How to write a privacy policy for a game

Play through the game with a fresh account and inspect what the client, backend, engine services, and SDKs send or store. Include the first launch before any choices are made, a purchase, a multiplayer session, and a support request if those features exist. Use the categories below as prompts, then remove anything your game does not handle:

• Account and profile data: username, email, platform account ID, avatar, friends list, linked social or console accounts
• Device data: device model, operating system, language, IP address, advertising identifiers
• Gameplay data: progress, saves, scores, achievements, session length, level completion events
• Diagnostics: crash logs, stack traces, performance metrics, frame rate data
• Purchase data: in-app purchase receipts, virtual currency balances, transaction history
• Social and user content: chat messages, voice chat, clan names, uploaded levels or images
• Support data: emails and tickets players send you

Apple's App Privacy details guidance is explicit here: if your app includes game saves, multiplayer matching, or gameplay logic, you declare Gameplay Content on your label. For each item, record why you collect it, where it goes, and how long you keep it. That list becomes the backbone of your policy and of your store privacy answers.

If your game ships on Google Play or the App Store, yes. Google Play requires a privacy policy for every app, including games that do not access personal or sensitive data, and Apple requires a privacy policy link in App Store Connect and inside the app. A hyper-casual puzzle with one ad SDK is treated the same way as a massively multiplayer game.

Outside the mobile stores, the reason is the law rather than a store field. If your PC, console, or browser game collects personal data itself, through accounts, telemetry, crash reporting, or analytics, privacy laws such as the GDPR require you to tell players what happens to it. Storefronts and console platforms also have their own developer agreements, so check the current terms for each platform you ship on.

Even a fully offline game benefits from a short, truthful policy. If that describes your project, the guide to privacy policies for apps that collect no data shows what to say without overstating anything.

Advertising is the biggest privacy variable in free-to-play games. Ad networks such as Google AdMob, Unity Ads, or AppLovin, and the mediation layers that call several networks at once, typically process device identifiers, IP addresses, and ad interaction data to choose, deliver, and measure ads. Each network has its own documentation describing what it collects; read it for the exact SDK versions in your build.

Your policy should:

• Name each ad network and mediation partner you actually integrate, or describe them by category with a link to their policies
• Explain whether ads are personalized and how players can opt out
• Mention rewarded ads if you grant in-game rewards for watching them
• Describe advertising identifiers honestly: on iOS, access to the IDFA for tracking requires the user's permission through App Tracking Transparency

In the EU and UK, storing or reading information on a device for personalized advertising generally requires consent, which is why many games show a consent prompt at first launch. The advertising privacy disclosures guide covers pixels, identifiers, and opt-outs in more depth.

Game engines and backend services make development faster, but they can also bring their own data collection. Before you write the policy, check what is switched on in your project, not just what you remember adding.

Questions to ask about your stack:

• Does your engine's analytics, diagnostics, or crash reporting service run in release builds?
• If you use Unity, are Unity services such as analytics or ads enabled in the project settings?
• Does your backend for cloud saves, leaderboards, matchmaking, or remote config store player identifiers?
• Do you use Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, or Remote Config, and which data do they send?
• Does a store or platform SDK, such as Google Play Games Services or Game Center, pass player IDs to your servers?

Each answer becomes either a named provider in your policy or a confirmation that the service is off. Firebase, for example, publishes data disclosure guidance per product, summarized in our Firebase privacy disclosures guide. Keep a short internal note of which SDK versions shipped in which release, so you can answer player questions and update the policy quickly when you change providers.

Monetization and social features each add a few lines to your policy.

In-app purchases. When players pay through the App Store or Google Play billing, the store processes the payment. Apple notes that if payment information is entered outside your app and you never have access to it, it is not collected by you. You do usually receive purchase receipts or transaction IDs, which you may validate on your server and store to restore purchases or prevent fraud. Say so, and say how long you keep them.

Leaderboards and achievements. A display name and score shown publicly to other players is personal data made visible by design. Your policy should tell players what is public, whether they can use a nickname, and how to remove an entry.

Cloud saves and cross-progression. Saves linked to an account are stored on your servers or a provider's. Explain where, for how long after inactivity, and what happens when a player deletes the account.

If you sell virtual currency or subscriptions, you may also want game terms that cover refunds and virtual items; see terms and conditions for apps.

