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Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 9, 2026
Last updated: August 25, 2026

1. Introduction

Island Cookie Shop LLC ("we", "us") respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy outlines what data we collect, why we collect it, and how we handle it. We operate on a principle of "Data Minimization"—we only collect what is strictly necessary to provide the Service.

2. Information We Collect

We operate two services, and they collect different things. This section is split accordingly.

2.1 flashcardaudit.com (Flashcard Audits)

  • Email Address: Required to deliver your audit results and provide customer support.
  • User Content (Flashcards): The .apkg files you upload. These contain your flashcard text, images, audio, and scheduling data.
  • Payment Information: Processed entirely by Stripe. We do not store or see your full credit card number.
  • Technical Data: IP addresses and browser headers (required for security and fraud prevention via Cloudflare).

2.2 Arena (Mobile App)

  • Account Identity: If you sign in, we store the account identifier supplied by your sign-in provider and the display name you choose. You can browse and play without an account; signing in is what makes your progress follow you to a new device.
  • Gameplay Data: The questions you are shown, the answers you give, how long you take, and the ratings, levels, streaks, and skill standings derived from them. This is the Service: without it there is no rating to show you.
  • Guild Membership: Which guilds you belong to and your standing within them. Guilds are invite-only, and your standing is visible to the other members of that guild.
  • Subscription Status: Whether you hold an active Arena membership, and the permanent member number issued when you first subscribed. Purchases are made through Apple or Google, and we never see your card details.
  • Camera (only while you are scanning): Arena can read a guild invite QR code with your device's camera, and asks for camera access the first time you open the scanner. The camera view is processed on your device to look for a QR code and nothing else: no photo or video is recorded, stored, or sent to us or to anyone else, and Arena never opens the camera outside that screen. You can decline, or turn the permission off later, and still join any guild by typing the invite code.
  • Notifications (only if you allow them): Arena can send you a reminder to keep a study streak alive, and asks your permission the first time. The reminders are scheduled and fired on your own device from your local study history. Declining costs you nothing else in the app, and you can turn them off at any time in your system settings.
  • Local network (development builds only): Arena declares local-network access so a developer build can talk to the development tools on the same machine. The released app makes no use of it, nothing about your network is read, and nothing is sent to us.
  • Device and Diagnostic Data: Device model, operating system version, app version, crash reports, and an app-integrity token used to confirm that requests come from a genuine copy of the app. We do not collect advertising identifiers and we do not build an advertising profile of you.

3. Analytics

In Arena: most of what we measure, the app reports to our own servers directly. We also use Google Firebase (Analytics, Crashlytics, and Remote Config) for crash reporting, aggregate usage measurement, and feature configuration. There is no advertising SDK in the app, we do not collect advertising identifiers, and we do not build an advertising profile of you. We use these reports to see which features are used, to find crashes, and to tune how questions are selected. They are tied to your account so that your own progress is correct, and they are never sold or used for advertising.

You can turn this off. Crash and usage reporting is optional. Arena asks about it when you first open the app, and leaves a "Share anonymous diagnostics" switch in Settings you can change at any time. Turning it off stops Firebase collection and the optional half of our own reporting. A small amount of essential reporting continues, because it is what keeps your ratings and purchases correct.

On flashcardaudit.com: we use Vercel Web Analytics to understand website traffic and performance. This tool is cookie-free and designed to respect user privacy.

  • No Personal Profiling: It does not track your browsing history across other websites.
  • Data Minimization: It collects anonymized metrics (e.g., browser type, geography, page load speeds). Visitor IPs are anonymized and not stored permanently.
  • No "Consent Banner" Needed: Because this data is anonymized and strictly necessary for benchmarking our site's performance, it typically does not require a "Cookie Consent" opt-in.

4. How We Use Data

  • To Provide the Audit Service: We process your flashcards to generate "QualityScores" and audit reports.
  • To Provide Arena: We use your gameplay data to work out your ratings and skill standings, decide which question to show you next, keep streaks and guild leaderboards accurate, and grant membership benefits. Arena carries no advertising, and we neither sell this data nor share it for advertising.
  • Communication: We use your email to send: (a) your audit results (Transactional); and (b) occasional updates or newsletters about the Service (Marketing). You may unsubscribe from Marketing emails at any time.

