Turbo Arena Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Turbo Arena is made and published by Creative App Solutions, LLC ("we," "us," or "our"). We also run the servers the game uses online. If you have a question about this policy or your data, email us at abraham@casolutions.app.

If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write. We use them only to answer you and handle your request, and we never add them to your game account.

2. Playing Offline

You can play Turbo Arena against bots without an account. Offline matches run on your device. If you are not signed in, we collect nothing from them. If you are signed in, the app tells the lobby when you are in a match against bots, and its size (for example 2v2), so your friends can see it (see section 4); the lobby keeps this only in memory. Your car's look, your progress (your XP, level, unlocked items and achievements) and your settings stay on your device (see section 8), apart from your level, which the app also tells the lobby while you are signed in (see section 3.3).

When the app starts, it connects to our account server (we call it the lobby) so it is ready if you decide to play online. Until you sign in, that connection carries no account or personal details, only technical details such as the app's version. If you are signed in, the app stays signed in while you play offline, so your friends can see that you are online (see section 4).

The first time the app starts, it makes this connection only after you have answered its age question (see section 14). For a player under 13, the app makes no connection to our servers at all, apart from asking us to delete an account the phone was already signed in to (see section 14.2).

3. Playing Online: Your Account

Online play needs an account, and you must be at least 13 (see section 14). There are no passwords: you sign in with Apple or with Google, and we use that sign-in only to recognize your account. On iPhone you can use either one; on Android you sign in with Google. Under SIGN-IN OPTIONS on your account page (the round player button at the top right of the home screen, then ACCOUNT), you can link the other one to the same account, so you can sign in to it with either.

3.1 Sign in with Apple (iPhone)

We ask Apple for neither your name nor your email address, so Apple does not share them with us. Apple gives the app a signed sign-in token with a user ID that Apple creates for you for our apps. Our lobby checks that the token is genuine, keeps that user ID and discards the rest of the token.

3.2 Sign in with Google (iPhone and Android)

On Android you sign in through Google's sign-in on your phone. On iPhone you sign in on Google's own sign-in page, which the app opens in a secure browser window. Google's sign-in always shares your Google account's email address, your name and a link to your profile picture with us, in a sign-in token that also carries Google's permanent ID for your account. The app passes the token to our lobby, which reads those details only while it checks that the token is genuine. The lobby stores Google's account ID and none of the rest, and the app does not keep any of them either.

We use Google's account ID only to sign you in to your Turbo Arena account. We do not share or transfer it, or anything else we receive from Google, to anyone, apart from storing that ID on our servers at DigitalOcean (see section 10), and we never use it for ads.

3.3 What the Lobby Keeps

• A random account ID that we create.
• For each sign-in linked to your account (Apple, Google or both), which one it is and the ID that Apple or Google gave us for you.
• The display name you choose, which other players see in matches (over your car, on the scoreboard and on the results), in parties, and in friends lists and friend requests, and when you last set it (you can change it once a day).
• When your account was created.
• For each device you are signed in on (up to five), a SHA-256 hash of that device's session token and when the session expires. The session token itself exists only on your device.
• Your age band from your own answer to the app's age question (13 to 17, or 18 and over) and when the lobby recorded it (the first time your app told it, or the last time it changed). If you are 13 to 17, also the month the app counts you as 18 (the month after the month of your 18th birthday), which shows the month and year you were born; the lobby deletes it after you turn 18. The lobby never receives your date of birth (see section 14).
• Your FIND ME BY NAME setting and when it was last set (see section 4).
• Which version of our Terms of Service you accepted, and when.
• The level your app says you have reached, and when you were last online (when your app's last connection to the lobby ended). Your friends see both (see section 4).
• If we suspend your account, when we did it and until when (or that it is permanent). We do not store the reason with it.
• If an account is deleted while it is suspended, a one-way hash (SHA-256) of each Apple or Google sign-in it had, with its old account ID and the date the suspension ends, so that sign-in cannot make a new account before then. The Apple or Google ID itself is not kept.
• If we reset a display name, that name in a simplified form (capital letters and digits, with look-alike characters treated as the same), so nobody can use it again. It is not linked to any account.

