Effective date: 2026-10-09

Last updated: 2026-10-10

In five lines. 1. Nightwatch is made by Brightloop Studios; write to us at [email protected]. 2. Your saved game stays on your phone, and there is no account. 3. Ads come from Google AdMob, which uses your phone's advertising ID and device information to show and measure them. 4. Unless you switch them off, usage statistics and crash reports go to Google's Firebase, so that we can improve the game. 5. You choose in Settings, under Privacy, and you can ask us to see, correct or delete your data, or complain to a data protection authority.

Who we are. Nightwatch is made and published by Brightloop Studios. "We", "us" and "our" in this policy mean Brightloop Studios. We decide what information the game handles and why, which makes us the "controller" under European and UK data protection law. You can reach us at [email protected] about anything in this policy.

What stays on your phone. Your progress — rounds solved, the marks on a board in play, tonight's round, your streak, your statistics, your settings and the lantern you chose — is saved in the app's own storage on this device. The app also keeps a small local diary of what happened in the game (rounds started and finished, hints opened, settings changed), capped at the most recent two thousand entries, so that the statistics screen and the "Copy diagnostic report" button in Settings have something to read. The saved game and the diary stay on the phone, and we keep no backup of our own. Your phone's own backup — Android's, to the Google account on the phone, if you have it switched on — may include this app's data along with every other app's; that copy is between you and Google, and we never see it. "Export your progress" in Settings makes a plain-text record of your campaign and daily rounds, not a backup: free play, settings and statistics are not in it, and it goes nowhere unless you paste it somewhere. "Reset all progress" in Settings wipes it all, and uninstalling the app removes it.

There is no account. You never sign in, and you never give us a name or an email address. The usage statistics described below carry a random identifier that Firebase makes for this installation, never your name, and nobody at our end can tell who you are from them.

Ads. Nightwatch is free and the ads pay for it. They are served by Google AdMob, which is Google's advertising service. To do that, Google collects your device's advertising ID — a resettable identifier Android gives to apps for advertising — together with information about your device and network connection, such as the device model, the operating system version, your general region and your IP address. Google uses it to choose which ad to show, to count how many people saw it, and to detect fraudulent clicks. Google's own privacy policy describes what it then does with that information. We do not receive it. We are paid a total, not a list of people. Google's ad software may also read the app set ID, an identifier Android shares only among apps from the same developer. When an ad is chosen, AdMob may invite other advertising companies to bid to show it; those companies can receive the same kind of ad request information — the advertising ID, device and connection details and your general region — and use it under their own privacy policies, and where the law requires a consent choice, your choice applies to them too.

Which ads, and when. Between campaign rounds and between Free play boards, a short full-screen ad can show when you leave a won board. It never shows before your fourth win or in your first session, never on tonight's round, never when you start the app and never while you are playing a board; it waits at least two minutes after any other ad, there are never more than eight in one day, and if none is ready the game simply carries on. From your tenth win, a small banner ad can also sit at the bottom of the screen while you play a campaign round or a Free play board: it never covers the board, and it never shows on tonight's round, in the tutorial, over a card, or once you have bought Nightwatch Premium; it is fetched only when it is about to show. Sometimes the break offers a reward: a lantern to try for a day. You can skip it. Two more ads are yours to choose — one lights a locked lantern for a day, and one opens the third hint on the board you are solving, at most once a board and three times a night. Declining changes nothing about the game. The between-boards ad is fetched in the background once the game has started, so that it is ready when you finish a board; the two you choose are fetched only when you open a screen that offers one — the Lanterns screen, or the hint sheet on a board — and they play only if you tap. The third hint is free on tonight's round and always once you have bought Nightwatch Premium; while no ad can play it is free twice in one night, and after that it waits until an ad can play. The first two hints are free always and however often you want them. The same advertising ID is used for every ad.

Your choice about ads. Where the law requires a consent choice — in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland — the game asks you before the first ad, and Settings then carries a Privacy options row that reopens the same choice at any time. That choice also decides whether usage statistics are collected: until you agree, none are. You may change your answer or withdraw it whenever you like; if you refuse, no ad request is made at all and the game simply carries on without ads and without nagging you. Elsewhere, Settings shows the row when your local rules call for one. You can also reset or delete the advertising ID itself at any time, in Android's Settings → Privacy → Ads (the exact path varies by phone), which starts the identifier fresh; on recent Android versions deleting it stops apps receiving one at all.

