Privacy Policy
Last updated 28 September 2026
TileGrab is a word game. It needs to know very little about you, and this page lists every piece of it: what is collected, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept, and how to delete it.
Who we are
TileGrab is made and published by Stephen Ebhotemen, an individual developer based in Nigeria, who is responsible for your data under this policy ("we", "us"). You can reach us at support@tilegrab.fun.
What we collect
When you sign in with Google, we keep:
| What | Details |
|---|---|
| Your Google account | Google's identifier for your account, your email address (only if Google has verified it), and the name on your Google account. We never see your Google password. We ask Google for nothing beyond basic sign-in. |
| Your name and avatar | The display name you choose, and which of the game's cartoon avatars you picked. |
| Your progress | Your stage, streak, best scores and times, rounds played, coins, the stages you have opened, your record on each stage, your Circuit run, the words kept in your Word Vault, your daily results, your record against people you have played, and your tournament results. |
| Your subscription and purchases | Whether you subscribe, which plan, and when it renews or ends. We get this from Google Play through RevenueCat. We never see your card or payment details. |
| Your voice passes | When you watch an ad to talk in a game: when you watched it, and which game it was used for. It is how the game knows your calls are covered, and it never includes what was said. |
| Whether you take voice calls | Your choice in Settings (Accept voice calls, on or off). And, for a game with someone from the list, whether they offered to talk and whether you said yes. |
| Blocks and reports | Who you have blocked, so they are kept away from you. If you report a player: who, the reason you chose, anything you wrote, and the game it happened in. If you are reported, the report is kept so it can be reviewed. Calls are never recorded, so a report never includes what was said. |
| Activity | When you last used the game, so friends can see who is online, and a sign-in token that keeps you signed in on your phone. |
| Notifications | If you turn on challenge notifications: a token that lets us reach your phone, your time zone offset (so we never send anything between 9pm and 9am where you are), and a note of who challenged whom, so nobody can be pinged more than once every ten minutes. |
Your profile photo is not uploaded. If you use your Google picture, your phone downloads it from Google once and keeps it on the phone. Our server only ever stores which cartoon you chose, and that is what other players see.
Playing as a guest
You can play the whole climb without signing in, and your progress stays on your phone. A few things still talk to our server:
- Joining a friend's room or a tournament sends a random game id and the name you type for that round. It is kept only while the room or tournament exists.
- Looking up a word sends only the word.
- Viewing the leaderboards, the daily and the tournament list sends nothing about you.
- Subscribing as a guest creates an anonymous customer record with RevenueCat and Google Play, so the purchase can follow you if you sign in later.
Talking during a game
In a game with a friend, by code or a challenge, the two of you can talk while you play. It works like this:
- Your microphone is used only in a call. One player asks, the other says yes, and only then does either microphone open. With someone from the list, talking is offered with the challenge and happens only if you say yes to it. The game asks for microphone permission the first time, and you can refuse and still listen. Leaving the app mutes you at once and ends the call soon after.
- Your voice goes live to the other player and is never recorded. It travels through Cloudflare's real-time service to reach them, and is not stored, listened to or analysed by us or anyone else.
- What we keep is only that a call happened in a game, and whose Premium or ad covered it. Every call ends when its game ends.
- You choose whether to take calls at all. Settings → Accept voice calls. A call you agreed to connects only when the round starts.
What we never collect
No location, no contacts, no camera, no photos from your gallery, no browsing history, and no analytics or tracking tools. We never record your voice: the microphone is used only live, in a call you agreed to. We do not build a profile of you.
How it is used
- To keep your progress safe, so it survives a new phone.
- To run online play: matching you with a friend, showing your name and avatar to them, and telling you when someone challenges you.
- To connect a call between you and the person you are playing, when you both agreed to it.
- To rank you on the leaderboards and the daily.
- To give subscribers what they paid for.
- To keep the game fair and working: stopping abuse and cheating, and fixing faults.
We do not send marketing notifications or emails. The only messages are a challenge from another player, which you can turn off, and a streak reminder that your own phone schedules and that never reaches us.
