Privacy Policy
Last updated November 1, 2026
The company that runs HiScore (hiscore.app) ("we", "us") is responsible for your personal data here (the "controller"). We collect little: enough to keep scores honest, run your account and take payment. We do not sell your data, show ads, or use tracking or advertising cookies. Questions or requests: support@hiscore.app.
What we collect
When you play (no account)
- A random guest id, kept in a cookie, so your scores are yours.
- The gamer name you choose. It is public, shown beside your scores.
- Your scores and each round's input (where and when you touched the screen), which we replay to check the score. The input is kept so anyone with a score's link can watch the replay.
- The screen each round was played on, as your browser reports it: the size of the window, the size the game was drawn at, the pixel ratio, and whether you played by touch, mouse, pen or keys. A bigger screen draws the game bigger, so this is kept with the score and shown with it (all but the pixel ratio), so boards are fair to compare, and the kind of device it adds up to (a phone, a tablet or a computer) is kept with it too, so each score is ranked against scores played on the same kind.
- The badges your rounds earn (an ace, the top of a board, 25 rounds played), kept with your guest id and shown beside your name on every board.
- Your IP address, used for about a minute to limit how many rounds one address can send, then deleted.
When you sign in
- The phone number or email address you get a sign-in code at. If you signed in another way before codes were the only way, the id, email and name that sign-in gave us stay with your account.
- The sign-in our checkout provider (Neuron Cart) hands back with your code, kept encrypted on our servers so we can buy, save your card and set auto-reload for you without asking for a code each time. It lapses after seven days without a visit.
- A Cloudflare Turnstile check on the sign-in page, to stop bots. Cloudflare processes signals from your browser to run it.
When you buy tokens or merch
- Your name, email and billing address, and the order. Card details go straight to our payment processor (Stripe) and never reach our servers.
- Your GameBuilder token balance and every charge against it, kept by Neuron Cart for us.
- If you tick "Save this card for auto-reload": the card is kept by our payment processor (Stripe) and Neuron Cart knows it as yours (its brand and last four digits). If you turn auto-reload on, Neuron Cart keeps the terms you agreed to, the exact words you were shown, when, and from what IP address and browser, as the record of your consent, and every reload it makes.
- For a tee, the shipping address, the colour and size, and what the printer says about the order (its id and status).
When you send or claim a gift
- The note you write (who it is for and from, and your words), kept with the gift for as long as it exists and shown to whoever opens its link. Keep it kind: it is printed, where the kit ships, and shown on the link's preview.
- Which account sent the gift and which claimed it, and when, as part of the order and token records.
- For the kit, the shipping address (yours, or the recipient's) goes to the printer with the note.
When you suggest a change to a game
- Your words and the gamer name you sent them under, kept with the game until the people who build it use your suggestion or put it away, or the game is deleted, and shown only to them (the game's owner and anyone they invited to build it), with any link taken out and swearing masked.
- Your guest id with it, so one phone can only have a few waiting on a game at once.
When you throw or join a birthday party
- For the host: the birthday person's name, the day if you give it, your name and your note, kept with the party as long as it exists. The party is tied to your guest id (and your account, if you were signed in); no email or phone is needed.
- For a friend: the name you put on your candle and the wish you write, kept with the party and shown to the birthday person on the day, and to the host, who can hide it. Other friends see your name and your score, not your words.
- Your rounds for the party are scores like any other, on the party's own board.
- If you chip in a gift: the amount and the name on your note are shown on the party's page to anyone with its link, and your note's words to the birthday person on the day. The gift itself works as every gift does, above.
When you build
- What you say to GameBuilder, what it says back, and the games, arcade names and taglines you make, kept as long as the game or arcade exists.
- What each GameBuilder turn used and cost, and who took it.
- If you build a game with someone else (the owner invites you, or you invite them): who builds it, kept until you leave or are taken off, and the invite link until it is used or a week has passed. Everyone who builds a game sees its whole GameBuilder conversation, whoever said it, and the owner sees the name on each builder's account, or the gamer name they last played under. Their email, phone and token balance are never shown.
Automatically
- Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, keeps short-lived request logs (such as IP address, browser, page and time) to run and secure the service.
Why we use it, and on what basis
| Purpose | Legal basis (EU / UK) |
|---|---|
| Running the games, boards, replays, share pages, your account, GameBuilder and your arcades | Performing our contract with you |
| Taking payment, keeping records of orders, tokens and auto-reload consent, and taxes | Contract; legal obligation |
| Checking scores, ranking each against scores played on the same kind of device, holding each board to its screen rule, stopping cheating, bots, fraud and abuse, and securing the service | Our legitimate interest in a fair, safe service |
| Answering you, and telling account holders about important changes | Contract; legitimate interest |
| Acting on reports and legal requests | Legal obligation; legitimate interest |
We do not use your data for advertising, sell it, or make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.
What is public
Your gamer name, scores, replays and the screen each score was played on are public on HiScore's boards and share pages. Games and arcades you publish play for anyone with the link, and public ones are listed for everyone. Your email, phone, billing details and account are never shown to other players.
