This is a draft and must not be submitted to either store as-is. It accurately describes what the Kerfline server does today, but two things are still unsettled: whether the game ships with advertising or analytics SDKs, and whether the leaderboard is in the launch build. Both change what this document has to say. Section 6 is a placeholder.
Summary
Kerfline has no accounts and asks for no personal information. It sends two kinds of data, and they are deliberately kept separate from each other:
- Completion counts — anonymous, unlinkable, and sent by everyone.
- Leaderboard runs — sent only if you choose to post one, and erasable by you at any time.
Nothing connects the two. That separation is enforced in the server's design, not just its policy.
1. Who I am
Mohammad Nabulsi ("I", "me", or "my") makes Kerfline (the "Game") and runs the service it talks to. Questions go to mohammad.s.nabulsi@gmail.com.
2. Completion statistics
Each level shows what share of players worldwide have ever finished it. To make that number exist, the Game reports when you reach a level and when you first complete it.
These reports carry no identifier of any kind. Specifically:
- No account, username, email or device identifier is attached — none exists to attach.
- No advertising identifier, and no fingerprint derived from your device.
- Your IP address is not recorded. The server does not read it, does not log it, and stores no column anywhere that could hold one.
- Nothing is timestamped more precisely than a calendar date.
Each flag is sent at most once per installation, ever, so the counters cannot build a picture of how often or how long you play. A report carries a random batch number used only to avoid counting the same completion twice if the network drops; it is not linked to you, and it is deleted after 30 days.
The result is a set of global totals — "this many players reached level 9, this many finished it" — and there is no way, including for me, to work backwards from them to any individual player.
3. The leaderboard
This section only applies if you choose to post a run. You can play the entire game and never do.
When you post a run, the following is stored on the server:
- A display name you choose. Pick anything; it does not have to be your real name, and you should not use one if you would rather not appear under it.
- A player key. This is a random value generated by the server from a cryptographic random number generator. It is not derived from your device, your install, your name, or anything else about you. Your device keeps it and presents it to prove that a run, a rename or a deletion is yours.
- The recording of your run. This is the sequence of taps you made, and their timings within the game. The server replays it through the game's own simulation to work out your result — every ranked number is derived by replaying the recording, and none of it is taken on trust from your device.
Your display name and your ranking are public: that is what a leaderboard is. Your player key is never shown to anyone, never appears on a leaderboard row, and is never written to a log.
3.1 Reporting a name
If you report a display name as offensive, the report records which name was reported and when. It does not record who reported it.
4. Deleting your data
From inside the Game you can change your display name, or erase yourself entirely. Erasing removes your name, your player key and your runs from the leaderboard.
Completion statistics cannot be deleted on request, because there is nothing to look up — they were never associated with you in the first place. They are counters, not records.
5. In-app purchases
Any purchase is processed by Apple or Google, under Apple's Privacy Policy or Google's Privacy Policy. I never see your payment details, card number or billing address.
6. Advertising and analytics
{{ADS_AND_SDK_SECTION}} — this section cannot be written until it is decided whether Kerfline ships with an advertising SDK. If it does, that SDK will collect an advertising identifier and this policy will have to say so plainly, along with how to opt out. If it does not, this section should say that there is no advertising, no analytics and no third-party tracking of any kind. Do not publish this page with the "collects nothing" framing above until that is settled, because an ad SDK would make it false.
7. Children
Kerfline does not ask your age and has no way of knowing it. The completion statistics collect no personal information from anyone, of any age.
The leaderboard lets you type a display name, which is the only place where a player could enter something personal about themselves. Choose a nickname rather than your real name.
8. How the two data sets are kept apart
This is worth stating because it is the property the whole design is built around. Completion statistics and leaderboard entries live in separate database tables, are read and written by separate code, and no single database query is permitted to touch both. Automated tests check this on every change. The consequence is that a leaderboard entry can never be used to work out what someone's anonymous completion reports were, or the reverse.
9. Changes
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top will change and the updated version will be posted at this URL.
10. Contact
- Developer: Mohammad Nabulsi
- Email: mohammad.s.nabulsi@gmail.com