Cozy Steps Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 29, 2026. Cozy Steps is operated by Stacy Selena Ong Kalaw. Contact stacykalaw@gmail.com with privacy questions.

Local play

Your local character, home, inventory, settings, and progress are saved on your device. Apple Health and location permissions are optional. You can play the decorating and gardening features without connecting Apple Health or signing in.

Apple Health and walking data

With your permission, Cozy Steps reads step counts to show walking progress and calculate in-game rewards. It does not write to Apple Health. Raw Health samples stay on your device. If you use an online account, the app sends aggregate eligible steps and the time periods and time zone needed to calculate rewards and daily or weekly rankings to the game server. Health and walking data are used for game functionality, not advertising or marketing.

Online accounts and game progress

Sign in with Apple is optional. We verify your Apple sign-in token and use an account identifier to maintain your account. The server stores your chosen player name, player ID, character, game progress, inventory, room layouts, friendships, rewards, and aggregate walking progress. We use this information to synchronize gameplay and provide friend features.

Sharing with friends

Other players can find your player profile using your player ID. Accepted friends can see your player name, character, shared home, and daily or weekly step totals. Friendship requests require acceptance. You can remove friends in the app.

Notifications

If you allow notifications in iPhone Settings, Cozy Steps schedules login, garden and quest reminders. For friend-gift alerts, the server stores an Apple push notification device token, your chosen language and its account registration. It uses Apple Push Notification service to tell you when a friend gives you Leaves. Notifications never change your reward balance, and you can control permission in iPhone Settings.

Location

If you permit location access, Apple location and geocoding services help choose a time zone for room lighting. The app saves the time-zone identifier on your device. The game server does not receive your coordinates, and coordinates are not shared with other players.

Purchases

Apple processes Petal payments. We do not receive your payment-card details. The app verifies Apple transactions, and online purchases send signed transaction information to the game server. Product IDs, transaction IDs, purchase environment, and credited currency are recorded to deliver purchases and prevent duplicate credit.

Product analytics

When enabled in your app version, PostHog helps us understand app usage, onboarding drop-offs and feature adoption. Analytics events include screen names, gameplay actions, catalog product identifiers, app/device information and an account identifier transformed with a one-way hash. We do not include player names, Apple credentials, receipts, Health data, step counts, location, wallet balances or friend identifiers in custom analytics events. You can turn off product analytics in Settings > Help improve Cozy Steps.

Optional gameplay session replay

We ask for your permission before PostHog records gameplay screenshots and taps to help find confusing parts of the game. Recording is limited to selected gameplay screens. Account setup, sign-in, Health/walking, friends, account settings, payment and name-entry screens are excluded. We enable text-input and image masking, but custom character and pet names drawn within the game room may appear in gameplay recordings. An indicator appears while gameplay replay is enabled. You can decline or stop replay in Settings without losing access to the game. Turning off product analytics also stops replay.

Service providers

Apple provides Health, sign-in, location, and purchase services. Railway hosts the game API and Supabase provides database storage for online accounts. These providers process data needed to operate their services under their own terms and privacy policies. We do not sell your personal data or use it for cross-app advertising tracking.

Support

If you email support, we receive the email address, message, and information you choose to include so we can respond and resolve your request.

Analytics provider and deletion

PostHog processes analytics and consented gameplay recordings under its privacy policy. Previously uploaded analytics and recordings are stored separately from the game account, subject to the project's retention settings; deleting a game account or turning analytics off does not automatically erase prior uploads. Contact us for analytics deletion requests. We do not send Health or walking data to PostHog.

Retention and deletion

Online account data is maintained to provide your game account until you delete it. Settings > Delete account removes the active online account, game data, and associated purchase records. We retain anonymous lifetime purchase counts by product and purchase environment; these totals contain no player or transaction identifiers. Settings > Delete local progress clears local game progress. Apple purchase records and provider backups are managed separately by the respective providers. Contact support about privacy or deletion requests.

Your choices

You can decline or revoke Health and location access in iOS, play locally, remove friends, sign out, or delete your account. We may update this policy when the app changes and will show the current version on this page.