Privacy policy

Last updated: October 26, 2026

1. Who is responsible

Abysse is a mobile game published by Pouglin, an independent developer (an individual) based in Belgium — "we" in this text. We are the controller for what depends on us: the game itself and the e-mails you send us.

Contact for any question or request about your data:
pouglin@gmail.com

• Full publisher contact details: see the game's page on Google Play ("About the developer" / "App support") or on the App Store.
• Given our size, we have not appointed a data protection officer: we handle requests ourselves. We are also the person in charge of the protection of personal information (Quebec) and the privacy officer under the other laws listed in § 13.
• Google (Google Ireland Limited in Europe, Google LLC in the United States) is an independent controller of its own processing: advertising (AdMob), payments (Google Play), Android backup, Google Play reviews. On iPhone and iPad, Apple is for the App Store, payments and iCloud. Their own policies apply to that processing.

2. What the game stores on your device

• Your progress (pearls, shop, depths, skins, achievements, aquarium), your settings (language, sound, display, ad choice), your purchase status and your 5 profiles (with the names you give them) are stored only on your device, in the app's private storage.
• We have no server and receive none of this. The game asks for no account, name, e-mail address, location, contacts, photos, microphone or camera.
• Export / import: in Settings → Data, you can copy a save code to the clipboard and paste it elsewhere. The code contains the profile's progress and its name; it is not encrypted and only leaves your device if you paste or send it yourself. Do not post it publicly if the profile name identifies you.
• Device backup: if Google backup is turned on on your Android phone, Android may copy the game data, encrypted, to your Google account and restore it on a new device. On iPhone/iPad, if iCloud device backup is turned on, the game data may likewise be included. These copies are managed by Google or Apple; we have no access to them. You can turn them off in your device settings.
• Online save: a save linked to a game account (Google Play Games, Game Center) is being prepared but is not active. If it ever is, this policy will be updated first.
• Pseudonymous statistics about the game and crashes (Google Firebase) are optional and off until you accept them: see § 3 bis.

3. Advertising (Google AdMob)

The free version shows ads served by Google AdMob:

• interstitial ads, never during a run, only between runs and at a limited rate;
• rewarded videos, always optional: you choose to watch a video to double a run's pearls ("×2 pearls" on the results screen) or to open the Sunken treasure.

Data processed. To show and measure these ads, Google's SDK automatically collects and sends to Google (encrypted in transit): the device advertising ID (Android: advertising ID and app set ID (the latter used only for analytics and fraud prevention, never to personalize or measure ads); iPhone/iPad: IDFA, only with your permission), the IP address (from which an approximate, not precise, location can be estimated), interactions with ads (views, taps, videos watched), technical device information (model, OS, language) and diagnostic data (performance, SDK crashes). This data is used for advertising, measurement, analytics and fraud prevention. Official details: Google Mobile Ads SDK — Data disclosure.

Your choice:

• At first launch, the game asks whether you accept personalized ads or prefer limited ads. Nothing is pre-selected: personalization is only turned on if you accept it.
• In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Google also shows its official consent form (Google's consent management platform), with a Do not consent button. Access to your device for advertising purposes there relies on that consent; if you refuse, Google may serve limited ads, without using an advertising identifier for advertising.
• Personalized: Google may use the advertising ID to pick ads based on your interests. Limited: the game asks Google for non-personalized ads, chosen by context; Google still processes some data for measurement, frequency capping and fraud prevention. The more restrictive choice (ours or Google's form) applies.
• You can change your mind anytime: Settings → Privacy ("Personalized ads" switch, and "Review privacy choices" where Google's form applies).
• Device settings: on Android, Settings → Google → Ads (or Privacy → Ads, depending on the device) to reset or delete the advertising ID; your Google ad choices: myadcenter.google.com.
• Refusing does not stop you from playing. Rewarded videos stay optional and also work with limited ads. Abysse Premium (§ 4) removes ads: the game then no longer initializes the ad SDK.