Who we share it with
Only with service providers that process it for us, under contracts that limit what they may do with it:
- Cloudflare: hosting, database, request logs, bot checks, and some AI models.
- Neuron Commerce (Neuron Cart): sending sign-in codes by text and email, checkout, your token balance and its ledger, saved cards and auto-reload, and the receipts and notices auto-reload sends you.
- Stripe: card payments.
- Printful: printing and shipping the tee and the gift kit. It gets the recipient's name, shipping address and the email from checkout for an order, a gift's note and code for the slip in the box, and the print itself, which on a game tee or a birthday tee shows the names and scores on its board, and may email about its shipment.
- Anthropic and other AI model providers: what you say to GameBuilder, and the game it is working on, are sent to the model that writes the reply. Under our providers' commercial terms they do not use it to train their models.
- AppLovin: when we advertise GameBuilder in mobile games through AppLovin, its pixel on our pages tells it which pages were viewed, when someone signed in for the first time, and when a purchase was made (what was bought and for how much, the order number, your account id, your IP address and browser), so it can tell which of its ads led to a sale. It never gets your email address, phone number or name from us. AppLovin's own privacy policy says what it does with it.
We may also disclose data when the law requires it, to protect people's safety or our rights, or to a company that takes over HiScore (which would be bound by this policy).
Cookies and storage
We use what the site needs to work, and, while we advertise through AppLovin, its pixel's two cookies, listed at the end. No analytics cookies and nothing else from third parties.
| Name | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
hs_guest | Your guest id, signed so it cannot be forged | 1 year |
hs_tag | Your gamer name, so the site can fill it in | 1 year |
hs_session | Keeps you signed in | 30 days |
hs_host_… | Makes this phone the host of a birthday party you opened the host link for; one per party | 400 days |
hs_bday_… | Makes this phone the birthday person's, once their link has opened the candles; one per party | 400 days |
hs_admin | Only on our own staff's browsers: unlocks HiScore's admin pages | 8 hours |
hs_admin_flash | Only on our own staff's browsers: says how the last thing they did on the admin pages went | 1 minute |
hs-theme (local storage) | Light or dark, if you picked one | Until you clear it |
hs-builder-promo-hidden (local storage) | Keeps the GameBuilder offer off your results cards, if you tapped Not now | 7 days |
hs-rounds (local storage) | How many rounds you have finished here, so the Home Screen offer waits until you have played a couple | Until you clear it |
hs-install (local storage) | Whether you added HiScore to your Home Screen or put the offer away, and when, so it stays away | Until you clear it |
hs-install-shown (session storage) | Shows the Home Screen offer once a visit at most | Until the tab closes |
| Offline page (service worker cache) | A copy of the page shown when there is no signal; nothing about you | Until a newer one replaces it |
| GameBuilder drafts (session storage) | An unsent message to GameBuilder | Until the tab closes |
_axwrt | Set by AppLovin's pixel: tells AppLovin a visit and a purchase were the same browser, so its ads can be measured | As AppLovin sets it, up to a year |
axwrt | Set by our server as a copy of _axwrt, so a browser that clears cookies set by a page's scripts after a week does not lose it; the same id, nothing more | 1 year |
_axeid | Set by AppLovin's pixel when you arrive from one of its ads: the click that brought you | 1 year |
The sign-in page's bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) and the checkout's card form (Stripe) may set their own strictly necessary cookies for security and fraud prevention.
How long we keep it
- Scores (with the screen each was played on), replays and gamer names: for as long as the board they are on exists.
- Accounts, arcades, games and GameBuilder conversations: until you delete them or ask us to delete your account.
- A suggestion for a game: until its builders use it or put it away, or the game is deleted.
- Orders, token records and auto-reload consents: as long as tax and accounting law requires (typically up to 7 years), even after an account is deleted.
- The record of what our staff did to an account (a token grant, a gift cancelled, a look at its contact details and why): as long as the account's order and token records.
- IP addresses for rate limiting: about a minute. Request logs: as long as Cloudflare keeps them, typically days.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, give you a copy, correct it, delete it, limit or object to how we use it, or move it to another service. Email support@hiscore.app from the email or phone on your account (or with your guest score link, if you never signed in). We answer within 30 days, may need to confirm it is you, and do not charge for it or treat you differently for asking.
EU, EEA and UK: you can also complain to your data protection authority. California and other US states: we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and do not use sensitive personal information beyond what the service needs. You can use an authorised agent to make a request.
Where your data is processed
We are in the United States (the controller of your data is HISCORE LLC, an Illinois limited liability company), and our providers run worldwide. When data from the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland is transferred elsewhere, we rely on the safeguards our providers offer, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where they are certified.
Children
HiScore is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal data, email us and we will delete it.
Security
Connections are encrypted, cookies are signed, card details never reach us, and games people build run in a sandbox that cannot reach the network or your data. Our staff see accounts with emails, phones and names masked; seeing yours in full takes a reason, and that, like every change staff make to an account, is logged. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.
Changes
We will post changes here and update the date above. If a change is significant we will say so on the site, or email account holders, before it takes effect.
Contact
HiScore · support@hiscore.app