1. Who is responsible
ELM HQ is the developer and operator responsible for the game services described here. For privacy questions or requests, email contact@elm-hq.com. For technical or purchase help, use game support. Please identify the game in your request. Never send passwords, verification codes or full payment-card details.
2. Core gameplay and information on your device
You can play the core puzzles without an ELM account or the online Eliza director. The game saves progress, settings, purchases remembered by the app, and a gameplay profile locally. The profile includes puzzle choices, attempts, mistakes, timings, strategies, session dates and a randomly generated player reference. An optional nickname lets the game address you personally.
This information makes progress persistent and lets the fictional antagonist react to how you play. It is not a psychological or medical assessment, and these reactions do not mean an AI model is trained on each playthrough. The core game does not read your contacts, photo library, private ELM messages or health records, or watch you through a camera or microphone.
3. Optional ELM account and purchases
If you sign in, ELM services process your account identifier, authentication information, device/session identifier and session credentials to authenticate you and link supported purchases and credits to the right account. Where Sign in with Apple is offered, Apple provides the sign-in identity information you authorise; a private relay email can be used when you choose Apple’s Hide My Email option. Do not enter an Apple or Google password into an ELM password field.
For purchases, we process product and transaction identifiers, verification receipts or tokens, account binding, entitlements, credit amounts and wallet transaction records. These records validate purchases, prevent duplicate grants or charges, deliver extras and handle support, refunds and fraud. Apple or Google handles store payment information; the game’s credit service does not receive your full payment-card details. Signing out does not erase an account, refund a purchase or remove financial records.
4. Optional online Eliza director and game help
The online director is off by default. When you enable it, the game can send gameplay context, recent in-game events, a compact gameplay summary and pseudonymous player/session references to ELM’s game endpoint to request contextual narration. If you separately enable “Let Eliza use my nickname”, your nickname may be included in the online greeting. You can disable either choice in Settings.
The game director uses a game-specific processing path. It is not given access to your private ELM conversations, general Eliza conversation memory, health information, camera or microphone. It is not a route for Eliza to make purchases or control your account. Gameplay processing is separate from using the general Eliza app, which has its own privacy notice. Disabling the director stops new director requests; it does not automatically delete existing server or security records.
“Ask Eliza · game help” is a separate, optional game-support feature. After you enable sharing and send a question, it sends your question, up to six recent messages from that help screen and limited game-screen context to the game-specific service. You may explicitly attach a screenshot captured from this game only: the app shows a preview before attachment, lets you remove it, and uploads it only when you send your question. Check that preview for information you do not want to share. Shared screenshots are analysed by our owned visual-processing service to explain app controls, errors or layout problems, not to solve puzzles or complete the game for you. The help feature does not import your general Eliza conversations or browse your photo library. Closing the help conversation or withdrawing sharing stops further submissions, but does not automatically erase support or security records already processed.
5. Advertising, where enabled
Ad-enabled mobile releases use Google Mobile Ads (AdMob) and Google’s consent tools. The current integration requests non-personalised ads and checks whether ads may be requested before loading them. Non-personalised does not mean no data is processed: Google may receive IP addresses, approximate location inferred from IP, device or advertising identifiers, ad interactions and diagnostic information for ad delivery, measurement, security and fraud prevention. The data depends on platform, permissions and your choices.
The game does not supply your ELM login credentials, messages, health information, nickname or gameplay behaviour profile to the advertising SDK. Where advertising privacy choices are available, use Settings → Advertising privacy choices and your device’s privacy controls. Advertising is not enabled in every build or on every platform. See Google’s Privacy Policy and Google’s advertising information.
6. Support, website visits and technical records
If you contact us, we process the messages, contact details, screenshots and transaction references you choose to provide to investigate and respond. The ELM HQ support widget includes the page title and URL with your message. Avoid including unrelated personal or sensitive information in attachments.
Connecting to game services or visiting these website pages exposes ordinary network and technical information, such as your IP address, request time, requested page or endpoint, browser/app details and error information. Website visitor measurement can also use a browser visitor identifier, referrer and approximate location derived from IP. These website records are separate from the gameplay profile saved on your device. We use operational records to run and protect services, understand service usage and investigate failures.
7. Why we process information and who receives it
We process information to provide the features you request, authenticate accounts, deliver and verify purchases, answer support requests, secure services and improve reliability. Depending on the processing, the legal basis is performing our agreement with you, your consent for optional processing where required, our legitimate interests in secure and reliable services balanced against your rights, or a legal obligation such as financial record keeping.
Information is handled by relevant ELM HQ/ELM/Eliza service components and authorised operators, and by providers necessary for hosting, authentication, store purchases and, where enabled, advertising. Apple and Google also process information under their own policies. We require providers acting on our behalf to protect information and use it for the agreed purposes. Information may also be disclosed where legally required or necessary to establish or defend legal claims.
Our core infrastructure is operated in Europe. Store and advertising providers may process information in other countries. Where required, international transfers must use applicable safeguards, such as adequacy decisions or approved contractual protections. Contact us to ask about safeguards relevant to your data.
8. Retention and deletion
Local progress and the gameplay profile remain until you erase progress or remove the relevant app data. Settings → Erase all progress removes progress and the behaviour profile, but keeps settings and purchases. Device or operating-system backups may retain their own copies under your backup settings.
Account links and entitlements are retained as needed to provide and restore account-linked features. Purchase and wallet records are retained for reconciliation, fraud prevention, disputes and applicable financial/legal requirements; deleting local progress or signing out does not delete them. Support and operational records are retained according to the purpose, unresolved issues, security needs and applicable legal obligations, rather than indefinitely for unrelated purposes. A deletion request is assessed against these requirements, and we will explain any records that must be retained. Retained backup copies may not disappear immediately when live data is deleted.
9. Your controls and rights
You can play without signing in, turn the online director and nickname sharing off, change advertising choices where offered, sign out, and erase local gameplay progress. To request access, correction, deletion, restriction or portability of server-held personal data, or to object to relevant processing or withdraw consent, contact contact@elm-hq.com. Tell us whether your request concerns game data, an ELM account or both; we may need proportionate identity verification. The rights available depend on applicable law and the processing involved. Withdrawing consent does not undo lawful processing already performed.
Parents or guardians concerned that a young player has provided personal information can contact us through the same address. Follow the game’s store age rating and the age/consent requirements for optional accounts and online services. You may complain to your local data-protection authority; in the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office.
10. Security and changes
We use safeguards including authenticated service access, encrypted network connections for game account services and server-side purchase validation. No system is guaranteed completely secure. We will update this policy when relevant features or processing change and show the new date here. Material changes requiring notice or consent will be presented as appropriate.
This is the game’s privacy policy, not a promise that every optional feature is available in every release. The App Store privacy label and Google Play Data safety answers must describe the actual build distributed.