On iPhone and iPad (iOS version coming): the IDFA advertising identifier is only used if you allow it through Apple's "Allow tracking" prompt (App Tracking Transparency). If you refuse, or later turn off Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking, the IDFA is not accessible. Apple also provides SKAdNetwork, which lets advertisers measure ad performance without identifying you.

Profiling. If you accept personalized ads, Google may build an interest profile from your activity to choose ads. This profiling produces no decision with legal or similarly significant effects on you. We do no profiling ourselves.

Google's rules: how Google uses data · Google privacy policy · Google Ads data protection terms

3 bis. Pseudonymous game and crash statistics (Google Firebase) — optional

To understand how the game is used, balance it and fix its errors, Abysse can send pseudonymous statistics to Google Firebase (Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics, Google services). Nothing is sent until you have agreed: the game asks once (“Help improve Abysse?”) and you can change your mind anytime in Settings → Privacy → Pseudonymous game statistics. Declining takes nothing away from the game. These statistics are pseudonymous: no name or e-mail is sent, but a random technical identifier links the events of one installation.

What is sent, if you agree:

• game events: opening and closing the app, session length; for each run, the depth, difficulty, result, length, level reached, creatures defeated, pearls earned and what caused the defeat; the cards offered and chosen, the weapons and passives at the end of a run; purchases made with pearls in the shop and the skins chosen (item identifier and price in pearls); settings changed, tutorial steps, achievements;
• technical information: game version, device model, Android version, language, approximate country (inferred from the IP address, which Google does not store in full), smoothness (frames per second), errors;
• crash reports (Crashlytics): the error and the state of the app when it crashed;
• a random installation identifier from Firebase, specific to this installation and unrelated to your identity. The advertising ID is not used for this measurement, nor are advertising signals.

What is never sent: your name, your profile names, your e-mail address, your precise location, your contacts, your real payments (they stay with Google Play), the content of your save.

Why. To improve the game: spot unbalanced weapons or levels, understand where players give up, fix crashes and slowdowns. We use it neither for advertising nor to identify you, and we do not sell it. Google Firebase acts as a processor: it processes this data for us under its terms. Measurement data is kept for 14 months at most.

You stay in control. Turning the switch off stops all sending immediately and resets the installation identifier. Data already sent cannot be linked to you (random identifier): it disappears by itself at the end of the retention period.

4. In-app purchases

Two optional one-time purchases, processed by Google Play Billing (and, on iPhone/iPad, by Apple's App Store):

• Abysse Premium: removes ads (rewards are granted without a video);
• Support pack: Premium + an exclusive skin + pearls.

These purchases have fixed contents known in advance (no random draw). Payment is handled entirely by Google or Apple, which act as the seller to you in many countries: we see no banking data, name or address. The store only tells the game, on your device, whether the purchase is active, and restores it on a new device linked to the same account. Rules: Google · Apple.

5. Writing to us, rating the game

• The "Send feedback" button (Settings) opens your e-mail app with a pre-filled message (game version, language, profile number, number of runs and wins), which you can edit or not send.
• If you write to us, we receive your e-mail address, your message and any attachments, only to answer you and improve the game. They are not sold, shared or used for advertising. They are kept with our e-mail provider (currently Google Gmail) and deleted 2 years after our last exchange, or sooner on request.
• The rating prompt uses Google Play's (or the App Store's) review system; your review is handled by the store.

6. Summary table

7. Legal bases and consequences of refusing

• Consent: personalized advertising and, in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, access to your device (reading or storing information) for advertising purposes, under "ePrivacy" rules. You can withdraw it anytime (§ 3), as easily as you gave it; withdrawal does not affect what was done before.
• Consent (pseudonymous statistics): measuring the game and crashes (§ 3 bis) only starts with your agreement and stops as soon as you withdraw it (Settings → Privacy).
• Legitimate interest: non-personalized or limited advertising (which funds the free game), ad measurement, frequency capping and fraud prevention (Google's processing), answering your e-mails. You can object (§ 12); buying Premium removes all ads.
• Performance of a contract: running the game, providing and restoring your purchases.
• Legal obligation: invoicing and sales accounting are kept by Google or Apple, which sell the game and purchases on our behalf; we receive no player data for that purpose.

