The short version: Kitty Catch is a game for cats, bought by their humans. To keep your purchases when you change phone, to remember your cat, and to run the leaderboards, the app now keeps some information on our servers. It is mostly about your cat — a name, a breed, a country. We ask for your email only when you buy something, and only so the purchase can follow you. No third-party trackers, and we never sell anything to anyone.
1. Who we are
Kitty Catch is made by Vasco Digital, South Africa. We are the responsible party (POPIA) and data controller (GDPR) for the personal information this app handles. For anything in this policy — questions, requests or complaints — contact our Information Officer at privacy@kitty-catch.com. We answer within 30 days.
We aim to meet the standards of South Africa's POPIA, the EU/UK GDPR, Canada's PIPEDA, Australia's Privacy Act 1988 and its Australian Privacy Principles, and US state privacy laws including the CCPA/CPRA — wherever you live. Section 12 sets out what that means for you specifically.
2. What we collect, and why
Here is everything, in plain terms.
A play account, created automatically. The first time you open Kitty Catch, the app quietly creates an anonymous account for your device. It has no email, no password and no name — it is just an identifier, so that your cat and your purchases have somewhere to belong. You are not asked to sign up and there is nothing to fill in.
Your cat's profile. Name, breed, year of birth, gender, colour, country and city, plus an optional photo you choose from your photo library. This is what makes the leaderboards readable and the app feel like it knows your cat. Most of it describes your cat rather than you — but city and country describe your household, so we treat the whole profile as personal information.
How the games are played. When a game starts and ends, we record which game, the score, the level reached, how many taps there were, and how long it lasted. The server times the run itself, which is how a leaderboard can reject an impossible score.
Your email address — only when you buy something. At your first purchase we ask for an email and send you a six-digit code. That attaches the email to the anonymous account you already had, so nothing is recreated and nothing is lost. It is what lets your games follow you to a new phone, lets us send a receipt, and lets a friend's gift code find you. There is still no password.
What you have bought. Which games and packs you own, and the record needed to prove it. We never see or store your card details — see section 5.
Gift codes you buy or redeem, and whether they have been used.
Why we are allowed to (GDPR lawful bases): performance of a contract for purchases, entitlements and the account they attach to; legitimate interests for running the game itself, syncing your cat's profile and keeping scores honest; consent for marketing email and for any optional analytics; and legal obligation for tax and purchase records.
3. What we still do not do
- No third-party trackers or analytics services. No Google Analytics, no Firebase Analytics, no Facebook SDK, nothing of that kind.
- No camera. The app does not request camera access and takes no photos. You may pick an existing picture from your photo library; that is all.
- No location. We never read your device's location. The country and city on your cat's profile are the ones you typed in yourself.
- No microphone, no contacts, no reading of other apps.
- No passwords. There is nothing to breach, because we never ask for one.
- We never sell or rent personal information.
4. Permissions the app asks for
Internet access — so the app can sync your cat, save your scores and confirm your purchases. The game itself is built to work offline; if there is no connection it simply carries on and syncs later.
Photo library — only when you tap to choose a photo for your cat's profile, and only the picture you pick. You can skip it entirely; the app works fine without one.
5. Purchases
Payment is handled entirely by Google Play (and, in future, the Apple App Store) under their own privacy policies. We never see or store your card details — not the number, not the expiry, nothing.
What we do receive is the receipt the store gives your device. We check it directly with the store to confirm it is genuine, and then record that you own that game. This is also why a refund is honoured: if the store tells us a purchase was refunded, the game locks again on the next sync.
6. Leaderboards — what other people can see
If your household has bought something, your cat can appear on the public leaderboards. Everyone using Kitty Catch can then see your cat's name, country flag, breed, photo (if you added one) and score.
Nothing else is ever shown: not your email, not your city, not your cat's year of birth, colour or gender, and nothing that identifies you as the owner. If you would rather not appear at all, tell us at privacy@kitty-catch.com and we will remove your cat from the boards.
7. Children
Kitty Catch is made for cat owners and is not directed at children. It is not designed for, marketed to, or age-targeted at children under 13 (United States, under the COPPA rules), under 13–16 depending on the country (EU/UK), or minors elsewhere, and purchases are for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided information to us, contact privacy@kitty-catch.com and we will delete it immediately.
8. Where your information is kept
Kitty Catch's database is hosted by Supabase, our processor, in the European Union (Ireland). Vasco Digital is in South Africa, so our staff access that data from South Africa.
For people in the EU or UK, that access is a transfer outside the EEA. South Africa has no EU adequacy decision, so we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses with an accompanying transfer impact assessment. Keeping the data itself in Ireland is a deliberate choice: your information does not leave the EU merely because we are South African.
