Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Volt Racers is an educational algebra game developed and operated as an independent product. In this Privacy Policy, “we”, “us”, and “our” refer to the developer of Volt Racers.

We are the data controller for personal data collected through the Volt Racers application and website. If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, contact us at: privacy@voltracers.co.uk

2. The Information We Collect

2.1 Account information

When you create an account, we collect:

• Your email address
• A password (stored as a one-way hash — we never store your password in plain text)
• Your display name (if you choose to provide one)

2.2 Game progress data

To save your progress and provide a personalised experience, we store:

• Your current difficulty tier and circuit progress
• Race results (finishing position, accuracy, answer times)
• Voltage Points balance and cosmetics unlocked
• Win count, loss count, and mercy reset count per race

2.3 Accessibility preferences

We store your accessibility settings (font size, dyslexia-friendly font, colour mode, reduced motion, high contrast) so they follow you across devices. These settings are stored server-side under your account.

2.4 Usage and analytics data

We collect anonymised event data to understand how the game is used and to improve it. This includes:

• Which batteries are answered correctly or incorrectly
• How long it takes to answer each battery
• Where in a race players stop playing
• Which difficulty tiers players progress through

This analytics data is processed by PostHog. We configure PostHog to minimise personal data — events carry a session identifier, not your name or email address. School and student identifying information is never sent to PostHog.

2.5 Purchase information

If you purchase Volt Racers, we receive a purchase record from Apple, Google, or Lemon Squeezy (our payment processors). We store:

• A record that a purchase was made and from which platform
• The receipt identifier provided by the payment processor
• The date the purchase was verified

We do not store credit card numbers, bank account details, or any full payment card information. All payment processing is handled by Apple, Google, or Lemon Squeezy.

2.6 School information

If your school has purchased a school licence, we store:

• Your school’s name and email domain
• The licence expiry date

We use your school email address to connect you to your school’s organisation automatically when you register. We do not share individual student data with school administrators in the current version of the product.

2.7 Anonymous trial users

If you use the free trial without creating an account, we do not collect or store any personal information. Progress during an anonymous session is stored locally on your device only and is not transmitted to our servers.

3. Children’s Privacy

Special notice — users under 13: Volt Racers is designed for ages 11–14. We take the privacy of children very seriously. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. If you are under 13, please ask a parent or guardian to create an account on your behalf, or use the game through a school licence.

We collect the minimum personal data necessary from all users, regardless of age. For users under 18:

• We do not use their data for advertising or marketing purposes
• We do not share their data with third parties except as described in this policy
• We do not build profiles for advertising
• We do not use automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects

Schools purchasing a school licence are required to sign a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) confirming they have appropriate consent from parents or guardians for students to use the service.

4. How We Use Your Information

4.1 To provide the service

• Authenticate your account and keep your session secure
• Save and synchronise your game progress across devices
• Apply your accessibility preferences
• Verify that you have a valid purchase or school licence
• Send you transactional emails (password reset, email verification, purchase confirmation)

4.2 To improve the game

• Analyse which algebraic expressions are most frequently answered incorrectly
• Understand where players struggle or disengage
• Tune the adaptive difficulty system
• Identify bugs in the expression generator

4.3 What we do not do

• We do not sell your personal data to any third party
• We do not use your data for advertising or targeted marketing
• We do not share your data with advertisers
• We do not send unsolicited marketing emails

5. Legal Basis for Processing (UK GDPR)

We process your personal data on the following legal bases:

6. Data Sharing and Third Parties

We share data with the following third-party services only as necessary to provide the game:

7. Data Retention

• Account data is retained for as long as your account is active
• Game progress is retained indefinitely while your account exists, so your progress is never lost
• Analytics event data is retained for 24 months, then deleted
• Purchase records are retained for 7 years to comply with UK financial record-keeping requirements
• When you delete your account, all personal data is deleted within 30 days, except where retention is required by law

8. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights:

• Right of access — you can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Right to rectification — you can ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Right to erasure — you can ask us to delete your account and personal data
• Right to restrict processing — you can ask us to limit how we use your data
• Right to data portability — you can request your data in a machine-readable format
• Right to object — you can object to processing based on legitimate interests

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@voltracers.co.uk. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

9. Security

• All data is transmitted over HTTPS (TLS 1.2 or higher)
• Passwords are hashed using bcrypt — we cannot recover your password
• Our database uses row-level security so each user can only access their own data
• Win counts and race seed inputs are updated server-side only and cannot be modified by the client
• We conduct regular reviews of our security practices

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we will notify you by email (if you have an account) and update the effective date at the top of this document. Continued use of the game after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

For any privacy-related questions or requests:

• Email: privacy@voltracers.co.uk
• Response time: within 30 days