Privacy policy

1. Controller

The controller responsible for data processing within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:

Mika Belz
Blumenstraße 6
63743 Aschaffenburg, Germany
E-mail: studyroyale@yahoo.com

2. Principles at a glance

• We process personal data only to the extent that it is necessary for StudyRoyale.
• No tracking, no ads, no third-party analytics services. No advertising ID (IDFA), no App Tracking Transparency dialog, no cookies for advertising or analytics purposes, and so no cookie banner either. How many people use StudyRoyale and how, we count only ourselves (section 3.15).
• No chat. There is no text chat and no voice chat. Players can only express themselves with emotes (dances).
• Less data for younger players. Under 16, you only play as a guest, without an e-mail address.
• We do not sell data. We only pass it on to the service providers in section 5 who help us run the service.
• All connections are encrypted (HTTPS/TLS; in multiplayer, DTLS or secure WebSockets).

3. What data we process

3.1 The age question at first start

The first time you start, StudyRoyale asks all players: “When were you born?” You choose the month and year. From this, the game works out on your device whether you are under 16 or at least 16 years old.

• Only your age group (“under 16” or “16 and over”) and when you answered the question are stored — on your device or in your browser.
• Your birth month and birth year are not stored and not sent to us.
• The game asks only once on each device or in each browser.

What the age group means is explained in section 11.

3.2 Guest or account

• Guest (possible for everyone; the only way under 16): You only enter a player name. Our sign-in service (Supabase) creates a guest account for this with a random identifier — without an e-mail address and without a password. If you do not enter a name, or the word filter does not allow it, you get a name like “user1234567”. Tip: Use a nickname or just your first name, never your full name.
• Account with e-mail (from 16): e-mail address and password. Only our sign-in service stores the password, in encrypted (hashed) form; we never see it. The e-mail address is checked with a confirmation link. Other players never see your e-mail address.
• Sign-in with Google (app and browser) or Apple (app only), from 16: Google or Apple sends us an identifier, your e-mail address (with Apple, possibly an anonymous forwarding address) and, where applicable, your name and the web address of your profile picture. The sign-in service stores this information with the account. In the game, we only use the identifier and the e-mail address from it; we do not adopt your name from Google or Apple as your player name.
• Player name: 3 to 20 characters, each name only once, checked by the word filter (section 3.7). You can change it in the settings.
• Account identifiers: an internal user ID and the ID at the sign-in service.

Important for guests: A guest account is tied to this browser or this device. If you delete the website data, delete the app or sign out, you can no longer get back into your guest account.

3.3 Multiplayer: lobbies and rounds

For multiplayer, we use the Unity Gaming Services (section 5):

• Unity player ID: When it starts, the game signs in to Unity with an anonymous, random player ID (in the browser, every tab has its own). It is only used for the lobbies and the connections between players.
• Lobbies: Whoever opens a lobby gives it a name. Unity stores the lobby name, the lobby code, the type of lobby (public, for friends or with a code), the game mode, the number of places and the Unity player IDs of the members. Public lobbies appear in the lobby list with their name and number of players. A lobby with a code can only be found by someone who has the code or the invite link. A lobby is deleted when the host leaves it or when it has not been used for a while.
• The round: There is no game server of our own. A round runs on the device, or in the browser tab, of the host. All data of the round — player name, look of your character, movements, answers, hits, result — travels in encrypted form through a relay service from Unity (“Relay”). For this we use a data centre in the EU (the Netherlands); only if it cannot be reached does Unity automatically choose another one. Because of the Relay, players do not see each other’s IP addresses. The host’s device holds the data only during the round.
• What other players see: your player name, the look of your character, your emotes, how you play, and at the end of the round the results list (place, K.O.s, player name). If you play with a quiz of your own, the players in your lobby see its questions.
• Bots: Computer-controlled players also take part in rounds. They are not real people.
• The host can remove players from their lobby.

3.4 Content you create (with an account, from 16)

• Your own quizzes: name, questions and answers — written by yourself or created with the AI. They are stored in your account until you delete them.
• Challenges that you send to friends (name, questions and best times in a friends leaderboard; only in some game modes).