That is all, apart from what section 4 describes. The lobby does not store your email address, the name on your Apple or Google account, your IP address, what you buy or any information about your device.

Pick a display name you are happy for everyone to see. It does not need to be your real name. Offensive names, and names that pretend to be official, cannot be used. When you change your name, your old name can stay in the lobby's records for a while, until the lobby next tidies them up on its own, and it stays in any friend request or report that already recorded it.

4. Friends, Parties, Blocks and Reports

Online play has friends and parties, under FRIENDS on the home screen. When you use them, the lobby also keeps:

• Friend requests you send and receive, with their dates. A request you send also records the other player's display name as you found it.
• Your list of friends, with the date you became friends.
• The players you block, with the date.
• Reports you make about another player, whether a friend, someone who sent you a friend request, or a player you met in an online match: which player it is about and their display name at the time, the reason you pick (name, cheating, harassment or other), the date, and, for a report from a match, the note you write if you add one (up to 200 characters).

Other players can find you and send you a friend request by your display name, unless you turn off FIND ME BY NAME (see below). Players you have accepted as friends can see whether you are online, whether you are in the menus or in a match, and what kind of match (for example 2v2 online, or 2v2 against bots offline), as well as your level and when you were last online. They see you as online whenever the app is open and signed in, even while you play offline. The lobby keeps what you are doing only in memory and never writes it to disk; your level and when you were last online are kept with your account (see section 3.3). Nobody else can see any of this. We use reports only to look into the behavior they describe and to act on it.

While FIND ME BY NAME on your account page is off, other players cannot find you by your display name: a friend request by your name gets the same answer as a name nobody uses. It starts off if you are 13 to 17 and on if you are 18 or over, and it turns off if a device later tells us you are 13 to 17. You can change it at any time. You can still find other players and send them friend requests. Display names are unique, so someone who tries your name can still tell that it is in use; FIND ME BY NAME stops friend requests by name, not that.

Parties. You can play together with up to three friends in a party. A party invite expires after 10 minutes. The lobby keeps a party only in memory while it lasts: who is in it and who leads it, each member's display name and car's look (so every member's app can show the others' cars), the party's match settings, and whether it is looking for or playing a match. It is gone when the party ends or the lobby restarts.

Finding a match. When you look for an online match, the lobby holds your place in the queue (the match size and when you started looking) in memory, and, once it finds a match, which players it put in it and on which of our match servers, until the match ends. Its log records each match it arranges, but not who played in it (see section 7).

5. During an Online Match

Online matches need a signed-in account. When you join one, the app sends our match server:

• Your controls (steering, throttle, boost, jumps and so on), many times a second, so the server can drive your car.
• While your car is touching the ball, where the ball is and how the ball and your car are moving, so the server can agree with what you saw.
• Your display name and your car's look: its paint, decals, wheels, boost, topper, goal explosion and demolition sound.
• The match size you picked, from 1v1 to 4v4.
• A random token the app creates for your installation, so you get your car back if your connection drops.
• The app's version.
• A few performance figures, such as your frame rate, so we can keep matches smooth.
• A short-lived match ticket from the lobby with your account ID and display name, so the server can check that you are signed in and seat your account.
• The quick chat messages you pick: phrases from the app's own list, never words you type. The match server passes them on to the other players in the match (or only to your team), and does not keep or log them.

The other players in the match see your display name, your car, your quick chat messages and your match stats, such as goals and hits. Their apps also receive your account ID, so they can report or block you (see section 4).

6. Purchases

On iPhone, the app's STORE sells optional packs of cosmetic items for your car. You buy them through Apple's App Store with your Apple Account: Apple takes the payment, and we never receive your payment details or your Apple Account's name or email address. Apple gives us sales reports that do not identify you.

