and we will remove the ones tied to your account, except reports. Backups and logs may persist for a limited period.

Reports are kept as moderation records. Reports you sent, and reports other players sent about your account, are not removed when you delete your account and are not removed on request. They are kept while open and deleted automatically one year after staff close them.

No longer have the app, or can't sign in? Email legal@polaritylive.com from the address on the account and ask us to delete it. You do not need the app installed, and you do not need to be able to sign in.

7. Children

POLARITY isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

8. Security

We rely on Google Firebase's infrastructure and our own server-side access rules to protect your data. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your information safe.

9. Your choices

From your profile you can change your username, edit your region and time zone, change your avatar, choose what your profile shows, add or remove sign-in methods (email and password, Google, Apple — at least one always stays), change your password, unblock players, or delete your account entirely. In the app, sign-in methods, each kind of notification, and the players you blocked (to unblock them) are in Settings.

10. Changes

We may update this policy; we'll change the date above and may highlight material changes in the app.

11. Contact

Questions about your data, or a privacy request? Email legal@polaritylive.com. For help with the games, email support@polaritylive.com, or reach @POLARITYJOSH on social. Copyright complaints follow the procedure in our Terms of Use. See also our Terms of Use.