3.5 Creating AI quizzes (from 16, account with a confirmed e-mail address)

With the AI, you turn your study material into a quiz. To do this, we process what you put in:

• photos (camera or gallery, or in the browser via file selection) as well as PDF and text files (at most 3 files, at most 4 MB together),
• pasted study text (up to 50,000 characters) and a request to the AI (up to 300 characters),
• your settings (number of questions, difficulty).

How it works: Your device sends the content to a server function at Supabase. This passes it directly on to Microsoft Azure OpenAI (Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd.). Microsoft processes it with an AI language model only in data centres in the EU (EU Data Zone). OpenAI itself receives no data.

• No training, no storage: Microsoft does not use your content to train AI models. We switch off the storage of the responses at Microsoft.
• Content filter: Microsoft automatically checks inputs and results for harmful content (e.g. violence, hate, self-harm) and can reject a request.
• Abuse monitoring: If automated systems detect signs of abuse, Microsoft can store individual requests for up to 30 days and have them reviewed by Microsoft staff in the European Economic Area.
• We do not store your photos, files and texts. They only pass through the server function. What is stored is the result: the questions and a quiz name suggested by the AI — in your account.
• Consent: Before the first use, the game shows a card that names Microsoft and the EU. Nothing is sent until you agree. Your agreement is stored on your device.
• Logs: The server function logs only numbers (number of questions, settings, file types, usage and cost of the AI) and your internal user ID — never the content.
• Sparks: The AI costs Sparks, an in-game currency (section 3.8). Only accounts with a confirmed e-mail address get Sparks (with Google and Apple, it is confirmed).

Please do not upload anything you have no rights to, no photos of other people and no documents with other people’s data (e.g. class lists, grades, addresses) or with health data.

3.6 Friends, invitations and invite codes (with an account, from 16)

• Friends: player search by player name, friend requests and your friends list with online status.
• Invitations to a lobby: who invited whom and when, with the lobby code and whether the invitation was accepted. An invitation is shown for two hours at most.
• Invite codes: If you invite someone with your code, we store who invited whom. Both get bonus Sparks as soon as the invited person has played a round.

3.7 Reporting, blocking and the word filter

• Word filter: We automatically check player names, lobby names, quiz names, quiz content and requests to the AI against a list of prohibited words — partly on your device, partly on our server. What the filter rejects is not stored or is replaced with a neutral name.
• Reporting (everyone, including guests): If you report a player or a question, we store your user ID, the reason (name, behaviour, cheating, wrong answer, unclear, offensive, other), your description (optional, up to 500 characters), the reported player name as you saw it or the question with its answers and where it comes from, and where in the game you made the report. A human (the operator) reads reports. The reported player is not told who reported them.
• Blocking (with an account): whom you have blocked. After that, there are no more friend requests and invitations in either direction.
• If reports point to a danger to someone’s life or safety, we have to inform the authorities (Art. 18 of the Digital Services Act, DSA).

3.8 Game, progress and economy data

• Game progress: coins, Sparks, unlocked items and emotes, the look of your character (colour, hat, back item), level and experience points, reward calendar, daily challenges and progress on level maps.
• Game results: per round, how many questions from which general-knowledge subject you answered correctly, your duels and K.O.s and what you received for them. This lets the server award coins and experience fairly and within limits. Questions from your own quizzes do not count here.
• Spark transactions: starting balance, Sparks from the calendar and from invitations, spending on the AI.
• Usage counters for the AI: number of requests per hour and per day.
• Online status (only with an account): As long as the game is open, the server stores the time of your last activity about every 25 seconds. Only the latest time is stored. Only your friends can see it (“online”).
• Pass window: When the StudyRoyale Pass window appears, we store, together with your internal user ID, where it was opened from (e.g. calendar, locker), what happened in it (e.g. shown, tapped) and when. We only evaluate this in summary form, to decide whether and how we offer the Pass. No third party receives this data.

3.9 Waiting list for the StudyRoyale Pass (from 16, account with a confirmed e-mail address)

When you tap “Waiting list” in the Pass window, we put the confirmed e-mail address of your account on a waiting list, together with the time and whether you were in the app or in the browser. No other address can be entered. We will write to you only about the launch of the Pass. You can remove yourself again at any time in the Pass window, or write to us. If you delete your account, your entry is deleted as well.

