Privacy Policy for "Geography"

Last updated: 9 June 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how the mobile application "Geography" (the "App") handles your information. It applies to the App as distributed via the Google Play Store and is written to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA (CCPA/CPRA), and Google Play's User Data and Families policies.

We have designed Geography to be privacy-friendly and offline-first: the quiz, the country lexicon, your scores, and all core features work entirely on your device without a network connection. The only feature that transmits data off your device is advertising (see Section 4).

1. Controller

The controller responsible for data processing within the meaning of Art. 4(7) GDPR is:

Oliver Klenow

c/o Online-Impressum #7868

Europaring 90

53757 Sankt Augustin

Germany

Email: contact.oliverkl@protonmail.com

For all questions regarding data protection and to exercise your rights, please contact us at the email address above.

2. Summary at a glance

- Account / login: None. No registration, no user account, no profile.

- Scores, quiz history, settings: Stored only on your device; never transmitted to us.

- Advertising: Google AdMob shows ads when you are online. Google processes data such as your advertising ID and IP address.

- Consent: For users in the EEA, UK and Switzerland, a Google-certified consent dialog is shown before personalized ads are served.

- Analytics / tracking by us: None. We run no analytics, no crash reporting, and operate no servers of our own.

- Sensitive permissions: None. No location, camera, microphone, contacts, or storage access.

3. Data processed on your device only

To provide the App's features, the following data is created and stored locally on your device (using Android's Room database and DataStore). This data is not transmitted to us or to any third party and is not accessible to us:

- Game progress and statistics: your high scores, completed quiz sessions, score history, the quiz category, mode and difficulty, the number of questions, your correct/total counts, and the date/time a quiz was played.

- App settings: your selected theme (light/dark/system) and other in-app preferences.

- Consent status: your advertising consent choice (managed by Google's User Messaging Platform, see Section 5).

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (provision of the service you requested) and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in providing an app that reliably remembers your progress and settings).

Retention / deletion: This data remains on your device until you delete it. You can remove it at any time by clearing the App's data (Android Settings > Apps > Geography > Storage > "Clear storage") or by uninstalling the App.

Android Auto Backup: Because the App permits Android's automatic backup feature, the local data described above may be included in the device backup that your operating system creates and stores in your personal Google Drive account. This backup is controlled by you and by Google under Google's terms; we have no access to it. You can disable backups in your device's system settings.

4. Advertising (Google AdMob)

The App is financed through advertising. We use Google AdMob, a service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland ("Google"). Ads are shown as "native ads" after a completed quiz and are only requested when your device is online.

To deliver and measure ads and to prevent ad fraud, Google's Mobile Ads SDK may collect and process the following data:

- the advertising identifier (Android Advertising ID / AAID),

- your IP address (from which an approximate, coarse location may be derived),

- device information (e.g. device type, operating system version, language, app version),

- ad interaction data (e.g. which ads were shown, viewed or clicked, frequency capping),

- diagnostic information (e.g. crash logs and performance/latency data),

- technical identifiers used for spam and fraud prevention.

Depending on your consent (Section 5), ads are served as either personalized or non-personalized. Non-personalized ads still rely on coarse, contextual and technical data (e.g. for frequency capping and fraud prevention) but are not based on a profile of your interests.

With respect to this advertising data, Google and the developer each act as independent controllers for most processing operations, while Google acts as our processor for certain limited features, in line with Google's published data-processing terms. The categories of data described here are reflected in this app's Google Play Data Safety disclosure. Further information on how Google processes data and your choices is available here:

- Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

- How Google uses information from apps that use its services: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

- About AdMob and user data: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/6128543

Legal basis: For personalized advertising and any storage of/access to information on your device that is not strictly necessary, the legal basis is your consent pursuant to Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and § 25(1) TDDDG (the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act, formerly the TTDSG). For non-personalized advertising, fraud prevention and the basic display of ads, the legal basis is our legitimate interest in financing the App pursuant to Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

5. Consent management (Google User Messaging Platform)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the App displays a consent dialog before serving personalized ads, using Google's User Messaging Platform (UMP) within the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF v2.3). Your choice is stored locally on your device and transmitted to advertising partners as a standardized consent signal.

You can change or withdraw your consent at any time, with effect for the future, via the in-app menu under "Privacy settings". Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent); for the consent management itself, Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR (compliance with our legal obligation to obtain and document consent).

6. Advertising ID

Android provides a user-resettable advertising identifier. You can reset this ID or instruct apps not to use it for personalized advertising at any time in your device settings under Settings > Privacy > Ads (the exact path may vary by device). Resetting or deleting the advertising ID limits the ability of advertising partners to build a profile based on it.