Usage statistics. Unless you switch them off, the game sends Google's Firebase Analytics a record of how it is used: the screens you open; the boards you start, finish or leave, with their size, time, moves and hints; the ads and offers you are shown and what you choose; whether a purchase went through, never your payment details; reminder and settings changes; a short code when the app hits an error; and, now and then, how quickly a screen appeared. Firebase adds its own records of when the app is installed, opened, used and removed, the phone's model, its Android and app versions, and an approximate location — the country, region or city — worked out from the connection without keeping the address itself. For each ad that is shown, Google's ad service tells the app what that ad earned and which advertising company supplied it, and the app adds this to the record. When you install Nightwatch from a link, Google Play tells the app where the install came from — for example a shared night or our website — and the app adds that one word to the record; it says nothing about who shared the link. Each record carries your language and settings, whether you own Nightwatch Premium, which version of a test the game is running on your phone, when you installed it and how many times you have opened it, the mode you played first, a rough screen-size class and RAM class for your phone, its WebView version, roughly how many boards you have won, and a random identifier Firebase makes for this installation — never your name, your email, your contacts, anything you type, your precise location, the advertising ID or any other identifier from your phone. We use these records only to improve the game, its screens and features, to see whether players come back, and to improve the ads and the Premium offer; we do not sell them. The detailed records are deleted after 14 months at the latest; only totals that describe no single player are kept longer. Where the law requires a consent choice, nothing is sent until you agree, and on every phone the "Share usage statistics" switch in Settings stops them at any time.

Crash reports. When the app crashes, or hits an error it cannot recover from, it can send a crash report to Google's Firebase Crashlytics, so that we can find and fix the fault. A report holds the technical trace of the fault, the phone's model, its Android, WebView and app versions, the screen you were on, the board's size and mode, which version of a test the game is running, whether you own Nightwatch Premium, a rough RAM class for your phone, the kinds of the last few things that happened in the game (such as "board started" or "hint opened"), and random identifiers Crashlytics and Firebase make for this installation — never your name, anything you type or the advertising ID. Crash reports follow the "Share usage statistics" switch and, where the law requires it, your consent choice: while either says no, no report is sent, and reports saved on the phone in that time are deleted rather than sent later.

Settings the game checks for. Each time it starts, the game asks Google's Firebase Remote Config whether any of its own settings have changed — how often the between-boards ad may show, for example — so that a setting can be put right without an update. The request carries the random identifier Firebase makes for this installation, the app's version, the phone's Android version, and your language, country and time zone settings, plus the details about your settings that usage statistics carry, if they have been on. It is made whether or not usage statistics are on, and what comes back only changes how the game behaves. Where those details are sent, they can decide which settings come back, so two players may get different settings; the limits this policy publishes always hold.

Puzzle files. The app may download new puzzle files from our website. The request carries no identifier and no game data; like any web request, it shows your IP address, and your phone's model and Android version, to our hosting provider, Cloudflare.

Reminders and sharing. If you turn on the nightly reminder, the phone itself schedules and shows it; it does not come from a server of ours or anyone else's. Turning it on or off, and opening the game from it, are part of the usage statistics above. When you share a night, the game hands a picture and a line of text to your phone's own share menu, and they go only where you send them; the usage statistics note that you shared, never what or with whom. The link in a shared night leads to our website.

Our website. A shared night's link opens our website, where tonight's round can be played in a browser. The website shows no ads and has no account. It counts a visit only after you choose "Count my visit": then Google's Firebase Analytics receives which night was played, whether you came from a shared link, and how long the round took, with the identifier Google Analytics keeps in your browser for the site and, as with any website visit, your browser, your device type and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. "Don't count", or a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser, means nothing is counted, and the Your Privacy Choices link at the foot of the page changes your answer. Like any website, it shows your IP address to Cloudflare, which hosts it.

Buying Nightwatch Premium. Nightwatch Premium is a one-time purchase. Once it is on your device the game stops asking for ads entirely — no ad is fetched, and the game never starts the advertising service — so nothing further goes to Google for advertising, and the third hint and lantern loans are free. The advertising software stays inside the app and runs a small set-up of its own each time the app starts, whether or not you have bought this; the game never starts the advertising service and never asks it for an ad. Usage statistics follow your choice exactly as before. The purchase itself is handled by Google Play, which tells us only that a purchase for this app exists; we never see your payment details. The Ramparts, a separate one-time purchase of thirty extra boards, is bought the same way: Google Play handles it and tells us only that it exists, and it changes nothing about ads or statistics.

Playing offline. The game itself needs no connection for tonight's round, any board you have started, every save and the first two hints on every board, and while no ad can play the third hint is free twice in one night. On some days, after several new boards played offline, the game may ask you to connect before opening another; Nightwatch Premium plays offline without that limit. Only the ads, the usage statistics, crash reports, the settings check and new puzzle files need a network; when there is none, ads are quietly skipped, the statistics wait on the phone until you are online again, and the game keeps the settings and puzzles it already has.

What Google's ad software measures. Besides the usage statistics above, Google's ad software includes Google's own measurement library, which reports app activity such as the app opening and ads being shown and tapped, together with its own crash and performance reports, to Google.

