Last updated 12 October 2026
Privacy policy
This explains what QuizDown collects, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it. We wrote it to match how the game actually works. It applies under South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and, for players in the EU or UK, the GDPR.
The short version
- We collect what the game needs to run: your name, your games and, if you choose, an email address. We don’t sell data, show ads, or use analytics, tracking pixels or session recording.
- Your public profile, scores and recordings of your matches are seen by other players. That’s how leaderboards and recorded opponents work.
- You can download everything we hold about you, or delete your account, from Settings at any time.
What we collect
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Display name, avatar, colour; for accounts, a handle and a password (stored only as a salted PBKDF2 hash) | To show you to opponents and let you sign in |
| Month and year of birth, and when you accepted these terms (and, for players under 18, when you confirmed a parent or guardian agreed) | To apply our age rules and keep a record of consent. We never ask for your full date of birth |
| Email address (optional) | Password resets and receipts; marketing emails only if you switch them on |
| Country, province and bio (optional) | Shown on your profile and used for country and province leaderboards |
| Your matches: questions, answers, how long each took, scores, ratings, levels, achievements, quests, rewards, leagues, follows and challenges | To run matches, rankings and progress. Your answers and timings are replayed as a “recorded run” for other players, with your name and avatar |
| Finding friends: a scrambled (hashed) copy of your email, and of your phone number if you add one. When you look for friends from your contacts, your phone scrambles their emails and numbers the same way before sending them; we compare them and keep none of them | So friends who have your details can find you, and you can find them. Turn it off any time in Settings (“Let friends find me from their contacts”); they’d then only find you by searching your name or handle |
| Invites: whose invite link you joined with, and who joined with yours | To give you and your friend the invite reward. The person who invited you sees your name and avatar on their invite page |
| Questions you report or submit, and the reason you give | Moderation |
| Sign-in sessions: a hashed token, a device label such as “Chrome on Android”, and when it was used | Keeping you signed in, and letting you sign out everywhere |
| If you turn on reminders or the fact of the day: your browser’s push address and its encryption keys, the hour you chose and your time zone offset | Sending the notifications you asked for. The keys let us encrypt each notification so only your device can read it |
| How you found QuizDown, if you arrived through a link: a couch party, a friend’s challenge or invite, a share card, a family link, or the app store | Learning which ways of finding the game work, so we don’t need to buy ads. Kept with your account |
| If you join the Press Pass: your plan, its dates, the payment reference and amount, and which screen you saw the offer on | Providing the membership, keeping tax records, and learning which offers work. We never see or store your card number |
| If you’re in a Family Pass: whose family you’re in. The holder sees each member’s name, handle and avatar | Providing the membership to the family |
| Your IP address, briefly | To stop abuse (limiting how often an address can sign in). We don’t store it; our host’s logs may hold it for a few days |
The launch list
If you leave your email address at quizdown.app before QuizDown opens, we keep only that address, the date, and the campaign link you came from (for example, an Instagram post). We use it for two emails: a confirmation straight away, and one email when QuizDown opens. After the launch email we delete your address. You can remove yourself sooner with the link in the confirmation email, or by writing to us. We don’t share the list with anyone.
What other players can see
Your name, handle, avatar, country, bio, levels, achievements, recent results, leaderboard positions and whether you’re a Press Pass member. Recordings of your matches can be played against other players. Couch-party players are only visible to the people in that room.
Children
You must be at least 13 to play. Players aged 13 to 17 need a parent or guardian’s permission, which we ask them to confirm when they start. They can’t buy the Press Pass or receive marketing emails. If you’re a parent or guardian and want your child’s account removed, email support@quizdown.app with their handle and we’ll delete it. If we learn that someone under 13 has an account, we delete it.
Who else handles your data
| Service | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting the game and its database, and sending our emails (password resets and the launch list) | Worldwide; the database is in western Europe (the EU) |
| PayFast (Payfast by Network) | Taking Press Pass payments and gifts on the web. You enter your card or bank details on PayFast’s own page, never ours. PayFast tells us the payment reference, amount and status, your email address, and a token for renewing your subscription; never your card number | South Africa |
| Google Play | Taking Press Pass payments (only if you subscribe through Google Play in the Android app). Google tells us the purchase reference and its status, never your card details | Google’s own infrastructure |
| Your browser’s push service (Google, Mozilla or Apple) | Delivering reminders and the fact of the day (only if you turn them on). The text is encrypted so the push service can’t read it | Their own infrastructure |
Because our database is in the European Union, your information is transferred out of South Africa. The EU’s data protection law (the GDPR) protects it to a standard at least comparable to POPIA, and Cloudflare is also bound by data-processing terms with us. The app loads nothing from any other company: fonts and icons are served by us.
How long we keep it
- Your account: until you delete it. Guest accounts are deleted after 30 days if they never played, or after a year without a visit.
- Match history: 30 days. Recordings: at most 180 days. Inbox: 30 days. Daily quests: 2 days. Sign-ins: 180 days after last use.
- Payment records: up to 6 years after the payment (tax law requires 5), even after you delete your account. They’re kept without your account details.
- Offer statistics (which screen you saw the Press Pass on): 13 months.
- The launch list: until the launch email is sent, or until you remove yourself.
Your rights
- See your data: Settings → Your data → Download my data gives you everything we hold, as a file.
- Correct it: edit your profile and email in Settings, or ask us.
- Delete it: Settings → Delete my account removes your account and personal data straight away, and cancels any subscription first. If you can’t sign in, email support@quizdown.app from the address on your account (or tell us your handle) and we’ll do it within 30 days.
- Object or withdraw consent: turn off reminders or marketing emails in Settings, or email us.
- Complain: to us first if you like, or to South Africa’s Information Regulator (inforeg.org.za). In the EU or UK, to your local data protection authority.
Security
Connections are encrypted, passwords and sign-in tokens are stored only as hashes, and staff access is limited to moderators and administrators, whose actions are logged. Payments are taken on PayFast’s PCI DSS-certified pages; we check every payment notification’s signature and sender, and confirm it with PayFast, before acting on it.
Our information officer, and asking for records
Kieser Group (Pty) Ltd’s information officer is Mikail Kieser. For anything in this policy, or to ask for records we hold under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA), email support@quizdown.app. Requests about your own data are free and are answered within 30 days.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, the app asks you to accept the new version before you carry on.