Games/Apps/Software Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 19, 2026

Big Monk Games ("we," "us," or "our") operates mobile applications, web applications, and related services — including the Daily Stoicism mobile app (collectively, the "Services"). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

By using the Services, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to operate, secure, and improve the Services. Depending on the specific app or feature you use, this may include:

1.1 Account Information

When you create an account (for example to sync your reflections across devices or back them up), we collect:

  • Email address

  • Account identifiers and authentication tokens

  • Optional profile information (display name, avatar)

  • Sign-in provider identifier (for example Apple ID identifier, when you use Sign in with Apple)

1.2 App Activity and Personal Reflections

To operate the core experience, we collect activity you generate within the Services, including:

  • Daily reflections, journal entries, and answers you write inside the app (your "Reflections")

  • Streak count, goal selection, completed exercises, and progress through guided paths

  • Reading and listening history, bookmarks, and favorites

  • Settings and preferences (notification times, theme, accessibility options)

Your private journal entries and Reflections are stored against your account so they can sync across your devices. They are not shown to other users unless you explicitly choose to share a Reflection to the community feed (see Section 1.3).

1.3 Community Feed Data (Daily Stoicism)

If you choose to use the community feed in Daily Stoicism, we collect:

  • Reflections you share publicly. When you tap "Share with the community," the text of that Reflection is stored and displayed to other users in the feed. Other users see the Reflection text only — they do not see your name, email, or any account identifier.

  • Blocks. When you block another user, we record that block relationship so we can hide that user's Reflections from your feed on every device.

  • Reports. When you report a Reflection, we record the report (the Reflection ID, the reason if you provided one, the timestamp, and the fact that your account submitted it) so we can review and act on the report within 24 hours.

  • Moderation status. We may record moderation actions taken on your content (hidden, removed, restored) for safety and audit purposes.

We use this data to operate the community feed, enforce our Terms of Use, respond to abuse reports, and protect users from harassment. See our Terms of Use for the community conduct rules.

1.4 AI Feature Data

Some features may use automated or artificial-intelligence systems (for example, AI-assisted reflection prompts or responses).

If you interact with AI-powered features, we process:

  • Prompts or messages you submit to the AI

  • The AI's generated responses

  • Usage metadata related to AI interactions (timing, model used, token counts)

This data is used to operate, maintain, and improve AI functionality and to enforce usage limits. We do not sell your AI inputs, and we do not use them to personally identify you outside of the account they were submitted under.

1.5 Purchase and Subscription Data

When you purchase a subscription or other in-app product, we receive:

  • The product purchased and the transaction identifier from the platform

  • Subscription status (active, lapsed, trial, refunded)

  • Renewal and expiration dates

We do not receive or store your full payment card number, bank details, or Apple ID password. Payment processing is handled by Apple, Google, or our web payment processor (such as Stripe) under their own privacy policies.

1.6 Device and Diagnostic Data

We and our service providers collect device-level information for security, performance, and crash reporting:

  • Device type, model, and operating system version

  • App version and build number

  • Approximate IP-derived location (country / region, for fraud prevention and content compliance)

  • Anonymous device identifiers

  • Crash reports, error logs, and performance metrics

1.7 Advertising Identifiers (with your permission)

On iOS, we may collect the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) only if you grant permission through Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt. The first time you launch the app (and any time you reset tracking permissions in iOS Settings), iOS will ask:

"Allow Daily Stoicism to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?"

  • If you tap Allow, our advertising partners may use the IDFA to deliver and measure personalized ads.

  • If you tap Ask App Not to Track, no IDFA is collected and our advertising partners deliver only non-personalized ads.

You can change this choice at any time at Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → Daily Stoicism.

1.8 Push Notification Tokens

If you opt in to push notifications, the operating system provides us a device-specific push token so we can deliver daily-reminder, streak, and community notifications. You can disable push notifications at any time in your device's notification settings.

2. How We Use Information

We use the information described above to:

  • Provide and operate the Services and the core daily-practice experience

  • Create and authenticate your account

  • Sync your reflections and progress across your devices

  • Operate the community feed, including hiding blocked users, applying content filters, and responding to reports

  • Process subscriptions, free trials, and purchases

  • Serve and measure advertisements (personalized only if you granted ATT permission; otherwise non-personalized)

  • Send daily reminders and other notifications you opted into

  • Maintain the security and integrity of the Services and detect fraud or abuse

  • Improve performance, reliability, and AI feature quality

  • Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Use

3. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in the following limited circumstances:

3.1 With Other Users (Community Feed Only)

If you choose to share a Reflection to the community feed, the text of that Reflection is visible to other users of Daily Stoicism. Your name, email, and account identifier are not shown. Other users see only the Reflection text.

3.2 With Service Providers

We share information with vendors who help us operate the Services, including:

  • Cloud hosting and database providers (for example Replit, Neon, AWS) — store our application data

  • Authentication providers (for example Apple Sign In) — verify your identity

  • Payment processors (Apple, Google, Stripe) — process purchases and subscriptions

  • Analytics and crash reporting (for example Firebase, Sentry-equivalent services) — help us diagnose bugs and measure feature usage

  • AI providers (for example OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) — power AI-assisted features; inputs are sent under contractual confidentiality obligations and providers are prohibited from training general models on your inputs

  • Push-notification delivery (Apple Push Notification service, Firebase Cloud Messaging)

  • Email (transactional providers for support replies and account emails)

These providers may only use your information to perform services for us and are bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations.