Why we may use your information (legal bases). If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the law asks us to name a legal basis for each use. Ads, usage statistics and crash reports: your consent, which you can withdraw in Privacy options and with the "Share usage statistics" switch. Counting website visits: your consent, given with "Count my visit". Elsewhere we rely on our legitimate interest in funding a free game with ads and in improving it, and you can still switch statistics and crash reports off. The settings check and puzzle files: our legitimate interest in keeping the game working and up to date. Nightwatch Premium: performing our agreement with you. Fraud detection, security and answering your messages: our legitimate interests, and any legal duty we have.

Who receives information. Google, as AdMob, Firebase and Google Play; Cloudflare, which hosts our website and puzzle files; and, through AdMob, the advertising companies that bid to show an ad. We give no one else information about you, except where the law requires it, to protect players or the game from fraud or abuse, or in a sale of our business as described below.

Keeping it safe. The game runs no server of ours that holds your game: the saved game stays in the app's own storage, which Android keeps apart from other apps. Everything the app sends travels over encrypted connections (TLS). Google stores and protects the data it receives under its own security terms. Only people who work on Nightwatch can open our Firebase and AdMob accounts, and those accounts are protected with two-step sign-in. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the authorities where the law requires.

Your rights, without an account. You can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to limit or stop how we use it, to give you a copy, and to object to uses based on our legitimate interest. You can withdraw consent at any time, and that does not affect what happened before. The quickest way to use most of these rights is on your phone: Privacy options, the "Share usage statistics" switch and "Your privacy choices" in Settings; resetting or deleting the advertising ID in Android's settings; "Reset all progress"; and uninstalling. You can also write to [email protected]. Because the statistics carry only a random installation identifier that you never see and we never link to a name, we usually cannot find one person's records from an email; we will tell you what we can do, and switching statistics off stops new records while the old ones expire within 14 months. We answer within one month, or tell you within that month why we need longer, as the law allows. Using your rights never costs you anything and never changes the game you get.

Complaints. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please write to us first. You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority, in particular in the country where you live or work — in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office.

Data outside your country. We, Google and Cloudflare may process information in the United States and other countries where the law may differ from yours. When information from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland goes to Google or Cloudflare in the United States, they rely on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with its UK and Swiss extensions) and on standard contractual clauses.

How long information is kept. The saved game and the local diary: on your phone until you reset or uninstall. Usage statistics: detailed records for 14 months at the latest, then only totals that describe no single player. Crash reports: Crashlytics keeps them for 90 days, and any copy of ours is deleted within 14 months. The random installation identifier: Firebase keeps it until we ask it to delete it. The settings check: Google keeps it under its own rules. Puzzle files and the website: Cloudflare keeps request logs, which include IP addresses, for a short time under its own rules; counted website visits are kept like usage statistics, 14 months at the latest. Ads: Google and the companies that bid through AdMob keep ad data under their own policies. Emails you send us: as long as we need to answer you, and for up to two years afterwards, unless the law requires longer.

Selling and sharing, and US state privacy rights. We do not sell your personal information for money. Some US state privacy laws use the words "sale" and "sharing" more widely: they can include the way Google and the advertising companies that bid through AdMob use the advertising ID, device and connection information and app activity to show ads based on what people do across apps. In the last 12 months the game collected these categories of personal information: identifiers (the advertising ID, the app set ID, Firebase's installation identifiers and your IP address); internet or other electronic network activity (how the game and its ads are used); approximate location (country, region or city); and commercial information (whether you bought Nightwatch Premium). They come from your phone, through the app and the software described above, for the purposes this policy gives. Identifiers and activity may count as "sold" or "shared" to advertising companies for targeted advertising under those laws; the rest goes to Google only as our service provider. We collect no sensitive personal information as those laws define it, and we do not knowingly sell or share information about anyone under 16. To opt out, open Settings, then Your privacy choices, where AdMob's own US states privacy message lets you tell it to stop; in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Privacy options does the same. Depending on your state, you also have the rights described under "Your rights" (to know, access, correct and delete) and the right to use an authorised agent. We will never treat you differently for using any of these rights. If we turn down a request, you can appeal by writing to [email protected] with "Appeal" in the subject; we answer within the time your state's law sets, and if you are still unhappy, you can contact your state's attorney general.

Children. Nightwatch is not directed at children under 13, and is declared to Google Play for a 13+ audience. Please do not use it if you are under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete what we can identify and answer the person who told us. A parent can switch off "Share usage statistics", delete the advertising ID in Android's settings and uninstall the game, which removes everything stored on the phone.

If our business changes hands. If Brightloop Studios or Nightwatch is sold, merged or reorganised, the information described here may pass to the new owner, who must keep to this policy. We will tell players in the app when that happens.

Changes. If a future version collects something this text does not mention, this policy and the Play listing will say so before that version ships, and the last-updated date above will change with it.

Questions. Write to [email protected]. Our postal address is listed in the developer details on Nightwatch's Google Play page, and we will give it on request. Brightloop Studios is the name Corivane LLC publishes under; that company is responsible for your data under this policy.