The app asks the App Store on your phone which packs your Apple Account owns, so a pack works on every iPhone signed in to that Apple Account, and RESTORE PURCHASES asks again. If a parent or guardian approves purchases with Ask to Buy, a pack shows as waiting until they do. When you buy a pack while signed in to Turbo Arena, the app gives Apple a code (a UUID) made from your account ID, which Apple keeps with the purchase, so that a purchase can be matched to the account that made it. Our servers do not record what you buy. Other players see the items you put on your car.

Purchases are not available on Android yet.

7. IP Addresses and Server Logs

Like any online game, our servers see your device's IP address while you are connected, because they need it to send data back to you. We do not store it with your account.

Our servers write operational logs so we can keep them running and fix problems. The lobby logs each sign-in, each sign-in linked to an account, each acceptance of the Terms of Service (the account ID and the terms version) and each account deletion with the account ID, the outcome when we ask Apple to revoke Sign in with Apple after a deletion, the reason for each refused sign-in, each report (the two account IDs and the reason, without any note), and each match it arranges for a party or the matchmaking queue (its size, how many players and bots, which match server and how it ended, but not who played). The match server logs each player who joins, with their display name, app version and account ID, and records connection quality and frame rate for each player.

The lobby's and the match server's own logs do not record IP addresses, and no log contains sign-in tokens, session tokens or match tickets. The web server in front of the lobby, however, writes a connection's IP address to its log when that connection ends abruptly or cannot reach the lobby, which happens often on phones, for example when a connection drops.

All of these logs are kept only in our server's system journal, which deletes them automatically after 30 days. The journal also has a size limit, and when it is full its oldest entries are deleted sooner.

8. What Stays on Your Device

• player.cfg: your car's look, your progress (XP, level, unlocked items and achievements), your control, sound, display and quick chat settings, the map you picked for offline matches, and the random installation token described in section 5.
• account.cfg (only while you are signed in): your lobby session token, your account ID, your display name and which version of our Terms of Service you agreed to. On iPhone it also holds your Apple user ID, so the app can check at launch that you still use Sign in with Apple with Turbo Arena.
• age.cfg: your age band from your own answer to the age question (under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over), the month you answered and, if you are under 18, the month you move up to the next band, which shows the month and year you were born; the app deletes that month when you turn 18 (see section 14). It also holds which version of our Terms of Service you agreed to on that phone, and when. On iPhone the app keeps the same age details in the iPhone's Keychain, on that phone only, where they stay after the app is removed, so that reinstalling the app does not ask again.
• Your purchases are recorded by the App Store on your phone, not in these files (see section 6).

Signing out or deleting your account removes account.cfg. Removing the app removes these files, but not the copy in the iPhone's Keychain. On iPhone, if you stop using Sign in with Apple with Turbo Arena (Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple), the app signs you out the next time it starts, but your account is not deleted.

9. What We Do Not Do

• We show no ads. Section 16 explains what we will do first if that ever changes.
• We use no analytics and no tracking, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.
• We do not sell, rent or trade your data, and we do not share it for targeted advertising (what California law calls cross-context behavioral advertising).
• The app does not ask for your location, contacts, photos, camera or microphone.
• We do not send you marketing or push notifications, and your account has no email address to send marketing to.

10. Who Else Is Involved

We share your data only with the companies that make the service work, when the law requires it, or with the authorities when we believe in good faith that it is needed to protect someone's safety:

• DigitalOcean hosts our servers (the lobby and the match servers), so the data described above is stored on and passes through their machines. DigitalOcean processes this data only on our behalf and on our instructions, under its data processing agreement with us, and must protect it at least as well as this policy describes.
• Apple handles Sign in with Apple and purchases in the STORE on iPhone (see section 6). When you delete an account that uses Sign in with Apple in the app on iPhone, we also ask Apple to revoke Turbo Arena's access to your Apple Account (see section 13.2).
• Google handles Sign in with Google: through Google Play services on Android, and through Google's sign-in page on iPhone.