3.3 With Advertising Partners

If you have granted ATT permission, our advertising partners may receive device identifiers and ad-interaction data to deliver and measure personalized ads. Partners may include:

These partners use cookies, SDKs, and similar technologies. If you have not granted ATT permission, the IDFA is not shared and ads are non-personalized.

3.4 For Legal and Safety Reasons

We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that it is necessary to:

  • Comply with a law, subpoena, court order, or other legal process

  • Enforce our Terms of Use, including investigating violations

  • Protect the rights, property, or safety of Big Monk Games, our users, or the public

  • Detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical issues

3.5 Business Transfers

If Big Monk Games is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you (for example by email or in-app notice) before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

4. In-App Purchases and Payments

Purchases are processed by third-party platform providers:

  • Apple App Store — iOS purchases

  • Google Play Store — Android purchases (where applicable)

  • Stripe or other web payment processors — web purchases

We do not receive or store your full payment information. Platform providers maintain purchase records according to their own privacy policies.

5. iCloud and Cross-Device Sync

On iOS, certain data (such as session state or non-sensitive preferences) may sync via Apple iCloud Key-Value Storage. This syncing is managed by Apple and governed by Apple's privacy practices. Your account-backed data (Reflections, streak, community activity) syncs through our own servers, not iCloud.

6. Children's Privacy

The Services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The Daily Stoicism app is rated 12+ on the App Store.

If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at support@bigmonkgames.com and we will take appropriate steps to delete that information.

7. Data Retention

We retain data only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Policy.

Typical retention practices:

  • Account data — retained while your account is active and for a short period after deletion for backup integrity, legal compliance, and abuse prevention.

  • Reflections (private) — retained until you delete them or delete your account.

  • Reflections shared to the community feed — retained until you remove the Reflection, you delete your account, or we remove it for a Terms violation.

  • Blocks and reports — blocks are retained while your account is active so the blocked user remains hidden across devices. Reports are retained for at least 12 months to support pattern detection of repeat abusers and to demonstrate compliance with App Review's 24-hour-action requirement.

  • Moderation logs — retained as long as necessary for safety, audit, and legal compliance.

  • Device and diagnostic data — typically 90 days, longer when needed to investigate a specific incident.

  • Purchase records — retained as required for tax, accounting, and platform-policy compliance (typically 7 years).

We may retain aggregated or anonymized data longer.

8. Your Choices

You have control over several data practices:

  • App Tracking Transparency (iOS). Manage at Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → Daily Stoicism.

  • Push notifications. Manage at Settings → Notifications → Daily Stoicism (iOS) or your device's notification settings.

  • Community feed. You can remove any Reflection you have shared from inside the app at any time. You can block any other user from any Reflection they posted, and unblock all users in one tap from the Community screen.

  • Personalized ads. If you've previously granted ATT permission, you can revoke it at any time in iOS Settings (see above), and ads will switch to non-personalized.

  • Local data. Uninstalling the app removes locally stored data on that device.

  • Account deletion. You may delete your account from inside the app (Profile → account-deletion option) or by emailing support@bigmonkgames.com. Deletion removes your account, your Reflections (private and shared), your blocks, and your reports, subject to the retention exceptions described in Section 7.

9. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights with respect to your personal information.

9.1 European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland (GDPR)

You have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you

  • Correct inaccurate or incomplete data

  • Erase your personal data ("right to be forgotten"), subject to legal retention exceptions

  • Restrict or object to certain processing

  • Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format

  • Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent

  • Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority

Our legal bases for processing are: (a) performance of our contract with you (operating the Services), (b) your consent (for ATT/personalized ads and push notifications), (c) our legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, product improvement), and (d) compliance with legal obligations.

9.2 California (CCPA / CPRA)

California residents have the right to:

  • Know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose

  • Delete personal information we collected from you

  • Correct inaccurate personal information

  • Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising

  • Limit the use of sensitive personal information

  • Non-discrimination for exercising these rights

We do not sell personal information for money. To the extent that sharing the IDFA with advertising partners constitutes "sharing" under the CPRA, you can opt out at any time by declining the ATT prompt or by revoking permission in iOS Settings.

9.3 Other Jurisdictions

Residents of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws have similar rights. We honor verifiable consumer requests regardless of jurisdiction.

To exercise any of the rights above, email support@bigmonkgames.com with the subject line "Privacy Request." We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law (typically 30–45 days). We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling the request.

10. Data Security

We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information, including encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS), encryption at rest for sensitive fields, access controls, and audit logging.

However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

If we become aware of a security incident affecting your personal information, we will notify you and any required authorities in accordance with applicable law.

11. Third-Party Services and Links

The Services may contain links to or integrations with third-party websites or services (for example a "Visit our website" link, social-sharing actions, or external content). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties. We encourage you to review their privacy policies.

12. International Users

Big Monk Games is based in the United States, and the Services are operated from the United States. If you access the Services from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States.

If you are in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses) where required for international data transfers.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page when changes are made. For material changes, we will provide additional notice (for example through an in-app message or by email where appropriate).

Continued use of the Services after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised Policy.

14. Contact Us

For questions about this Privacy Policy or to exercise any of the rights above:

Big Monk Games
Website: https://www.bigmonkgames.com
Email: support@bigmonkgames.com