Social features are where a game privacy policy needs the most care, because players share information you never asked for.

Cover these points if your game has them:

• Text chat: whether messages are stored, for how long, and whether they are scanned or reviewed for moderation
• Voice chat: whether audio is relayed in real time only or recorded, and whether any third-party voice provider is involved
• Reports and moderation: what information you keep when a player reports another, and who can see it
• User-generated content: levels, images, or names that other players can see, and how to remove them
• Blocking and safety tools: what they do and what data they rely on

Apple's guidance asks you to declare messaging between users and to use categories such as Other User Content and Audio Data for free-form text and voice recordings. If children are in your audience, Google Play's Families policies require social features to show an in-app reminder about online safety before child users exchange freeform content, and to let adults manage those features. Retention is the key detail: chat logs kept forever for moderation are hard to justify, so set and disclose a period.

Online play quietly processes personal data on every match. Matchmaking and dedicated servers see players' IP addresses and connection quality. Peer-to-peer networking can expose a player's IP address to other players in the session, which is worth stating plainly along with any relay service you use to prevent it.

Anti-cheat deserves its own paragraph. Depending on the solution, anti-cheat software can collect device and system information, identifiers, and details about software running alongside the game in order to detect cheating, and some tools run with elevated privileges. Players care about this, so explain:

• which anti-cheat provider you use, if any
• what categories of data it examines and why
• whether data is sent to the provider and how long it is kept
• how bans or account restrictions based on that data can be appealed

Security and fraud prevention are legitimate purposes, and under the GDPR they may rest on legitimate interests, but you still need to describe them and keep the data no longer than necessary. Vague phrases such as “we collect technical data to improve the game” do not tell players about anti-cheat scanning.

Games attract kids, whether or not you planned for them. Three sets of rules matter most:

• COPPA applies to online services directed to children under 13, or that have actual knowledge they collect personal information from a child. The FTC looks at subject matter, visual content, animated characters, music, and child-oriented activities and incentives. The amended COPPA Rule took effect on June 23, 2025, with a general compliance date of April 22, 2026.
• GDPR Article 8 requires parental consent for information society services offered directly to a child where processing relies on consent, below 16 by default, with member states allowed to set an age as low as 13.
• The UK Age appropriate design code sets 15 standards for apps, games, connected toys, and websites likely to be accessed by under-18s, including high-privacy default settings and geolocation switched off by default.

Platform rules add more: Google Play's Families policies restrict identifiers, location, and ad SDKs, and Apple's Kids Category limits third-party analytics and advertising. Read the COPPA privacy policy guide and our kids app privacy policy guide, and have a qualified lawyer review a child-directed game before launch.

The core content of your policy stays the same everywhere, but each platform changes the details.

• Mobile: you must complete Google Play's Data safety form and Apple's App Privacy details, and both must match the policy. Link the policy in the store listing and inside the game, for example in the settings or options menu.
• PC storefronts: the store typically handles purchases and store accounts under its own privacy policy. Anything your game, launcher, or backend collects directly, such as your own accounts, telemetry, or crash dumps, is yours to disclose.
• Consoles: platform holders handle system accounts and payments; your title's own online services and analytics still need disclosure under privacy law, and your platform agreement may set additional rules.
• Browser games: cookies, local storage, analytics tags, and ad scripts apply. Depending on your audience, you may need a consent prompt; see do you need a cookie banner?

If your game spans platforms with cross-progression, say which data moves between them and which company controls each account.

You can draft a game privacy policy with the app privacy policy generator. Choose the application use case, then answer questions about accounts, analytics, advertising providers, payments, user content, children, and the regions where your players live. The questionnaire and full preview are free with no account, and the simple HTML and PDF download is free.

Because clauses are selected deterministically from a versioned library, the document only describes what you confirm. If you say you use an ad network and crash reporting, those disclosures appear; if you do not, they stay out. Advanced regional modules such as GDPR, UK, California, COPPA, Brazil, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand cost $5, and optional public hosting adds $0.99 once so you have a public page to paste into Play Console and App Store Connect.

Two cautions. First, a generator cannot see your build, so your SDK inventory has to be accurate. Second, a child-directed game needs more than a policy: parental consent flows, SDK restrictions, and retention rules. Treat the generated text as a structured draft and get qualified review for children's data. The general privacy policy generator covers games with a companion website too.