If data-protection law applies to you, we rely on performing our agreement with you (running the game and your account), our legitimate interests (keeping it fair, secure and working), and your consent where it is asked for, such as notifications.
What other players see
Your display name and cartoon avatar, on leaderboards, in rooms and tournaments, and in the list of who is online. Your scores on the boards. Your record against a player, to that player. If you create a tournament, its name and your display name appear on its invite link. Your email address and Google name are never shown to anyone.
Services we use
We share only what each one needs to do its job, and none of them may use it for their own advertising.
| Service | What for, and what it receives |
|---|---|
| Sign-in; Google Play for installs, subscriptions, ratings and updates; Firebase Cloud Messaging to deliver notifications. Policy | |
| Google AdMob | The rewarded videos you choose to watch. See Advertising below. How Google uses ad data |
| RevenueCat | Keeps records of subscriptions and purchases, under our random player id or an anonymous id, never your name or email. Policy |
| Expo | Passes challenge notifications to Google for delivery: your phone's token, the challenger's name and the room code. Policy |
| Cloudflare | Runs our server and database, and keeps short-lived server logs. Its real-time service carries the voice in a call, live, between the two phones; it does not record it. Policy |
| OpenRouter | Writes the short definitions in the Word Vault using an AI model. It receives only the word, never anything about you. The same definition is shared by every player. Policy |
We would also disclose data if the law required it.
Advertising
TileGrab shows a rewarded ad only when you choose to watch one, for a reward such as coins, a saved run or talking in a game, and never during a round. Subscribers can skip them. When an ad covers talking, Google tells our server that you watched it, using your random player id, so it cannot be faked. We ask Google for non-personalised ads only, so ads are not targeted at you from your activity elsewhere. To show and measure an ad, count views and prevent fraud, Google's ads software on your phone still reads your device's advertising ID, IP address and basic device information. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's settings under Google → Ads.
Where it is processed
TileGrab is played around the world, and so is its server: Cloudflare runs it in data centres in many countries, and our other services may process data outside the country where you live. Wherever that happens, we use services bound by their own privacy commitments and keep only what this page describes.
How long it is kept
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Your account and progress | Until you delete your account. |
| Your voice passes | Until you delete your account. |
| Blocks and reports | Until you delete your account, or until a report is reviewed and closed. |
| The voice in a call | Never kept. It is live only. |
| Sign-in tokens | Up to 180 days, or until you sign out. |
| Notification token | Until you sign out, turn notifications off, or uninstall. |
| A match or room | Minutes after it empties; the room code for up to six hours. |
| A challenge | Five minutes. |
| A tournament | Seven days after its last activity. |
| Server logs | A few days, by Cloudflare. |
Deleting your data
In the game: Settings → Delete account. It removes your account, progress, Word Vault, daily results, leaderboard places, voice passes, blocks and reports, notification tokens and sign-ins, immediately and for good. It cannot be undone.
Without the app: email support@tilegrab.fun from the address on your Google account, and we will delete it within 30 days. See Delete your account.
What stays: Google Play and RevenueCat keep records of any purchase, as the law requires for payments; afterwards they are tied only to a random id that no longer leads to you. Cancelling a subscription is separate: do it in Google Play, because deleting your account does not stop billing.
As a guest, Settings → Reset progress clears it, and uninstalling removes everything.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. We offer these rights to every player, not only where a law requires them, including under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, the GDPR in the European Union and the United Kingdom, and privacy laws in the United States such as California's. We do not sell or share personal information as those laws define it. Email us and we will answer within 30 days. If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the data-protection authority where you live.
Children
TileGrab is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has an account, write to us and we will delete it. Words the game marks for adults (slurs, obscenities and sexual words) never show their meaning to anyone.
Changes to this policy
When the game changes what it collects, this page changes first and the date at the top moves. If a change matters, we will tell you in the game before it takes effect.
Questions about your data, these terms, or anything else?
support@tilegrab.fun