Optional nature. No personal data is required to play. Refusing personalized ads takes nothing away from the game (same content, same rewards); not writing to us has no consequence; purchases are optional. Without an Internet connection, the game works, simply without ads.

8. Retention periods

• Data on your device: until you erase it (§ 11) or uninstall the game.
• Pseudonymous statistics (Firebase): 14 months at most; they stop as soon as you withdraw your agreement.
• E-mails: 2 years after the last exchange, or sooner on request; longer only if necessary to establish or defend a legal claim.
• Data processed by Google or Apple: under their own rules (Google retention · Apple).

9. Recipients and international transfers

• We do not sell, rent or share any data. The only recipients are Google (advertising, payments, backup, e-mail) and, on iOS, Apple, as described above, and authorities where the law requires it.
• Pseudonymous statistics (§ 3 bis): processed for us by Google Firebase as a processor, under the same transfer safeguards as above.
• Google and Apple may process data outside the European Economic Area, notably in the United States. These transfers rely on the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with its UK and Swiss extensions), to which Google LLC adheres, and on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses; Apple applies its own safeguards, described in its privacy policy. Data collected by the ad SDK is sent over the Internet when an ad is requested or shown.
• More information: Google's transfer frameworks · dataprivacyframework.gov. The United States has no general federal data protection law; protection relies on these commitments and on state laws.

10. Security

• No server of ours: there is no player database that could leak on our side.
• The pseudonymous statistics (§ 3 bis) are hosted by Google Firebase, without name or e-mail, behind access reserved to our account.
• Game data sits in the app's private storage, inaccessible to other apps (except on a modified device).
• The ad SDK's and purchases' exchanges with Google or Apple are encrypted in transit (HTTPS); the device backup is encrypted by Android or iOS.
• Our mailbox is protected by strong authentication. In the event of a data breach affecting you, we will notify the authority and, where required, the people concerned, within the legal deadlines.

11. Deleting your data

No account, so no account to delete. You stay in control:

• One profile: Settings → Data → Erase this profile (immediate, permanent).
• The whole game: uninstall Abysse, or, on Android, Settings → Apps → Abysse → Storage → Clear data.
• Backup copy: Android, Settings → Google → Backup (manage or delete the backup); iPhone/iPad, Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage.
• Pseudonymous statistics: Settings → Privacy → Pseudonymous game statistics (turn off). We cannot find your data in Firebase (random identifier, no name); it disappears after 14 months at most.
• Advertising data at Google: delete or reset the advertising ID in your device settings, and manage your Google data at myadcenter.google.com and myaccount.google.com. We cannot link that data to you: Google is best placed to handle it.
• Your e-mails: write to the address in § 1; we delete our exchanges within 1 month and confirm it to you.

12. Your rights (European Union, EEA, United Kingdom, Switzerland)

You have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection (notably to processing based on legitimate interest, and at any time to direct marketing), data portability, and the right to withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting what was done before.

• For game data, most are exercised directly on your device: access and portability via Settings → Data → Export save; erasure in § 11; ad consent in Settings → Privacy.
• For your e-mails, or any other request: write to us (§ 1). We answer within one month (extendable by two months for a complex request, with notice to you). We may ask you to write from the address concerned, to check it is really you.
• For data processed by Google or Apple as independent controllers, you can also contact them directly.

You may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority:

• Belgium: Data Protection Authority (APD/GBA)
• Other EU/EEA country: your country's authority (list)
• United Kingdom: Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
• Switzerland: Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC)

13. Rights by country

A single policy applies everywhere. The rights below are exercised by the same means: the game and device settings (§ 3, § 11) and the address in § 1. We will never treat you differently for exercising a right.