5. Data Retention

  • Raw Uploads: We automatically interpret and delete your raw .apkg files from our processing servers within 30 days of upload.
  • Anonymized Data: We may retain indefinitely (a) aggregated, anonymized statistics derived from your User Content (e.g., "Average score for Anatomy cards"); and (b) de-identified text excerpts, structural transformations, and underlying factual concepts derived from your User Content. This anonymized data is essential for maintaining our global card registry, improving the "QualityScore" algorithm, conducting internal research, and powering related educational tools, features, and services across our platform. It cannot be linked back to you and is not used to train third-party generative AI models.
  • Email Records: We retain email addresses indefinitely to maintain a record of your audit history, unless you request deletion.
  • Arena Account Data: Your account, ratings, history, membership record, and guild memberships are kept until you delete your account, which you can do at any time from inside the app or through Delete Your Account. Deletion is immediate and permanent.
  • Arena Usage Analytics: Performance and usage records expire automatically within 12 to 24 months depending on the record. Once your account is deleted, nothing in them identifies you.

6. Third-Party "Sub-Processors"

We share specific data with the following trusted third-party vendors to operate the Service:

  • Google Cloud (GCP/Vertex AI): AI Model Inference & Compute (Iowa, US).
  • Supabase: Database hosting (Ohio, US).
  • Cloudflare & Vercel: Security (DDoS protection), DNS, and Hosting (Global Edge Network).
  • Vercel Analytics: Website traffic measurement and performance monitoring (Data is anonymized).
  • Stripe: Payment processing.
  • Upstash: Rate limiting and caching.
  • Resend: Sending transactional and marketing emails.
  • Google Firebase: for the Arena mobile app. Firebase Authentication (sign-in), Firebase Crashlytics (crash reporting), Firebase Analytics (usage measurement), Firebase Remote Config (feature configuration), and Firebase App Check (app-integrity checks).
  • RevenueCat: Managing Arena membership entitlements. It receives your account identifier and the receipt issued by the app store, never your payment details.
  • Apple and Google: Processing Arena membership purchases through their respective app stores. Your payment details are held by them under their own privacy policies, and are never shared with us.

7. International Transfers

The Service is hosted in the United States. If you access the Service from the European Union (EU) or other regions, you acknowledge and consent to your data being transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have different data protection laws than your jurisdiction.

8. Children's Privacy

Neither service is for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If a parent or guardian discovers that their child under 13 has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Above that floor the two differ, matching our Terms of Service. The audit service on flashcardaudit.com is for adults only (18+), because it involves payment and a content license. Arena is available from 13, because it is a study app and students are who it is for. Users between 13 and 17 need a parent or guardian's permission to use Arena, and any membership purchase is made through an adult's app store account.

Where local law sets a higher minimum age for consenting to data processing (for example 16 in parts of the European Economic Area), that higher age applies in your jurisdiction.

9. Your Privacy Rights (GDPR, CCPA, & Other Privacy Laws)

We operate under the principle of data minimization and strive to extend core privacy rights to all our users, regardless of their geographic location.

  • For European Economic Area (EEA) and UK Users (GDPR): We process your personal data under specific "Lawful Bases." Processing your email and uploaded files is necessary for the performance of a contract (delivering the audit Service you requested). We rely on our legitimate business interests to cache anonymized data to improve site performance, maintain security, and prevent fraud. Under the GDPR, you have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, or object to our processing of your personal data, as well as the right to data portability.
  • For California Residents (CCPA/CPRA): While Island Cookie Shop LLC may not currently meet the statutory revenue or data-volume thresholds that strictly mandate CCPA compliance, we voluntarily grant you the right to know what personal information we collect, the right to request its deletion, and the right to non-discrimination for exercising these rights. We explicitly do not sell or "share" (for cross-context behavioral advertising) your personal information to third parties.
  • Exercising Your Rights: To request the deletion of your email, raw uploaded files, or cached data, or to exercise any of the rights listed above, please contact us via our Contact Page.
  • Deleting Your Arena Account: You can delete your Arena account and everything tied to it from inside the app, in Settings, and it takes effect immediately. You do not need the app installed to ask us to do it. See Delete Your Account for exactly what is erased. Anonymized usage analytics are an exception: once your account is gone nothing in them identifies you, and they expire automatically within 12 to 24 months.

10. Changes to This Policy

We will update this Policy as our services change. Every revision changes the "Last updated" date at the top of this page, so that date is the reliable signal that something has moved.

  • Material Changes: If we begin collecting a new category of personal data, use existing data for a genuinely new purpose, or add a sub-processor that changes where your data goes, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention before it takes effect, such as a notice on this site or in the Arena app. Continued use after that point constitutes acceptance of the revised Policy.
  • No Retroactive Reduction: We will not retroactively apply a materially less protective policy to personal data we have already collected without asking for your consent first.
  • Prior Versions: Every version of this Policy is kept, and you may request an earlier one through our Contact Page.