Privacy Policy

Balanced Play is operated by Balanced Play LLC, Indian Trail, NC, USA. Contact: info@getbalancedplay.com.

Who this covers

Balanced Play is a tool for parents. Only a parent or guardian creates an account and operates the service. Children do not create accounts, log in, or interact with us directly.

What we collect

• Your identity — when you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your email address and a stable account identifier from that provider. We do not take your name from it. You can also sign in with an email address and password, or with a one-time code we email you. We never receive or store your password.
• Your name, if you ask for early access — the sign-up form on our website asks for your first and last name and how many children you have, so we can reply to you like a person. That is the only place we collect a name for a grown-up.
• Connected-account access — when you link a platform (Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, Google), we store the revocable access token that lets us read play time and set that platform's own parental-control limit. These tokens are encrypted at rest with AWS KMS.
• Settings already on a connected account — when you set Balanced Play up, we read the parental-control settings already on each account or console you connect — time limits, allowed play hours, the game age level, and the chat, purchase, web-browser and virtual-reality settings — so we can show you what is set today and ask you before anything is loosened. While you are setting up we keep what we read, encrypted, so you can pause and come back; it is deleted when you finish, or after 30 days if you don't. After that we keep what you choose: your rules, any device you ask us to leave alone, and any device where you keep a stricter setting. If several children share one console, we also store that console's player-profile identifier for each child (an opaque code, not a name) so each child's time is counted separately.
• Your child's play data — a first name or nickname you enter, and the number of minutes played per day per platform. We do not collect a child's full name, birthdate, contacts, location, photos, or messages.
• Which games were played — so we can show you a play report, we store the title of the game and the minutes spent on it, per day, kept for 90 days and then deleted automatically. This comes from the three sources that can see it: our Windows agent, which already recognises each game as a running program in order to meter and stop it; our Android agent, which sees which app is in the foreground for the same reason; and Steam, which reports the title being played. Consoles report only a daily total, so their time shows in your report as unattributed. We record only the title and the time — never chat, voice, screenshots, screen recordings, keystrokes, or anything that happens inside a game. On Android the agent sees which app is in front and for how long, and nothing else — not messages, contacts, location, or browsing.
• Waitlist email — if you join the waitlist, we keep your email to tell you when we launch.
• Push notifications — if you turn them on, your device gives us a notification token, which we store so we can reach that device. A notification may include your child's first name (for example, “Alex is asking for more time”). Turn them off on your device and we stop.
• Your agreement to these terms — when you create your account we record that you accepted the Terms and this policy, along with the date, the version you accepted, your IP address and your browser's user-agent string. This is the record that shows you agreed, so it survives account deletion (see below).
• If and when you subscribe — payment is handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card number. We keep only your subscription status and Stripe's customer/transaction identifier, so we know whether your account is active.
• Your agreement to be charged — when you subscribe we keep a record of it: the exact price and terms shown to you, the date, and the IP address and browser the agreement came from. Consumer-protection law requires us to be able to show that you agreed before we billed you, so this record is kept for at least three years — including after you delete your account. It is used for nothing else, ever.
• Device model and operating system — the app tells us the device model (for example “iPhone 15”), the operating system version and the app build number. We keep a count of each — how many iPhones, how many iPads, which iOS versions — and nothing more. This record is anonymous: it is not stored with your name, your email address or your account. It carries a one-way code so that opening the app repeatedly is not counted as many different devices, and that code cannot be turned back into you. We use it to fix problems on the devices people actually have, and to tell Apple which devices and iOS versions the app was tested on when we submit an update. Never for advertising, profiling, or tracking you across other apps or websites.
• Anything you send us in a report — if you use “report a problem” or report a game rating, we keep what you wrote, your email address, the screen you were on and the app version, and we email it to ourselves so we can answer you. We use it to fix the thing you told us about, and for nothing else.
• Your phone’s time zone — the app reports it when you open the dashboard, so we can tell you when a bedtime window is out of step with where you actually are. It is recorded, never applied: your household’s time zone stays whatever you set, because a parent in a hotel must not silently move their child’s bedtime. A time zone is a region like “America/New_York” — it is not your location.
• Basic technical logs — standard request logs needed to run and secure the service.

How we use it

Only to run the product: total up play time across the devices you've connected, apply your daily budget and bedtime, and set each platform's native limit accordingly. We use your email to send you account and service messages. That's it.

What we do not do

• We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.
• We do not use your family's data for advertising.
• We do not store your platform passwords — only revocable tokens you can disconnect at any time.

Who we share it with

We share data only with the platform services you connect (to read play time and set limits), and with the infrastructure providers that run Balanced Play on our behalf (Amazon Web Services for hosting and storage; your chosen sign-in provider; Expo, which delivers push notifications to your device and therefore sees the text of a notification, including a child's first name where one appears; Cloudflare, whose privacy-focused analytics count visits to our website and set no advertising cookies; and — if you subscribe — Stripe, which processes the payment and is the only party that handles your card details). We may disclose information if required by law.

Children's privacy (COPPA)

Balanced Play is directed to parents, not children. Any information about a child is provided and controlled by the parent, kept to the minimum needed to enforce a time budget and show that parent their own child's play report (a first name, the minutes played, and the titles played), and never used for any other purpose. A parent can view or delete it at any time by contacting us or deleting the child from their account.

Security & retention

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and connected-account tokens are encrypted at rest with AWS KMS. We keep your data only while your account is active. Daily play-time records expire automatically after a few days. Disconnect a platform and its token is deleted; delete your household or account and we remove your data.

The exceptions, stated plainly. Some records outlive your account, and you should know which.

Two we keep on purpose, and cannot delete on request: your acceptance of the Terms and this policy at signup, and — if you ever subscribed — your agreement to be charged. Both are kept for at least three years, because we need to be able to prove you consented and a record we delete on request cannot do that.

And a few that simply are not tied to your household: if you sent us a bug report or reported a game rating, applied for the beta, joined the waiting list, or held a founding place, those records keep the email address you used — plus, for a report, what you wrote and which screen you were on, and for an application, the name you gave. They are not deleted automatically when you delete your account. Email us and we will delete them — unlike the two consent records above, nothing stops us.

Everything else — your children, their names and play history, your linked platforms, and the log of your attempts to connect them — is deleted with your account.

Your choices

• Disconnect any platform at any time from your dashboard.
• Request a copy of, or deletion of, your data by emailing info@getbalancedplay.com.
• Unsubscribe from the waitlist or emails at any time.

Changes

If we change this policy we'll update this page and, for material changes, notify you by email.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, or want a copy of your data or it deleted? Reach us any of these ways — a real person answers.