Privacy Policy — Poker Paw
Poker Paw (“the App”, “we”, “us”) is a poker study and training tool for No-Limit Hold’em. It is not a real-money gambling app — all chips are simulated and there are no cash prizes. This policy explains what data the App handles, where it goes, and your choices.
We built Poker Paw to be privacy-forward: it uses no third-party analytics, no advertising, and no cross-app tracking, and your personal hand data syncs through your own iCloud account, not our servers.
Contact for privacy questions: support@pandostudio.ai · Pando Studio LLC, 82 Wendell Ave, STE 100, Pittsfield, MA 01201.
1. Who we are
Poker Paw is developed by Pando Studio LLC (“the developer”), based in Massachusetts, USA. We are the data controller for the account and competition data described below.
2. What data we handle, and why
a) Account & identity
- When you first open the App you get an anonymous account — a random device identifier generated by Firebase Authentication. It contains no personal information.
- If you choose Sign in with Apple (required to appear on competition leaderboards or add friends), Apple provides us a stable, app-specific user ID and — only if you allow it — a private relay email address. We store your account ID and a display name that you choose. We never publish your real Apple name; leaderboards and friends only ever see the name you pick.
b) Your poker hands and session data
- Hands you log or play, session statistics, notes, and coaching results are stored locally on your device.
- If you enable iCloud, this data syncs across your own Apple devices through Apple’s iCloud/CloudKit in your private iCloud database. This sync happens under your Apple ID; we cannot read your iCloud-synced hand data.
c) AI coach
- When you ask the coach to review a hand or session, the relevant hand context is sent to our secure cloud function, which forwards it to Anthropic (the provider of the Claude AI model) to generate feedback. This is processed to produce your coaching response and returned to you.
d) Competitions, leaderboards, and friends
- If you enter a weekly competition, your competition submission (the decisions you made and the verified result) and your chosen display name are stored in Google Firebase (Firestore) so the App can verify results and build leaderboards.
- Leaderboards display your chosen display name and competition results to other users. Placement outside the top ranks is shown only as a coarse percentile, and the total number of players is never published.
- If you add friends, the friend relationship (both accounts) is stored in Firestore. Friend connections are mutual and created only through invite links you share.
e) Push notifications (optional)
- If you opt in to notifications, we store a device notification token (via Firebase Cloud Messaging / Apple Push Notification service) to send competition results and friend activity. You can turn these off at any time in iOS Settings.
f) Subscriptions
- If you subscribe to a paid tier, the purchase is handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. We receive a receipt/transaction identifier from Apple to confirm and maintain your subscription status. We never receive or store your payment card details.
g) Abuse prevention
- We use Apple App Check (device attestation) and server-side checks to protect the service from abuse and automated misuse. This does not track you across apps.
- We keep daily usage counts for your account — how many practice sessions, hands and drills you played, how many times you opened or used each feature of the App, and roughly how long the App was open that day — so we can understand how Poker Paw is used and keep the service running well. These are counts only: they never include your cards, your decisions, your results or your coaching content, and they are not used for advertising or shared with anyone.
3. What we do NOT do
- We do not use third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs.
- We do not show ads or use advertising identifiers.
- We do not track you across other apps or websites.
- We do not sell or rent your personal data to anyone.
4. Third parties who process data for us
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, iCloud sync, App Store payments, push delivery | Account ID, iCloud-synced personal data (private to you), subscription receipts, push token |
| Google Firebase | Authentication, competition/leaderboard/friend storage, cloud functions, push messaging, daily usage counts | Account ID, display name, competition submissions & results, friend relationships, push token, daily usage counts (sessions, hands, drills, time in the App, and how many times each feature was opened or used — counts only, never what you played) |
| Anthropic | AI coaching (Claude model) | Hand context you submit for review |
These providers process data on our behalf under their own security and privacy terms. Anthropic’s API does not use submitted content to train its models by default.
5. Data retention
- Local/iCloud hand data: kept until you delete it or delete the App; iCloud data is governed by your Apple account.
- Competition and friend data: kept while your account is active. Locked competition results and the leaderboard snapshot are retained as a historical record of the competition.
- Coaching requests: used to produce your response; we do not build a long-term profile from them.
6. Your choices and rights
- Play without an account: most of the App works anonymously; only leaderboards and friends require Sign in with Apple.
- Access / export: your hand data lives on your device and in your iCloud.
- Delete your account: you can delete your account from within the App (Settings → Account). This removes your profile, friendships (including a friend’s copy of the friendship), the invites and challenges you created, your competition entries, coaching-usage and activity counts, and your subscription records from our servers. Four things are kept: rows on already-locked leaderboards, under the board name you chose (a shared record of that week); a trial-start record keyed to your Sign in with Apple identifier, holding the account ID the trial began under and the trial’s dates, so that deleting and re-creating an account does not restart a free trial; any gift codes you bought, together with the App Store transaction record that produced each one, both with your account removed from them, so a gift you have given stays valid for the person you gave it to (a gift code you redeemed stays marked as used, with your account removed from it); and a note that your account ID was deleted, holding only the date, so a purchase still in progress cannot be credited to it. Deleting the App removes local data.
- Notifications: opt in/out any time in iOS Settings.
- Region-specific rights: depending on where you live (e.g., the EEA/UK under GDPR, or California under the CCPA/CPRA), you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal data, and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. To exercise these, contact support@pandostudio.ai. We do not sell personal information.
7. Children
Poker Paw is rated 18+ and contains simulated gambling (poker). It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact support@pandostudio.ai and we will delete it.
8. International transfers
We are based in Massachusetts, USA, and our providers (Apple, Google, Anthropic) may process data in the United States and other countries. By using the App you understand your data may be processed in those locations.
9. Security
We use industry-standard measures — encrypted transport (HTTPS/TLS), server-side security rules that deny direct client writes to competition data, and device attestation. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we work to protect your data.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy; the “Last updated” date will change. Material changes will be surfaced in the App or on this page.
11. Contact
Questions or requests: support@pandostudio.ai · Pando Studio LLC, 82 Wendell Ave, STE 100, Pittsfield, MA 01201.