Privacy notice

1. WHO WE ARE

Pixelverse Academy is operated by Pixelverse Academy Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17478121).

We are the data controller for the information described here. That means we decide what is collected and why, and we're responsible for looking after it.

Contact: info@pixelverse-academy.com
Registered office and postal address: 43 Princess Street, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 3EJ
ICO registration number: ZC261330

2. USING THE APP WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT

The app works fully without any account at all.

In that case, your child's progress is saved only in your device's own browser storage. It isn't transmitted to us, and we have no way of seeing it. If you clear your browser data or lose the device, that progress is gone — we can't recover it, because we never had it.

3. WHAT WE COLLECT IF YOU SET UP CLOUD BACKUP

Cloud backup is optional and is set up by an adult, from the Parent Zone. If you choose to use it, we collect the following.

Parent or carer account

• Email address — to identify the account, confirm it, allow sign-in on other devices, and reset a forgotten password.
• Password — stored only as a secure cryptographic hash. We never see, and cannot recover, your actual password.
• Account dates — when the account was created and last used.

Child profile

• First name or nickname — whatever is typed when creating an explorer profile, shown in the app so a child recognises their own profile. A first name or nickname is enough; please don't enter a surname.
• Avatar choices — the robot appearance a child has picked.
• Year group (Years 3–6), if a parent chooses one in the Parent Zone — so missions lean towards questions for that school year.

Learning progress

• Missions completed, stars earned, and how well each topic is going
• A record of the questions answered: right or wrong, whether a hint was used, and how long it took. The progress insights in the Parent Zone are worked out from this.
• Questions answered incorrectly, so they can be revisited in the Repair Bay
• Up to 12 small pictures of maths working that a child has drawn on screen and chosen to keep
• In-app coins earned and cosmetic items unlocked
• Streak information and dates of activity
• App settings, such as text size and sound
• With Pixelverse Plus, while the weekly report by email is switched on, a short summary of each explorer's last five weeks, worked out on their device for that report (see section 12). Switching the report off stops it being made, and each explorer's summary is removed from the backup the next time that explorer is backed up

Technical information

When your device contacts our servers, our hosting providers process your device's IP address and basic connection details as an unavoidable part of delivering the service and protecting it from abuse.

4. WHAT WE DO NOT COLLECT

To be explicit, the app doesn't collect or ask for (the waitlist is different: see section 12):

• Surnames, home addresses, phone numbers or dates of birth
• School names, class details or teacher information
• Photographs, video, audio recordings or voice data
• Location or GPS data
• Contacts, calendar or any other data from your device
• Health, fitness or sensor data
• Payment card details (Pixelverse Plus payments are taken by Paddle, not us: see section 13)
• Advertising identifiers or cross-site tracking data

We don't use advertising cookies, analytics that profile individuals, or third-party tracking pixels. There's no advertising in the app, and children can never spend real money: in-app coins are earned by learning and cannot be bought, and Pixelverse Plus is offered only to parents and carers, never to children in the app.

We never ask a child directly for personal information. The only thing a child is asked to type is a name for their own profile. The optional note in “report a question” and “send feedback” is meant for parents (see section 12).

5. WHY WE PROCESS THIS, AND OUR LAWFUL BASIS

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we've considered the interests and rights of the children involved and limited what we collect accordingly. You can object to this processing at any time (see section 9).

We don't use this information for automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects, and we don't use it to train machine-learning models.

6. WHERE IT'S STORED, AND WHO CAN ACCESS IT

Progress data is stored in a Postgres database hosted by Supabase, in a European region. Each account's data is isolated at the database level using row-level security, so one family's account cannot read another's, even if someone obtained the app's public key.

Access is limited to the company's founder, currently the only person working on Pixelverse Academy, and only where necessary to run, support or debug the service.

Service providers we use

Supabase, Netlify, Google and Resend act as our processors: they handle data on our instructions and may not use it for their own purposes. Paddle is different: as the Merchant of Record it sells Pixelverse Plus to you, so it's responsible, as a controller in its own right, for the payment details it collects, under Paddle's privacy notice. Some providers are headquartered outside the UK. Where data is transferred internationally, this is covered by the safeguards in their data processing agreements, including the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (and, for Resend, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework).

7. HOW LONG WE KEEP IT

• Account and progress data — for as long as your account is active.
• Inactive accounts — if unused for 24 months, we'll email the address on file and then delete the account and all progress if there's no response within 30 days.
• On request — deleted within 30 days of a verified request.
• Deleted child profiles — removed from our servers as soon as the profile is deleted in the app (or the next time the device is online).
• Feedback, question reports and progress summaries you email us — kept for up to 12 months, then deleted.
• Weekly report emails — we don't keep copies. Resend keeps a record of each email it sends (who it went to, the subject, whether it was delivered, and the email itself) for up to 30 days.
• Pixelverse Plus billing records — kept for six years after the end of the financial year they belong to, as UK tax law requires. Paddle keeps its own records under its own privacy notice.
• Waitlist sign-ups — kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove you, or until the waitlist closes.
• Backups — deleted data may persist in our providers' encrypted backups for up to 30 days before being overwritten.

8. KEEPING IT SECURE

• All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit (HTTPS).
• Data is encrypted at rest by our database provider.
• Passwords are stored only as salted hashes.
• Row-level security rules isolate each account's data at the database level.
• The parent PIN that protects the Parent Zone is stored only on the device and is never sent to us.

No online service can promise perfect security, but we've designed this one to hold as little as possible in the first place.

9. YOUR RIGHTS

Under UK data protection law you can ask us to access a copy of what we hold, correct anything inaccurate, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, port it to another service, or withdraw consent where we rely on it.

Because this data mostly concerns children, we treat deletion requests as a priority and won't ask you to justify one.

