Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Kontest is run by Kontest Games Ltd, a company registered in Nigeria ("we", "us").

For anything about your data, write to support@kontest.games.

2. What we collect

Your account. If you continue with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google. If you continue with Apple, we receive an email address (which may be a private relay address Apple makes for you) and, the first time only, your name. We never receive your Google or Apple password. If you continue as a guest, we create an account with a generated name and nothing else.

What you do in Kontest. The groups you are in, the messages and voice notes you send, the games you play and their results, your achievements, and your Koin balance and its history.

Voice. Voice notes are stored with the chat they were sent in, for as long as that chat’s history is kept or until you delete them, and only its members can play them. Live voice in a game goes through Cloudflare. It is recorded for the game’s replay, and you are told so before you join; anybody whose voice is in a recording can remove it from the replay. When a game is shown on TV, people watching it can hear its live voice and its replay’s voice too; people watching only ever listen. Kontest only uses your microphone while you are recording a note or have joined a game’s voice with it.

Your page and who you follow. Your picture if you upload one (it replaces the one from Google), who you follow and who follows you, the games you have liked and saved, and your results in each game, which make the stats on your page.

Global and Kontest chats. What you post there (text, voice notes, stickers), with your name and picture on each message.

Blocks, reports and moderation. Who you have blocked, and anything you report, with the reason you give and, for a message, a short excerpt of it. A report is kept for us to review; the person reported is not told who reported them. We also keep what we decided: messages hidden, deleted or restored, mutes in Global, and bans.

Ads you run. Each ad’s pictures or video, caption, button and link, its runs (tier, days, price, how it was paid, review decisions and refunds) and its counts.

Ads you see. Each time an ad is opened in your feed we count a view, and keep how many times you have seen that ad lately, so the same ad is not shown to you too often. When you tap an ad’s button we add one to its count of clicks; we do not record who clicked.

Purchases. When you buy Koins or Kash, or pay for an ad, we record what was bought, the amount paid and the payment reference our payment provider, Bachs, gives us. Card and bank details are entered on Bachs’ page and never reach us.

Technical data. Your browser keeps a session cookie so you stay signed in. Our hosting provider keeps short-lived logs of requests (such as IP address and time) to run and protect the service.

Notifications. If you turn them on, your browser or phone gives us an address its push service delivers to, which we keep until you turn them off or it stops working, along with which notifications you want.

Usage statistics. We keep first-party, anonymous usage statistics on Cloudflare, to see how Kontest is used: visits, games started and finished, Kontests joined, quick matches, messages sent (that one was sent, never what it said), ads seen and tapped, and invites. Each is counted with a one-way code made from your account id that cannot be turned back into it, whether you are a guest, the page, whether it was the web, iPhone or Android app, and your country. Never your name, email, IP address or what you write. No third party receives them, and there are no session recordings. Turn them off in Privacy & safety in your account; if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, nothing is counted.

We do not collect identity documents, and we do not use advertising cookies. Ads are chosen without an interest profile: by their tier, how fresh they are and how often you have seen them, leaving out advertisers you have blocked.

3. How we use it

To run Kontest: to sign you in, show your chats and games to the people you play with, keep score, pay out achievement rewards and keep your Koins correct.

To keep it safe and fair: to detect abuse, cheating and fraud, to answer reports, and to moderate public chats and ads.

To run ads: to choose which ad to show you and cap how often you see each one, and to show advertisers how their ads are doing.

To make it better: to find out what people use, what confuses them and what is broken.

To email you, from dave@kontest.games: a welcome, receipts for purchases, and, unless you turn them off in your account or with the link in each email, rare rewards waiting to be collected and reminders when a game is waiting on you. Guests get no email. We do not send marketing email.

4. Who can see it

Other kontestants see your name, picture and what you post in the groups you are in. Nobody outside a group can read its messages or hear its voice notes.

Your page is public to signed-in kontestants: your name, @handle, picture, follower counts and game stats. Your games, live and replayed, are shown on TV and on your page too, with likes and comments, unless you turn “Show my games on TV” off in your account; a game is only shown when every player in it allows it. On TV a game is heard as well as seen: its live voice, and the voice recorded for its replay.

Global can be read by everyone on Kontest, guests included, and a Kontest chat by everyone entered in that Kontest; what you post there is seen with your name and picture. The organiser of a branded or community Kontest can remove messages and people from its chat.

Ads are public: an ad shows its advertiser’s name and picture, and stays on their page. Advertisers see totals only (views, likes, comments, shares, saves and clicks), never who viewed or clicked.

