Privacy Policy for Drift

Last updated: 8 May 2026

Drift is a free single-player mobile game developed by Selim Celem. This policy explains what data the app does and does not handle.

Data we collect

Drift collects the following data when you use the online leaderboard or contribute to gameplay analytics:

• Username — a name you choose freely on first launch. This is not your real name, email, or any account identifier. You can change it at any time from the pause menu. A profanity filter prevents offensive names.
• Score, difficulty, and run statistics — your score, difficulty mode, kills, time survived, and orb used.

Drift does not collect your real name, email address, IP address, or any other directly personally identifying data. No account registration is required.

Advertising

Drift displays banner ads on the death screen using Google AdMob. AdMob may collect:

• Your device's advertising ID
• General device information (model, OS version)
• Approximate location (country/region)
• Ad interaction data (impressions, clicks)

This data is used by Google to serve relevant ads. You can opt out of personalized ads via your device settings → Privacy → Ads → Reset advertising ID / Opt out of ads personalization.

Google's AdMob privacy practices: policies.google.com/privacy

Crash reporting

Drift uses Sentry for crash reporting to identify and fix bugs. When the app crashes, Sentry receives:

• Stack traces and error messages
• Device model and Android version
• App version
• Anonymized crash context

No personally identifying information is sent to Sentry. You can review Sentry's privacy practices at sentry.io/privacy.

Data stored on your device

Drift stores the following locally on your device using the browser's localStorage API:

• Your chosen username
• Local high scores per difficulty
• Mute preference and other settings
• Persistent stats (total kills, bodies passed, runs played, time survived, personal bests, per-orb breakdown)
• Skill tree progress and unlocked orbs
• Cosmetic unlock progress (trail unlocks)
• Drift crystal balance
• Difficulty completion flags
• Tutorial completion flag

This data never leaves your device except for the leaderboard submissions, anonymized analytics, advertising data, and optional cloud save described below. Uninstalling the app or clearing its storage removes all of it permanently.

Online leaderboard

When you die in the game, your username, score, and difficulty are submitted to an online leaderboard. This data is:

• Sent to an API hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the eu-west-1 (Ireland) region
• Stored in AWS DynamoDB with a time-to-live (TTL) of 1 day for non-top-10 entries and 30 days for top-10 entries, after which it is automatically deleted
• Visible to other players on the global leaderboard (username and score only)

The leaderboard submission is fire-and-forget — if you are offline or the request fails, no data is sent and the game continues normally.

Aggregate analytics

Drift collects anonymized gameplay analytics (run duration, orb selection, difficulty distribution, death causes) to help understand how the game is played and identify balance issues. This data:

• Is sent to an AWS-hosted API in the eu-west-1 region
• Is stored in AWS DynamoDB
• Is not linked to your identity beyond the username you chose
• Is used solely for game balance and improvement

Google Play Games Services cloud save (optional)

Drift offers optional cloud save backup via Google Play Games Services (PGS). This feature is entirely opt-in — you must explicitly sign in with your Google account from the in-game menu to enable it.

• What is synced — if you sign in, your local progress (drift crystal balance, unlocked orbs, equipped orb, skill tree investments, top high scores per difficulty, beat-difficulty flags, persistent stats, cosmetic trail unlocks) is synced to your Google Play Games Saved Games slot for Drift.
• Opt-in only — sign-in is not required to play. If you do not sign in, Drift stays fully local-only: no progress data leaves your device and the game works identically. You can stop syncing at any time by signing out from the in-game menu.
• You control your data — saved game data lives in your own Google Play Games account under the Drift app entry, not on any server operated by the developer. You can review and delete saved game data at any time from Google's account controls at myaccount.google.com/dashboard → Play Games → Manage saved games.
• Scope — Drift only requests access to its own Saved Games slot. It does not read other games' data, your Google profile details, your email address, or any other account information.

Third-party services

The only external services used are:

• AWS API Gateway + Lambda + DynamoDB — for the online leaderboard and analytics, hosted in eu-west-1 (Ireland)
• Google AdMob — for banner advertisements on the death screen
• Sentry — for crash reporting
• Google Play Games Services — only if you opt in to cloud save
• Google Fonts — a web font loaded on first launch if a connection is available; if offline, a system fallback is used

Permissions

Drift does not request any Android runtime permissions. It does not access your camera, microphone, location, contacts, storage, or any other sensitive APIs. An internet connection is used for the leaderboard, analytics, advertising, crash reporting, and optional cloud save but is not required to play.

Children's privacy

Drift is rated for general audiences (PEGI 3) and is suitable for all ages. The only data collected directly by the developer is a self-chosen username and gameplay metrics — no personal information, no real names, no contact details. Banner ads served by Google AdMob are filtered to general-audience-appropriate content (with sensitive categories such as alcohol, dating, and gambling blocked). The app is compliant with COPPA and similar regulations protecting children's privacy.

Data deletion

Most data Drift handles is automatically deleted on a short timeline:

• Leaderboard entries: deleted automatically within 1 to 30 days (TTL)
• Local data: removed when you uninstall the app or clear its storage
• Cloud save data: managed by you via your Google account at myaccount.google.com/dashboard
• AdMob data: managed by you via Android Privacy → Ads settings

For any other data deletion requests, contact selim.celem@gmail.com.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this URL with a new "Last updated" date.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email selim.celem@gmail.com.