Apple and Google run their sign-in and payments under their own privacy policies, and the App Store and Google Play handle downloads under theirs. Other players see your display name, your car, your quick chat messages and your match stats in matches, and can find you by your display name to send a friend request (unless FIND ME BY NAME is off). Your friends see whether you are online or in a match, your level and when you were last online, and the players in your party see your display name and your car.

11. Where Your Data Is Kept

Our servers run on DigitalOcean in New York, in the United States. If you play from another country, your data is sent to and processed in the United States. Occasional backups of the lobby's records are kept on our own computer.

12. How Long We Keep It

• Your account is kept until you delete it.
• Sessions expire about 90 days after a device last used them, and signing out ends one straight away.
• Your age band, FIND ME BY NAME setting, terms acceptance, level and when you were last online are kept with your account until you delete it. Your age band is also kept on your device until you remove the app (on iPhone, the Keychain copy stays after the app is removed). For players under 18, the month you move up to the next band is deleted after you turn 18.
• Friends, friend requests and blocks: a friend request lasts until it is accepted, declined or withdrawn, until either player blocks the other, or until the player it was sent to has 100 requests waiting and a newer one replaces the oldest. A request sent to a player who had already blocked the sender never reaches them; it lasts until the sender withdraws it, the other player unblocks the sender, or either account is deleted. Friendships and blocks last until they are removed. All of them are deleted when either player's account is deleted.
• Parties, party invites and your place in the matchmaking queue are kept only in memory, for as long as they last.
• Reports are kept until the account that made them is deleted, and we keep only the latest 100 from each player. A report about an account that has since been deleted keeps only that account's old ID, the reason and the date.
• Suspensions are kept until shortly after they end or we lift them, and are deleted with the account. The hash of a deleted suspended account's sign-in is kept until the suspension would have ended, or, for a permanent suspension, until we lift it. A reset display name is kept for as long as we run the online service.
• Emails you send us, including about reports, deletion and age corrections, are kept only as long as we need them to handle your request.
• Match data is used only while the match is running, apart from the log lines described in section 7.
• Logs are deleted automatically after 30 days, or sooner when the journal reaches its size limit (see section 7).
• Backups: we occasionally copy the lobby's records to our own computer. A copy made before you deleted your account can still hold it until we delete that copy. We keep few copies and delete old ones.
• On your device, account.cfg lasts until you sign out or delete your account, and player.cfg and age.cfg until you remove the app.

13. Your Choices and Deleting Your Account

13.1 Signing Out and Stopping Sign-In

SIGN OUT on your account page (the round player button at the top right of the home screen, then ACCOUNT) ends your session on that device.

If you sign in with Apple, you can stop using Sign in with Apple with Turbo Arena on iPhone in Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple, or on the web at account.apple.com > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple. The app then signs you out the next time it starts.

If you sign in with Google, you can stop using Sign in with Google with Turbo Arena at myaccount.google.com/linkedapps (Sign in with Google > Turbo Arena > See details > Stop using Sign in with Google). Google then stops signing you in to Turbo Arena, but the app stays signed in until you sign out, so tap SIGN OUT in the app as well.

Neither one deletes your Turbo Arena account. To delete it, see below.

13.2 Deleting Your Account

In the app, open your account page (the round player button at the top right of the home screen), tap ACCOUNT, then DELETE ACCOUNT and DELETE FOR GOOD. On iPhone, if your account uses Sign in with Apple, you confirm once more with Sign in with Apple.

The lobby deletes your account straight away: your account ID, your links to Apple and Google, your display name, your sessions, your friends, friend requests and blocks, your age band, your FIND ME BY NAME setting, your acceptance of the Terms of Service, your level and when you were last online, and the reports you made. Your name becomes free for other players, and any other device signed in to the account is signed out. Reports other players made about you are kept, but without your name or their note: only your deleted account's old ID, the reason and the date remain.