To exercise any of these, email info@pixelverse-academy.com. We'll respond within one month. We may need to confirm you control the account email before acting. Parents and carers may exercise these rights on behalf of their child; older children may also exercise their own.

Deleting your data

• Delete one child's profile: in the app, from the profile picker.
• Delete your whole backup account: in the Parent Zone, under Cloud backup, choose Delete backup account and type your password. Your email address, password and every child's backed-up progress are removed from our servers straight away (copies in our providers' encrypted backups are overwritten within 30 days). Progress on your device stays. If you have Pixelverse Plus, cancel it first; our Plus billing records are kept as section 7 explains. Or email us and we'll do it within 30 days.
• Stop backing up but keep playing: sign out in the Parent Zone. Progress stays on your device.

10. CHILDREN'S PRIVACY

This app is designed for children aged 7–11 and used with a parent or carer.

• Accounts can only be created by an adult, from an area protected by a parent PIN, and the adult confirms they're a parent or carer aged 18 or over.
• The app explains to children, in plain words, what it remembers and that their grown-up can see how they're getting on in the Parent Zone.
• Children can't message each other, see other children's data, or share anything publicly. There's no chat, no user-generated content, and no social features of any kind.
• There are no leaderboards ranking children against one another.
• There's no advertising, and children can't spend real money. Only a parent or carer aged 18 or over can subscribe to Pixelverse Plus, and the app never shows children an offer for it.
• We collect no more from a child than a first name and their own learning progress.

We've designed the service with the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code (the Children's Code) in mind, including data minimisation, privacy-by-default, and switching off anything not needed to provide the service.

11. LOCAL STORAGE AND COOKIES

The app stores information in your browser's local storage to work properly: your child's progress (so it works offline and without an account), your sign-in session if you use cloud backup, and settings such as sound preferences and the parent PIN.

These are strictly necessary for the app to function. We don't use advertising, analytics or tracking cookies. Clearing your browser data will remove all of the above, including progress that hasn't been backed up. The fonts come with the app and from this website itself, so using either sends nothing to Google or any other third party.

12. WAITLIST, FEEDBACK AND EMAILS

If you sign up for news on our website (our waitlist), we collect your email address and whether you're a parent or carer, or a teacher. Parents and carers can add their first name and their child's school year if they like. Teachers give their school's name, and can add their name and the year group they teach. Sign-ups are for adults only, and we never ask for a child's name. We use this to send you news about the app, such as new missions, the iOS and Android apps or, for teachers, when the Teacher Zone is ready, and to understand who it's for and where. It's handled by Netlify and stored on Netlify's infrastructure. We won't pass it to anyone else. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to remove you at any time by emailing info@pixelverse-academy.com.

If you send feedback or report a question from the app, we receive the reason you picked, any note you typed, which question it was about, and the app version. It's sent through Netlify's forms and forwarded to our email. Nothing else is attached automatically: not your account, your email address or your child's name. If you'd like a reply, you can add your email address to the message. If the form can't be sent (for example, when you're offline), the app opens your own email app instead, and the message then comes from your address. Please don't put a child's personal details in the note.

If you choose to email us a progress summary from the Parent Zone, it's sent from your own email app and contains learning statistics only, not your child's name.

The weekly report by email

With Pixelverse Plus you can turn on a weekly report by email in the Parent Zone. It's off unless you turn it on. Every Sunday evening it sends your cloud backup account's email address one email for the family: for each explorer backed up to your account, their name, what they practised and how it went over the week and the three before it, the skills that moved up a level (with the National Curriculum statement each belongs to), how much of their year's curriculum they've tried, times tables and spelling words to work on, certificates earned, their focus if you've set one, one question they got wrong that week to try together (the question and its right answer, never what they answered), and what to try next. You can also ask for one from the Parent Zone at any time: it covers last week, with a line on this week so far.

The summary is worked out by the app on your child's device and saved with their backed-up progress; our weekly-report service reads only that summary, never the rest of their progress. The email is sent through Resend and goes only to your account's email address. Every report has a link to turn it off, and you can turn it off in the Parent Zone at any time without affecting your account or Pixelverse Plus.

13. PIXELVERSE PLUS AND PAYMENTS

Pixelverse Plus is a family subscription. This section explains what happens to your information when you subscribe.

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com (Paddle.com Market Ltd). Paddle is the Merchant of Record for all our orders: it sells Plus to you, takes the payment, charges the right tax, and handles billing, receipts, cancellations and refunds.

What Paddle collects

At checkout, Paddle collects what it needs to take the payment: your name and email address, your payment details, and your country (and in some places your postcode) so it can charge the right tax. Paddle handles this as a controller in its own right, under Paddle's privacy notice. We never see your full card number.

What we receive from Paddle

• The email address you used at checkout, and your country
• Which plan you chose (monthly or yearly), whether it's in its free trial, active or cancelled, and its dates
• Order and subscription references, and the amounts charged or refunded

We use this to switch Plus on for your family, keep it running, email you a reminder before your free trial ends and before a yearly plan renews, answer your questions about it, and keep the records the law requires. The lawful bases are in section 5, and how long we keep the records is in section 7.

What we never send to Paddle

We don't send Paddle anything about your children: not their names, their progress or anything else from the app. Paddle only ever deals with the grown-up who pays.

14. CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE

If we make significant changes — particularly to what we collect or why — we'll update this page and, where the change is material, email account holders directly. The version number and date at the top will always tell you which version you're reading.

15. COMPLAINTS

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right: email info@pixelverse-academy.com or write to the postal address in section 1. We accept complaints however they reach us.

We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it without undue delay, keep you updated while we do, and tell you the outcome and what we've done about it.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF — helpline 0303 123 1113, ico.org.uk.