3.10 E-mails from us

We only send e-mails that are necessary for your account: the confirmation of your e-mail address and the link for resetting your password — and, if you are on the waiting list, the message about the launch of the Pass. No newsletter and no advertising. The e-mails are sent through our sign-in service (Supabase) and the e-mail service Resend (section 5), in the language you play in.

3.11 Sharing and invite links

• Invite links contain only the lobby code (e.g. …?c=K7QX2M), nothing else personal.
• Result picture: When you tap “Share”, the game creates a picture of your result on your device: your player name, your character, a few numbers and the topic (your own quiz only as “Own quiz”, without its name; no names of other players). The picture only leaves your device if you yourself share it through an app. Then the privacy rules of that app apply. In the browser, the game uses your browser’s share dialog or the clipboard.

3.12 Data stored on your device or in your browser

The game stores the following on your device (app: in the app’s storage; browser: in the page’s storage, i.e. IndexedDB, and in the tab’s session storage):

• your age group and when you answered the age question (section 3.1),
• the sign-in key (session token) for automatic sign-in and, when you sign in with Google, briefly a verification code (PKCE),
• the Unity sign-in for multiplayer; in the browser also an identifier per tab and a key that lets you get back into your lobby after reloading the page,
• account identifier, player name and look of your character (so that the menu also opens without internet),
• settings (sound, music, vibration, language, camera, whether usage statistics are switched off), your AI consent and notices you have seen,
• cached data (e.g. selected quizzes or progress that has not reached the server yet).

In the browser, the page also puts the game files in the browser cache so that they do not have to be downloaded again on your next visit.

All of this is necessary for the game to work the way you want to use it (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG, the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act). It is not used to recognise you for advertising or analytics purposes.

You can delete this data by deleting the website data in your browser or by deleting the app. Warning: a guest account is lost after that (section 3.2).

3.13 Technical data and logs

• Whenever our services (Supabase, Unity, Vercel) are accessed, the IP address, the time, the address requested and details about the browser or device are processed for technical reasons. The providers store them in logs for a limited time — for operation, security and against abuse (e.g. limits on sign-ins per IP address).
• Our sign-in service logs sign-ins and registrations with the time and IP address. We automatically delete these entries after 90 days.
• No location data, no advertising identifier. The app only accesses the camera and photos when you yourself take or choose a picture for the AI.

3.14 The website studyroyale.app

The website and the game page are hosted at Vercel (section 5). When you open them, access logs are created (IP address, time, page requested, browser). The website uses no analytics services and loads its fonts from its own server. It sets no cookies — except when you switch the language yourself: then it remembers your choice in a cookie (“lang”, one year) so that the site stays in your language (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG). Links to our channels (Discord, Instagram, TikTok) are plain links: only when you click one do you get to the respective provider, and that provider’s privacy rules apply.

Launch notification: Before the launch, you could sign up on the website with your e-mail address; anyone who agreed received a confirmation link (double opt-in). Since the launch, the form no longer exists. Anyone who has confirmed receives e-mails from us about the launch of StudyRoyale and major news, but no advertising from others. What is stored is the e-mail address and when it was entered and confirmed. These e-mails are sent through Resend (section 5). You can unsubscribe at any time through the link in every e-mail or by e-mailing us. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). Storage period: until you unsubscribe, at most 24 months after the launch.

3.15 Usage statistics

So that we know how many people use StudyRoyale, what works well and where players stop, we count along on our own server (Supabase, database in the EU). We use no analytics company, no advertising ID, no cookies and no additional identifier on your device.

• Counters without an identifier (before you are signed in): the game only reports that something happened, and the server adds one to a count per day — for example “the game was opened”, “the first start was shown / played / won”, “the sign-in screen was shown” — together with the platform (app or browser) and the language. Only the number per day is stored. We store no IP address and no identifier with it; these counters are not personal data. (Our provider technically processes the IP address when the request is received, see section 3.13.)
• Events with your internal user ID (when you are signed in, as a guest or with an account): game opened, round started (game mode, number of players and bots, general knowledge or own quiz, whether you were the host), round ended (place, K.O.s, questions answered correctly, duration, how you were knocked out), tutorial started / finished, lobby opened or joined (kind of lobby, which way), AI quiz created or failed (number of questions and files, an error code), own quiz saved (number of questions), share tapped — each with the time, platform, app version and language. Never included: your player name, your e-mail address, the content of your quizzes, anything you type or upload, your location.
• What for: We evaluate this only in summarised form — for example how many players are active per day, week and month, how many come back, which game modes are used and at which point of the first start players drop out — in order to improve StudyRoyale and to decide about our offering. We do not build profiles of individual players, make no decisions about you with it, show no ads and pass the data on to no one.
• Switching it off: Settings ▸ Usage statistics. When the switch is off, the game sends no counters and no events from this device or browser any more. The setting is stored on your device.
• Storage period: We automatically delete events with a user ID after 12 months, and immediately when you delete your account. The daily counters without an identifier remain.

