Privacy Policy

Effective 12 July 2026 · Last updated 28 October 2026

Cozy Culprits (“the app”, “we”, “us”) is a daily murder-sudoku puzzle game for iPhone and Android, made by Alejandro Portillo Guerrero, a solo developer based in Spain. This policy explains what data the app touches, why, and the choices you have. We’ve written it in plain language and kept it honest — the app is built to need as little of your data as possible.

The short version: The app has no accounts. Your progress lives on your device. We don’t collect your name, email, contacts, photos, or location. The only data that leaves your phone goes to Apple (Game Center leaderboards, App Store purchases) or Google (Google Play purchases), to RevenueCat (to confirm purchases), to our own small leaderboard service on Android (a random player ID, the display name shown on the board, and your scores), to our analytics and crash-reporting tools, and to our advertising partner, with your permission where the law requires it.

1. Data stored on your device

Almost everything the app remembers is kept locally on your device and never sent to us. This includes your hint balance, which cases you’ve solved, your solve times and streaks, your daily-challenge records, and your settings. We have no ability to read this data — it stays in the app’s local storage and is removed when you delete the app.

2. Apple Game Center (iPhone, optional)

If you’re signed in to Game Center, the app submits your daily-challenge solve times and streak to Apple’s leaderboards so you can compare with other players. Game Center is an Apple service governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy. Your leaderboard display name and country are managed by you in Apple’s settings, not by us. If you’re not signed in to Game Center, no scores are submitted. We never receive your Apple ID or email.

2a. Android leaderboard (our own service)

Android has no Game Center, so the Android app keeps its daily and weekly leaderboards on a small service we run ourselves on Cloudflare (at murdersudoku.com). When you finish a daily case, the app sends: a random player ID created by the app on first use (not your advertising ID, not a device ID, and not linked to your Google account; reinstalling the app creates a new one), the display name shown on the board (auto-assigned, like “Detective 4821”, and changeable in Settings), your score for that board, and the platform (“android”). Cloudflare tells our service your country, which is shown as a flag next to your name; your IP address is not stored. Other players can see your display name, flag and score. Don’t use your real name as a display name if you’d rather not. To have your entry removed, email us your display name and we’ll delete it.

3. Purchases (In-App Purchases)

The app offers optional in-app purchases — hint packs and a one-time “Remove Ads” — processed entirely by Apple through the App Store using StoreKit on iPhone, or by Google through Google Play Billing on Android. Apple or Google handles all payment information; we never see or store your card details, billing address, Apple ID or Google account. The app only learns whether a purchase succeeded, so it can credit your hints or remove ads on your device. Purchases are confirmed through RevenueCat, a purchase-infrastructure provider, which receives the store’s transaction record and an anonymous app user ID (on iPhone, Apple’s per-developer identifier for this device; on Android, a random ID) — never your name or payment details. See RevenueCat’s Privacy Policy. Purchases are covered by Apple’s Media Services Terms or the Google Play Terms of Service.

4. Advertising

The free version of the app may show ads, delivered through Google AdMob (provided by Google Ireland Limited for users in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, and by Google LLC elsewhere) and the ad networks buying through it. Ads fund a free game made by one person.

Your choice comes first. On iOS, before any advertising identifier is used for tracking, the app shows Apple’s App Tracking Transparency prompt. If you decline, ads are not personalized based on a tracking identifier. On Android, ads may use the device’s advertising ID, subject to the consent flow below where it applies; you can reset it or opt out of personalized ads in your device’s settings.
Consent flow. Where required (for example under the EU GDPR), Google’s User Messaging Platform asks for your permission before any ad is requested. Until that question is resolved the app requests no ads at all. Where a consent choice applies to you, an “Ad privacy choices” row appears in the app’s Settings so you can change your answer at any time.
What ad partners may process: a device advertising identifier (only with your permission), general device and app information, and approximate, non-precise location inferred from your IP address. We do not share your name or email with advertisers, because we don’t have them.
Rewarded ads are always optional — you only ever watch one if you choose to, in exchange for hints. Declining costs you nothing but the hints.
“Remove Ads” disables interstitial ads entirely. Optional rewarded ads remain available, so you can still earn hints if you want to.

You can learn more in Google’s Privacy Policy and in how Google uses information from apps that use its services. To limit ad tracking at any time, use Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking on iPhone, or the Ads settings (under Google or Privacy, depending on your device) on Android.

5. Analytics & crash reporting

To understand which puzzles are fun and to fix problems, the app may use privacy-respecting analytics and crash-reporting tools (such as Amplitude for product analytics and Sentry for crash diagnostics). These record anonymous, aggregated events — for example “a daily case was solved”, a screen was viewed, or a crash occurred with its technical stack trace. They are not tied to your real-world identity, and we do not use them to build a personal profile of you. Crash reports help us diagnose bugs and contain no personal content from your device.

6. Notifications

If you allow notifications, the app schedules local reminders (for example, a nudge to keep your daily streak) directly on your device. These are generated on your device — there is no remote push server, and no notification data is sent to us. You can turn notifications off any time in your device’s Settings.

7. Children

Cozy Culprits is a cozy, non-graphic puzzle game suitable for a general audience, but it is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us and we will address it.

We do not sell your personal information.
We do not collect your name, email, phone number, contacts, photos, calendar, health data, or precise location.
We do not run our own servers that store your gameplay data — with one exception: the Android leaderboard in section 2a, which stores only a random player ID, your display name, country and scores.
We do not share data with anyone except the service providers named above (Apple or Google as your app store, RevenueCat for purchases, Cloudflare for the Android leaderboard, and our ad, analytics and crash-reporting partners), strictly to operate the features they power.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal data, and to withdraw consent (for example, the EU/EEA and UK under the GDPR, and California under the CCPA/CPRA, including the right not to be discriminated against for exercising them).

Because we hold almost no data about you, the most complete way to erase everything the app stores is to delete the app, which removes all local data. For data held by Apple (Game Center, purchases), use your Apple ID settings or contact Apple; for Google Play purchases, use your Google account or contact Google. To remove your Android leaderboard entry, email us your display name. For advertising choices, use the App Tracking Transparency (iPhone), Android ad settings and consent controls described above. For anything else, email us and we’ll help.

10. Data retention & security

On-device data is kept until you delete it or remove the app. Android leaderboard entries are kept while the leaderboard runs, or until you ask us to delete them. Data processed by Apple, Google, and any analytics provider is retained according to their own policies. We take reasonable measures to protect data, but no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

11. International transfers

Our service providers may process data in countries other than yours, including the United States. Where required, these transfers rely on appropriate safeguards (such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses) provided by those partners.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change how the app handles data, we’ll update this page and its “Last updated” date. Material changes will be reflected here before they take effect.

13. Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy? Email hello@cozyculprits.com and we’ll respond. The data controller is Alejandro Portillo Guerrero (Spain).