7. Internet connection and server logs

We do not operate any backend server of our own, and we do not create or store server-side log files about you. When the App requests an ad, your device connects directly to Google's advertising servers; the associated processing is described in Section 4 and is governed by Google's privacy policy. The INTERNET and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE permissions are used solely to load ads and to detect whether a network connection is available.

8. Recipients and international data transfers

Apart from Google (in its role as our advertising and consent-management provider, and as your operating system / backup provider), we do not share data with any third parties. We do not sell personal data.

Google may process data on servers outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Google LLC participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and relies on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses as appropriate safeguards for such transfers pursuant to Art. 46 GDPR. You can request a copy of these safeguards from Google.

9. Data we do NOT collect

We want to be explicit. The App does not:

- require or create any user account, and does not ask for your name, email address, or phone number;

- access your location (GPS), camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, photos, or files;

- contain any analytics, tracking or crash-reporting SDK operated by us (e.g. no Firebase Analytics, no Crashlytics);

- send your scores, quiz history, or settings to us or to any server.

10. Your rights

Subject to the conditions of the GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

- Right of access (Art. 15 GDPR)

- Right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR)

- Right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR)

- Right to restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)

- Right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR)

- Right to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR)

- Right to withdraw consent at any time (Art. 7(3) GDPR) - see Section 5

- Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR)

Because we do not store personal data on any server of our own:

- Data stored on your device can be exercised by you directly: you can erase it at any time by clearing the App's data or uninstalling the App.

- Advertising data processed by Google is subject to Google's controls; please use the resources in Section 4 and Google's privacy tools to access, restrict or delete it.

- For any further requests, contact us at contact.oliverkl@protonmail.com.

You may also contact your local data protection authority. The supervisory authority responsible for the controller is the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia (LDI NRW), Germany.

11. Additional information for users in specific regions

The rights and disclosures in Sections 4-10 apply to all users. Depending on where you live, the following additional rules also apply.

11.1 California residents (CCPA/CPRA)

This section supplements the information above for residents of California.

Categories of personal information. Through the advertising described in Section 4, the following statutory categories may be collected by our advertising provider: identifiers (e.g. advertising ID, IP address, device identifiers); internet or other electronic network activity (e.g. ad interactions and diagnostics); coarse geolocation inferred from the IP address; and inferences used to deliver personalized advertising. We do not collect or hold these ourselves.

"Sale" / "sharing". We do not sell your personal information for monetary payment. However, using identifiers for personalized (cross-context behavioral) advertising may qualify as a "sale" or "sharing" under the CCPA/CPRA.

Your right to opt out. You can opt out of this "sale"/"sharing" at any time by declining personalized advertising in the in-app "Privacy settings" (Section 5) and/or by limiting or resetting your device's advertising ID (Section 6). Where supported, opt-out preference signals such as Global Privacy Control that are transmitted to our advertising provider are honored.

Further rights. California residents also have the right to know, delete, and correct personal information, and the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising these rights. Requests concerning advertising data should be directed to Google (see Section 4); for any other request, contact us at contact.oliverkl@protonmail.com.

11.2 Other regions

Depending on your location, additional or equivalent data-protection laws may apply - for example the UK GDPR, the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), or Brazil's LGPD. We process personal data in accordance with the law applicable to your region. To exercise region-specific rights, contact us at contact.oliverkl@protonmail.com.

12. Permissions used

- INTERNET: Load advertisements when online.

- ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE: Detect whether a network connection is available before requesting an ad.

- com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID: Access the advertising ID for ad delivery (added by the Google Mobile Ads SDK).

The App explicitly removes the notifications permission and requests no other sensitive permissions.

13. Children's privacy

Geography is a general-audience educational quiz and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. Advertising shown in the App is requested with content settings appropriate for a general audience. If you believe a child has provided personal data through the advertising features, please contact us and adjust the advertising consent settings (Section 5) or the device's advertising settings (Section 6).

14. Data security

All game and settings data is stored within the App's private, sandboxed storage area, which other apps cannot access under Android's security model. Connections to Google's advertising servers are encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS).

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to the App or to legal requirements. The current version is always available at the link provided in the Google Play Store listing and within the App. Material changes will be indicated by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this document.

16. Contact

Oliver Klenow

c/o Online-Impressum #7868

Europaring 90

53757 Sankt Augustin

Germany

Email: contact.oliverkl@protonmail.com