3.16 Learning progress

So that StudyRoyale helps you learn, the server remembers for each question how well you know it — like a flash-card box. For every question from general knowledge and from saved own quizzes that you answer in a duel or at a crate, we store with your internal user ID: an identifier of the question (for own quizzes a number calculated from the question's words, not the words), the subject or the quiz, how often you have seen it and answered it correctly, your run of correct answers, its stage (new, learning, almost sure, mastered) and when it is due again. A question is mastered when you have answered it correctly three times in a row, on at least two days. On top come your learning days: for each day and each subject or quiz, how many questions you answered, answered correctly and newly mastered, and roughly how long you played (from the length of your rounds). For an own AI quiz, the AI also picks a subject and a topic when it makes the quiz (for example Biology · Photosynthesis); both are stored with the quiz.

• What for: Duels prefer questions that are due for you (ones you got wrong) or new to you; mastered questions only come back once, after about 30 days, as a refresher. For this, when a round starts your device tells the round's host which of the round's questions you already know and which are due — only as a stage, without your name; this stays in the host's game and is not stored. At the end of the round you see how many questions you have newly mastered. The page "My learning" shows everything by subject and topic, also the quizzes you learned with in a friend's lobby — with the quiz's name and topic and its creator's player name ("Quiz by Jonas") — and when and how long you last learned.
• Who sees it: only you (and, during a round, the host's game as described). If someone learned with your own quiz, their "My learning" page shows your quiz's name and topic and your player name, as the round in which you played it did — never your learning progress. We pass your learning progress on to no one and show no ads with it.
• Storage period: as long as your guest account or account exists; we delete it with the account. Learning days are also deleted after 400 days.

4. Purposes and legal bases

Where we rely on legitimate interests (point (f)), these are: a safe and fair game, the protection of young players, the prevention of abuse and uncontrolled costs, a game we can improve with summarised usage figures, and the decision about our offering. You can object to this (section 8).

5. Recipients and processors

Supabase, Microsoft, Unity, Vercel, Cloudflare, Porkbun and Resend process data on our behalf; we have data processing agreements (Art. 28 GDPR) with them. Google and Apple are themselves responsible for their sign-in services and for TestFlight.

Other players see what is described in section 3.3. Authorities receive data only if a law obliges us to provide it (e.g. Art. 18 DSA, section 3.7).

6. Transfers to third countries

The database (Supabase), the AI (Microsoft) and the Relay for the rounds (Unity) run in the EU. Some providers are based in the USA (Supabase, Unity, Vercel, Cloudflare, Porkbun, Resend; also the parent companies of Microsoft, Google and Apple). Processing in the USA may therefore take place — for example with the Unity sign-in and the lobbies, when the website is accessed, or during maintenance access. We base this on the European Commission’s adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, where the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on EU standard contractual clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).

7. Storage periods

• Age group: on your device, until you delete the website data or the app.
• Account and game data: as long as your account exists.
• Deleting your account (section 9): We delete your profile, your sign-in data and everything linked to it — quizzes, friendships, invitations, invite codes, unlocks, challenges, leaderboard entries, results, your learning progress, Spark transactions, the log of the Pass window, your usage statistics, your reports and blocks and your entry on the waiting list. Reports by other players about you are kept until the end of their storage period, but without a link to your account.
• Guest accounts that have not been used for 12 months are deleted automatically.
• Lobbies: until the host closes them or they lapse unused. Data of a round: only during the round.
• AI inputs: only for the duration of the creation (exception: abuse monitoring at Microsoft, up to 30 days, section 3.5). The quizzes created stay in your account until you delete them.
• Waiting list: until the message about the launch of the Pass, and no longer than until you remove yourself or delete your account.
• Reports: at most 12 months, then we delete them automatically.
• Log of the Pass window: 12 months, then we delete it automatically.
• Usage statistics: events with a user ID 12 months, then we delete them automatically; the daily counters without an identifier (not personal data) remain.
• Online status: only the latest time; it is continuously overwritten.
• Technical logs at Supabase, Unity and Vercel: according to the providers’ time limits, usually a few days to weeks.
• Backups of the database are overwritten by our provider according to its time limits.