If your account is suspended when you delete it, it is still deleted, but a one-way hash of your Apple or Google sign-in stays, with your old account ID and the date the suspension ends, so that sign-in cannot make a new account until then (see sections 3.3 and 12).

If your account uses Sign in with Apple, we then use Apple's REST API to revoke Turbo Arena's access to your Apple Account, so Turbo Arena leaves the list of apps that use Sign in with Apple. If that does not go through, you can remove Turbo Arena yourself in Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple. Offline play, your progress and your offline settings stay on your device, and so does your answer to the age question (on iPhone also in its Keychain, where it stays after you remove the app). Packs you bought stay with your Apple Account. Log lines and backups made before the deletion are deleted as described in section 12.

You can also ask us to delete your account without the app: see Delete Your Turbo Arena Account. Removing the app from your phone does not delete your account.

14. Children and Age

In short: the app asks for your month and year of birth once. Players under 13 play offline only, and the app does not connect to our servers for them, apart from once to delete an account the phone was already signed in to. Players 13 to 17 can play online, with more private settings to start with. We keep an age band, not your date of birth, plus, until you turn 18, the month you move up to the next band.

14.1 The Age Question

The first time the app starts, and before it connects to our servers, the app asks when you were born, with a month and a year to pick. Nothing is filled in for you, there is no way to skip it, and the question is the same for everyone. From your answer the app works out your age band: under 13, 13 to 17, or 18 and over. Because it asks only for the month and year, it counts you a year older from the first day of the month after your birth month. It keeps the band, the month you answered and, if you are under 18, the month you move up to the next band, so it can move you up by itself without asking again. That month shows the month and year you were born; it is deleted after you turn 18. The app keeps nothing else from your answer.

The app asks once on each installation, and there is no way to change your answer in the app. On iPhone it remembers your answer even if you remove and reinstall the app (see section 8). If you gave the wrong month or year by mistake, email us (SUPPORT under SETTINGS > INFO in the app opens our page with our address), and a person will review it and tell you what we can change. A change that would move a player out of the under-13 band must come from their parent or guardian, and we delete that email once we have answered it.

Your age band stays on your device (see section 8). Each time you sign in, and each time the app starts or reconnects while you are signed in, the app tells the lobby your band and, if you are 13 to 17, the month the app counts you as 18 (the month after the month of your 18th birthday), and the lobby keeps them with your account (see section 3.3), so they follow you to your other devices. If your device and your account hold different bands, both use the younger one.

We use your age band only to decide which features and settings suit your age, to comply with the law and to keep players safe. We never use it to target ads.

14.2 Players Under 13

Players under 13 can play everything offline, against bots. They cannot sign in, play online or use friends, and the app does not connect to our servers for them, so we collect no personal information from them. If the phone was already signed in, the app connects once to ask us to delete that account, and signs out when we confirm it; if we cannot be reached or do not confirm it, the app tries again the next time it starts. That deletion does not ask Apple to revoke Sign in with Apple, so you can remove Turbo Arena yourself in Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Sign in with Apple. If we learn in any other way that an account belongs to a child under 13, we delete it and everything it holds, as described in section 13.2.

14.3 Players 13 to 17

Players 13 to 17 can play online and use friends, with more private settings to start with. Other players cannot find them by display name unless they turn on FIND ME BY NAME (see section 4), and the app never asks them to make their settings less private. As for everyone, only accepted friends see whether they are online. The app sends no push notifications. Players 13 to 17 are never shown personalized ads or asked to allow tracking (see section 16), and we do not sell or share their information.

14.4 Parents and Guardians

A parent or guardian can email us at any time to ask what their child's account holds, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, or to stop us collecting anything more about their child, which means deleting the account. We confirm that the account is the child's with details such as its display name, its platform and roughly when it was used, as for any deletion request by email. On iPhone, a parent or guardian can also require approval for purchases with Apple's Ask to Buy.