United States (California and other states)

• Categories (past 12 months): identifiers (advertising ID, IP address), Internet activity (ad interactions), approximate geolocation inferred from IP, inferences (interests built by Google if you accept personalized ads), content of your e-mails if you write to us. Sources: your device (via Google's SDK) and you. No sensitive data.
• "Sale" / "share": we sell no data for money. But letting Google use the advertising ID for targeted advertising may count as a "sale", "sharing" or "targeted advertising" under the laws of California (CCPA/CPRA), Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon and the other states with a comparable law.
• Opting out ("Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information"): choose "Limited ads" in Settings → Privacy; delete or reset the advertising ID (Android) or refuse tracking (iPhone/iPad); if Google shows its US state privacy message in the game, you can also use it. An app does not receive the Global Privacy Control browser signal: these settings are its equivalent. You can also write to us.
• Other rights: to know / access, correct, delete, portability, and non-discrimination. If we deny a request, you can appeal by replying to our message with the subject "Appeal"; if the denial stands, you can contact your state Attorney General or, in California, the California Privacy Protection Agency. An authorized agent may act for you with proof of authorization.
• Rewarded videos are not a payment for your data: they also work with limited ads. We do not knowingly sell or share data of people under 16.
• COPPA: see § 14.

Canada and Quebec

PIPEDA and, in Quebec, Law 25: the ad personalization (profiling) technology is off until you turn it on; your data may be communicated outside Quebec and Canada (Google, Apple, United States). Person in charge of the protection of personal information: Pouglin (§ 1). Complaints: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.

Brazil (LGPD)

Legal bases: consent, legitimate interest and performance of a contract (§ 7). You can request confirmation, access, correction, anonymization, blocking or deletion, portability, information about sharing, and withdraw your consent. Contact channel (encarregado): the address in § 1. Complaints: ANPD.

Japan (APPI)

The information sent to third parties (Google, and Apple on iOS), its purposes and its recipients are described in § 3 and § 6, including for the rules on external transmission of user information. Foreign recipient: Google LLC (United States), which applies its own measures (§ 9). You can request disclosure, correction or cessation of use. Authority: Personal Information Protection Commission.

South Korea (PIPA)

• Data, purposes and retention: § 6 and § 8. We provide no data to third parties for their own purposes, except what Google's SDK collects directly for advertising.
• Overseas transfer: recipients Google LLC (United States) and Google Ireland Limited (Ireland); data: advertising ID, IP, interactions, technical data; when and how: over the Internet, encrypted, at each ad request; purpose and retention: § 6. To refuse: choose "Limited ads" and delete the advertising ID, or buy Premium; the game remains fully playable.
• Destruction: device data is erased immediately and permanently (§ 11); e-mails are permanently deleted when their period expires.
• Privacy officer: Pouglin (§ 1). Remedies: PIPC, KISA privacy report center (privacy.kisa.or.kr, ☎ 118).

India (DPDP Act 2023)

You can request a summary of the data processed, its correction or erasure, withdraw your consent as easily as you gave it, nominate a person to exercise your rights, and send us a grievance (address in § 1, answer within 1 month) before going to the Data Protection Board of India.

Australia, Türkiye and other countries

Australia (Privacy Act): access, correction and complaint to us, then to the OAIC; overseas recipient: Google (United States). Türkiye (KVKK): rights under Article 11 (to know, access, correct, erase, know recipients in Türkiye and abroad, object, compensation); complaints to the Personal Data Protection Authority. In any other country, you have the rights granted by your local law, exercised the same way.

14. Age

Abysse is intended for people aged 13 and over. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect any data about children under 13 (including under the US COPPA rule). In some countries the age of digital consent is higher (up to 16 in the EU, 14 in South Korea): below it, choose "Limited ads" or ask a parent's permission. If you believe a child has written to us, contact us: we will delete their data.

15. Changes

Any change will be published on this page with its date. Significant changes (for example turning on the online save or a new ad partner) will be announced in the game before they take effect and, where required, your consent will be asked again.