8. Your rights

You have the following rights:

• Access (Art. 15 GDPR): what we store about you, with a copy,
• Rectification (Art. 16) of incorrect data,
• Erasure (Art. 17) — also directly in the game (section 9),
• Restriction of processing (Art. 18),
• Data portability (Art. 20): your data in a commonly used format,
• Withdrawal of consent with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)), e.g. by leaving the waiting list,
• Complaint to a supervisory authority (Art. 77).

How it works: Write to us at studyroyale@yahoo.com. If you have an account, please write from your account’s e-mail address so that we know it is really your account. As a guest, tell us your player name and roughly when you played — but the easiest way is to delete a guest account yourself in the game. If you are under 16, your parents can also ask on your behalf. We will reply within one month.

Supervisory authority: Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht, BayLDA), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, https://www.lda.bayern.de. You can also contact the supervisory authority of your country or federal state — in Austria the Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde, https://www.dsb.gv.at), in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (https://www.edoeb.admin.ch).

9. Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself at any time, even as a guest: Settings ▸ Delete account. Your profile, your sign-in data and all linked data (section 7) are permanently removed, and all sessions are ended.

If you only delete the app or the website data, your account remains on the server. After that, you can no longer open a guest account and therefore can no longer delete it yourself. So delete it in the game beforehand, or write to us (see also section 7).

10. No tracking, no advertising

StudyRoyale uses no third-party tracking, analytics, crash-reporting or advertising services, no advertising ID and no cookies for advertising or analytics purposes. There is no cross-device tracking and no profiling for advertising purposes. Our only evaluations of our own are the summarised evaluation of the Pass window (section 3.8) and the usage statistics (section 3.15) — both on our own server, without third parties; the usage statistics can be switched off in the settings.

11. Children and young people

StudyRoyale is made for pupils. Depending on the age group (section 3.1), the following applies:

Nothing can be bought at the moment. When the Pass exists, separate terms apply to it; minors need their parents for this.

For parents: You can contact us at any time. On request, we will delete your child’s data — please tell us the player name and roughly when your child played.

12. StudyRoyale at school

• A teacher can open a lobby with a code, e.g. in the browser on a laptop. The pupils join with the code or the invite link as guests — without an e-mail address.
• First names or nicknames are suitable as player names, not full names.
• The round runs on the teacher’s device as host (section 3.3). The data of the round exists only during the round.
• A teacher with an account can bring their own quizzes or AI quizzes. The class sees the questions in those quizzes. Quizzes must not contain data about pupils (e.g. names or grades).
• On shared devices, delete the guest account at the end of the lesson (Settings ▸ Delete account).

13. Beta test of the app via Apple TestFlight

As long as the app is distributed via Apple TestFlight, Apple is itself responsible for the TestFlight platform and processes, among other things, your Apple ID, device information and installation status (https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/de/test-flight/). Through it, we receive aggregated statistics (installations, sessions, crashes), crash reports (if you have allowed sharing) and feedback that you send yourself. Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (beta test) or point (f) (fixing bugs).

14. Data security

We protect your data, among other things, with:

• encryption of all connections,
• row-level access rules in the database — other players cannot retrieve your e-mail address, for example,
• hashed passwords and sign-in with Google or Apple via PKCE,
• private lobbies (they appear in no list) and an access key for every lobby,
• the Relay, through which players do not see each other’s IP addresses,
• limits on how often a device may send requests (protection against overload and abuse),
• the word filter and the review of reports.

15. Changes

We update this privacy policy when the game or the legal situation changes. We will show you important changes in the game beforehand. The version published on studyroyale.app at the time applies.

16. Contact

Questions about data protection: studyroyale@yahoo.com.