Somebody you block cannot see your page or your games, message you, follow you or comment on your games, and you do not see theirs.

Service providers who run parts of Kontest for us, under contract: Cloudflare (hosting, databases, storage of pictures and voice notes in R2, ad videos in Stream, email, live voice and usage statistics), Google and Apple (sign-in), Bachs (payments for Koins, Kash and ads), the push services of your browser’s or phone’s maker, such as Google, Apple or Mozilla, and Expo for the phone app (notifications). They may only use your data to provide their service to us.

Authorities, where the law requires it. We do not sell your data.

5. Where it is kept and for how long

Kontest runs on Cloudflare’s network, so data may be processed outside your country. When it is, we rely on safeguards the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 allows, such as our providers’ data protection terms.

We keep your account for as long as you have it. A guest account that is not used for 12 months may be deleted. Records of purchases and ad payments are kept for 6 years, because tax law requires it.

Global and each Kontest chat keep their last 2,000 messages; older ones, and their voice notes, are deleted.

Usage statistics are deleted after three months.

How many times you have seen each ad is deleted after 2 days. Ads stay on their advertiser’s page; an ad’s video is deleted 30 days after its last run ends, and its still picture is kept.

Reports, moderation decisions and bans are kept for as long as we need them to keep Kontest safe, and a ban for as long as it lasts. If you delete a message somebody has reported, it is gone for everyone at once, but a copy is kept for our moderators until the report is reviewed, then deleted.

When you delete your account, it is hidden and signed out at once and deleted for good 30 days later (a guest account at once). See “Deleting your account” below for what goes and what stays.

6. Deleting your data without deleting your account

Any message you sent, in any chat (text, voice note, sticker or gift), you can delete for everyone, however long ago you sent it: press and hold it in the app, or open its menu on the web, and choose Delete for everyone. It is erased from our servers, with its words, its voice note’s audio, its reactions and the mentions it made, and quotes of it in replies; the others see “This message was deleted” where it was. Delete for me takes any message out of your own view only, on all your devices. A gift deleted this way still counts in the Koin records described below.

A game’s replay: if your voice is in its recording, choose Remove my voice under the replay. The recording mixes everybody who talked, so it is deleted whole; the replay, and any video made of it from then on, has no voices. The game itself stays.

Your name, @handle and picture you can change or remove at any time, and your likes, saves, follows and pinned replays you can undo one by one.

7. Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself, at any time: in the app under You, Account, Delete account, or at kontest.games/delete-account, where you sign in and delete it. You type DELETE to confirm, and if you use Google or Apple we ask you to have signed in within the last few minutes.

At once: you are signed out on every device, notifications stop, your page disappears and nobody can find or message you. Kontests you entered that have not started drop you, ones you organise that have not started are called off and their fees refunded as usual, games you are playing are conceded, and your ads stop.

For 30 days you can change your mind: sign in again with the same Google or Apple account and choose Restore my account. A guest account has nothing to sign back in with, so it is deleted at once and cannot be restored.

After 30 days it is final. Deleted: your name, @handle (free for somebody else to take), picture, email address and sign-in with Google or Apple; your messages and voice notes (shown to others as deleted) and your place in every chat; who you follow and who follows you, blocks, likes, saves and comments; your items, settings and notification addresses; your ads and their videos, and any brand verification. Your Koin and Kash balances are forfeited: they have no cash value and cannot be refunded or transferred (see the Terms).

Kept, and why: the records of your Koins and Kash (each payment, prize, gift and refund) and of purchases and ad payments stay, because the books must add up and tax law requires purchase records for 6 years; they keep an anonymous account number and nothing that names you. Games you played, their results and published replays stay for the other players, shown as “Deleted player”; a replay keeps its recorded voice unless you remove yours from it first. Reports and moderation decisions are kept as above.

8. Your choices and rights

You can change your name and picture, choose who can message you, hide your games from TV, and block people, in the app at any time. You can delete messages you sent and your voice in replays without deleting your account (see above). You can delete your account yourself, in the app or at kontest.games/delete-account. You can ask us for a copy of your data or to correct it by writing to support@kontest.games. Deleting your account forfeits your Koins and Kash, which cannot be refunded or transferred.

Depending on where you live, including under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, you may also have the right to object to some uses and to complain to a data protection authority, such as the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

9. Children

You must be at least 13 to use Kontest. If you are under 18, you need a parent or guardian’s consent to use it, and their permission to buy Koins.

If you believe a child under 13 has an account, or one under 18 is using Kontest without consent, write to us and we will remove it.

10. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect.