Last updated September 15, 2026

PRIVACY POLICY

The scoreboard works without an account or location sharing.

This policy covers PickupGamer for iPhone and Apple Watch, its website, and the optional Play together service. Social features described here are part of the next beta update; earlier versions use the separate iCloud circles described below. There are no advertising SDKs, cross-app tracking, contact-list uploads, or device fingerprinting.

Local scores and Apple Watch

Scores, display settings, saved teams, rosters, and history are stored on your device. Current scores, team settings, and completed results synchronize between paired devices using WatchConnectivity. Your Apple device-backup settings may include local app data. Scoring does not require a social account.

Optional social account

When you choose Play together, Sign in with Apple provides an app-specific account identifier and credentials used to verify your account. We store an opaque account ID, display name, unique username, discoverability choice, and account timestamps. Apple refresh credentials are encrypted on the server; active sessions use hashed tokens. We do not request your email address or import Contacts. Your display name and username are visible where you participate. Search only lists profiles that enable discoverability.

Friends, groups, games, and results

The service stores friend requests, accepted connections, group memberships, teams and rosters, game details, attendance choices, shared results and correction history. Private groups are available to their members. Private games are available to their organizer, their group, and players who accept a game invitation. Open games show their title, venue, sport, time, skill preferences, player names, and attendance to signed-in players. Guests you enter are distinguished from registered accounts; only enter names you have permission to share.

Results saved locally stay local unless you share them, or start a group game that explicitly says it will share its finished result. The scorer and group organizer can correct shared results; corrections are recorded. Sharing through the system share sheet sends only the selected content to the destination you choose. A result image does not itself contain a clickable invitation; an optional link is sent alongside it.

Invitations

Personal, group, and game links include a random invitation token. Anyone with a valid link can see its invitation heading; recipients sign in and explicitly accept before joining. Do not post private invitation links publicly. Senders can disable links, and links expire after 30 days. Revoking an invitation prevents new acceptances; it does not remove people who already joined. New installers need to reopen the original invitation after installation. A pending invitation is kept on the device until accepted or dismissed.

Communities, partner requests and messages

Public communities list their name, sport, region and description; anyone with a player profile can join. Membership makes member names and shared group content visible to other members. Partner requests show your name, selected venue, sport and planned time to the audience you choose: friends only or other players. They expire two hours after the planned start and do not mean you are currently present.

In-app messages are stored on our service and are available only to accepted friends in that conversation or members of that group. They are not end-to-end encrypted. Authorized moderators can review reported messages. Blocking prevents direct messaging and hides that player's messages from you. Message alerts are optional, and each conversation can be muted. Deleting your account removes messages you sent; deleting a group removes its conversations. Other people may retain copies they made.

Places and optional check-ins

Place searches go to Apple Maps. If you request nearby games, iOS asks for location permission. The map sends its center to our service to find nearby venues and games; it does not create a check-in. You can search a city instead. Suggested venues store the selected venue’s name, address, coordinates, sports, and practical details in the directory, together with the submitting account. Suggested venues are not verified until reviewed. These are venue coordinates, not a continuous device-location feed.

Checking in is a separate, explicit action. You can contribute to a public count without showing your name, share your name and venue with one group, or choose both. The server links the check-in to your account to prevent duplicates; public count sharing is unnamed to other players, not anonymous to the service. Public responses contain counts, not account identifiers. Counts represent current voluntary app check-ins, not everyone present or proof of attendance.

Check-ins expire after one hour. Extend renews that hour; “I’ve left” removes the record. Expired check-ins immediately stop appearing in counts or group presence and are removed by routine server cleanup. We do not automatically check you in when you score, continuously track GPS, or publish your location in the background.

Optional usage insights

Anonymous usage reporting is off by default. If you enable it in Settings, the app sends counters for sports played and features used. If you also use the nearby map, counters may include country and state or region. Reports contain no account or device identifiers, precise coordinates, names, contacts, team names, or scores. We combine these reports into daily totals. A random upload receipt is kept for up to 90 days to prevent counting retries twice; it is not a player identifier. Turning reporting off discards unsent counters and stops future uploads. Aggregated totals cannot be traced back to or removed for a particular person.

Notifications and moderation

Alerts start off. If enabled, we store a device push token and your friend, group, game, and mute preferences to deliver relevant notifications through Apple. Delivery is best-effort. The app suppresses its own foreground notification banners, including over the scoreboard. iPhone Settings controls system notification permissions.

Reports include the reporting account, the reported item, your explanation, and review status. Authorized moderators can review reports, remove inappropriate content, and restrict abusive accounts. Blocking stops direct connections and invitations and hides shared presence; existing group results remain shared within that group. Contact support@pickupgamer.com for safety or privacy concerns.

Storage, retention, and deletion

The Play together service is hosted with OpenAI Sites on Cloudflare Workers and a managed SQL database. The hosting providers process connection and security information such as IP addresses and request details. Application rate limits use hashed IP values temporarily for sign-in protection and anonymous-report rate limiting. Aggregate daily counts measure actions such as accepted invitations, games reaching enough players, and shared results; these counters do not contain names, contact details, or device fingerprints.

Social records remain while needed for the feature or until deleted. Sessions expire after 30 days, invitation links after 30 days, and the update inbox is retained for up to 90 days before routine cleanup. Short-lived failed push deliveries are retried for up to an hour. Reports are retained for review and safety follow-up. Expiration excludes records immediately even if physical cleanup runs later.

Use Your profile to export social data or delete the social account. Deletion removes your profile, sessions, friends, requests, invitations, check-ins, memberships, and groups you own, and disconnects Sign in with Apple. Results in other people’s groups remain as shared history, with account references removed and embedded registered-player identity replaced with “Former member.” Team labels and already-shared score images may still identify people. Deletion does not retract copies others made or delete the separate local scoreboard history or earlier iCloud data. You can delete local teams and results in the app; uninstalling alone does not delete your social account.

Earlier iCloud circles

Older circles remain separate and are never automatically published or migrated. Their names, posts, invitations, sharing permissions and record metadata use Apple CloudKit private or shared databases. Earlier public check-ins use a publicly readable CloudKit database and include pseudonymous account metadata; they are not anonymous. Those older check-ins stop contributing after two hours but remain stored until deleted. Use the earlier circle’s sharing and check-out controls to leave, stop sharing or remove its check-in. Apple’s iCloud controls and privacy practices also apply.

Health, purchases, and feedback

Only an explicitly started Watch workout uses HealthKit, after your permission. Workouts and active energy go to Apple Health; Health data is not sent to the social service, groups or advertisers. Apple processes Premium purchases, and StoreKit verifies entitlement. We do not receive payment-card details.

Feedback contains text and attachments you choose to send and optional diagnostics such as app version, OS version and device model. Apple TestFlight may provide crash and beta usage information under its terms. Feedback is used to investigate and respond; please omit sensitive information that is not needed.

Contact and changes

Send privacy, deletion or safety questions to support@pickupgamer.com. This policy may change as the product develops; the date above identifies this version. See Apple’s privacy information for Apple services.