15. Security

The app talks to the lobby over an encrypted (TLS) connection. The lobby stores only hashes of session tokens, so its records cannot be used to sign in, and our logs never contain tokens or tickets. Gameplay traffic between the app and the match server is not encrypted, to keep it fast; it carries the match data listed in section 5. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we hold small and protected.

16. Ads: None Today

Turbo Arena shows no ads today, and no advertising company receives anything from the app or from our servers.

We may add ads in the future. Before any version of the app that shows ads is released, we will:

• update this policy to name the ad companies and any other companies they work with, what they collect (for example your device's advertising ID, IP address and how you interact with ads) and why, with a link to how Google uses information from apps that use its services if we use Google's ads;
• require the ad companies to protect that information at least as well as this policy describes;
• update the privacy details on the App Store and Google Play;
• tell you in the app; and
• ask for your consent where the law requires it, for example through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt on iPhone before any tracking.

The app will also have a way to report an ad that seems inappropriate, and a way to change your ad choices in SETTINGS.

Whatever we add, we will not give ad companies your account ID, display name, friends list or reports. Players who tell us they are under 13 will not be shown ads. Players who tell us they are under 18 will never be shown personalized ads or asked to allow tracking; any ads they see will not be based on their past activity or a profile, although they can still use the device's approximate location (from its IP address) and identifiers to limit how often an ad is shown, measure ads and prevent fraud. A new practice will apply only to information collected after the change.

17. Your Privacy Rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Tell you what we hold about you and give you a copy in a common format.
• Correct something that is wrong. You can change your display name yourself in the app.
• Delete your data. The quickest way is DELETE ACCOUNT in the app (see section 13.2).
• Stop the sale or sharing of your information, targeted advertising, or profiling. We do none of these today, so there is nothing to stop. If that changes, section 16 applies, and we will add a way to opt out in the app's SETTINGS.

To make a request, email us. Your account holds no email address, so we confirm that an account is yours by checking details you send, such as its display name, its platform and roughly when you started and last played online, as for deletion requests. A parent, guardian or someone you authorize can make a request for you, and we may ask for proof that they can. We answer within 45 days, and if we need longer, where the law allows it, we will tell you why. We will not treat you differently for using these rights.

If we turn down a request, we will tell you why. You can appeal by replying to our answer with the word "appeal", and we will reply within 45 days. If you are still not satisfied, you can contact your state's attorney general.

Our name filter refuses some display names automatically. If you think it got yours wrong, email us.

17.1 United States

Several US states, including California, give their residents these rights by law. In the categories those laws use, we collect identifiers (your account ID, the IDs Apple and Google give us, your display name, the installation token and your IP address), internet or other network activity (your controls and quick chat messages during a match, connection and performance figures, server logs, and what you are doing in the app while signed in, such as in the menus or in a match and its size, which is kept only in memory), your age band and FIND ME BY NAME setting (see section 14), which version of the Terms of Service you accepted, your level and when you were last online, the friends, friend requests, blocks and reports described in section 4, and suspension records, the one-way hash of a deleted suspended account's sign-in, and reset names (see sections 3.3 and 12). When you sign in with Google we also receive, but do not keep, the email address, name and profile-picture link in Google's sign-in token, which we read only to check the token (see section 3.2). We collect them from you and your device, for the purposes in sections 3 to 7. We disclose them only to DigitalOcean as our service provider, and to Apple when we ask it to revoke Sign in with Apple after you delete your account, and, when you buy a pack, the code made from your account ID (see sections 6 and 10); other players see what sections 4 and 5 describe.

We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, we have not done so in the past 12 months, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.

18. Changes to This Policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page and update the "Last updated" date at the top. If a change is significant, for example adding ads or collecting a new kind of information, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect and ask for your consent where the law requires it. We will not use information we already hold in a materially different way without your consent.