9. What is built but not switched on
Two things exist in the app and are deliberately turned off:
- App-usage analytics. The app can record simple counters — that a game was opened, that a level was reached — and we have built the place for them to go. Sending them is switched off. Nothing of that kind currently leaves your device. When we turn it on, we will update this policy and the store's data-safety declaration in the same release, and ask for consent where consent is required. We will not quietly begin collecting under this policy.
- Marketing email. We send none today. See section 13.
10. How long we keep things — and how to delete them
We keep your cat's profile, scores and purchases for as long as you use Kitty Catch. You are always in control:
- On your device — open Settings → Start over. This clears the cat profile, photo, scores, unlocks and gift codes from that device. It does not delete our copy.
- On our servers — email privacy@kitty-catch.com with "Data deletion" in the subject, and we delete your account and everything attached to it within 30 days, confirming in writing when it is done.
- Uninstalling the app removes its data from that device, but tells us nothing — use the email route above if you want our copy gone too.
10a. What deletion will not remove
Two things survive a deletion request — and the law expects them to:
- Purchase and tax records — the record of a transaction (the email or account identifier it was made under, what was bought, when, and the amount). South African tax law requires transaction records to be retained, and both POPIA and the GDPR allow personal information to be kept where a legal obligation requires it. We keep these for five years, use them only for accounting, tax, refunds and dispute resolution, and delete them at the end of that period. We do not use them for marketing.
- Gift codes already issued — a code you bought for someone else stays valid until it is redeemed or expires, so that deleting your data never cancels a gift your friend is still holding. The code record keeps what it must to be honoured, not your profile.
Everything else — cat profiles, photos, scores, leaderboard entries, settings and your contact details — is deleted.
11. Your rights
- Access & correction — your cat's profile is visible and editable in the app at any time. For a copy of everything we hold, email us.
- Deletion — see section 10.
- Objection & restriction — you can ask us to stop using your information for anything that is not strictly needed to run the game or honour a purchase, including removing your cat from the leaderboards.
- Portability — ask and we will send you your data in a machine-readable file.
- Marketing — opt-in only, and every email carries an unsubscribe link.
- Complaints — you may lodge a complaint with the South African Information Regulator, or your local data protection authority.
12. Where you live
Kitty Catch is sold worldwide from South Africa. We apply the same standard to everyone — collect nothing we don't need, never sell it, delete on request — and these are the specifics for your country.
- South Africa (POPIA) — Vasco Digital is the responsible party and has an appointed Information Officer, reachable at privacy@kitty-catch.com. You may ask what we hold, have it corrected or deleted, object to processing, and complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) at complaints.IR@inforegulator.org.za.
- European Union / United Kingdom (GDPR, UK GDPR) — you have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to complain to your national supervisory authority or the UK ICO. Our lawful bases are set out at the end of section 2, and section 8 explains where your data is kept and how transfers are covered. If and when Article 27 applies to us, we will appoint an EU (and UK) representative and name them here.
- Canada (PIPEDA, Quebec Law 25) — we collect only with your knowledge and consent, use information only for the purposes described here, and give you access on request. You may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or to the Commission d'accès à l'information for Quebec residents.
- Australia (Privacy Act 1988, Australian Privacy Principles) — we handle personal information in line with the APPs, including access and correction, and we do so regardless of whether the small-business turnover exemption would apply to us. You may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
- United States (CCPA/CPRA and other state laws) — we do not sell or share personal information, we run no targeted advertising, and we offer no financial incentives for your data. You have the right to know, delete, correct and opt out; we honour those requests from residents of any state, whether or not the law's thresholds apply to us. Email privacy@kitty-catch.com.
13. Email and marketing
The Kitty Catch newsletter is opt-in — the tick-box is off unless you turn it on. Every marketing email we ever send will identify Vasco Digital, carry a working unsubscribe link, and honour your opt-out promptly. That is our commitment under South Africa's POPIA section 69, Canada's CASL, Australia's Spam Act 2003, the US CAN-SPAM Act and the UK's PECR.
Transactional email — a receipt, a six-digit sign-in code, a gift code — is not marketing and is sent because you asked for it.
One specific promise about gifts: when you buy a gift, we send the gift email because you asked us to deliver it, and that is all. We do not add gift recipients to any marketing list unless they separately opt in themselves.
14. If something goes wrong
If personal information we hold is ever lost or exposed, we will notify the South African Information Regulator and the people affected as POPIA requires; the relevant EU/UK supervisory authority within 72 hours under the GDPR; the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and affected individuals where there is a real risk of significant harm; the OAIC under Australia's Notifiable Data Breaches scheme; and US state regulators as their laws require.
15. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The latest version always lives at this address, with the date at the top.
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