Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-08-21 • Contact: michael@velocityinteractive.us

Cipher is a word-game iMessage app by Velocity Interactive. This policy explains what the app stores, where it goes, and who can see it. It is short because Cipher collects little — but we would rather be exact than brief.

What Cipher never sees

• Your messages. Cipher runs as an iMessage extension, which cannot read your conversations. It sees only the puzzle bubbles you tap and the ones you send with it.
• Your contacts, phone number, or email address. The app never asks for them and has no access to them.
• Your Apple ID. Signing in is handled entirely by Apple; we never see your Apple ID or its password.
• Your location, photos, microphone, or camera.

Cipher contains no third-party analytics or advertising SDKs, and does not track you across other apps or websites.

What is stored on your device

Your settings (theme, keyboard style, default word length, notification choices), your nickname, your stats and streaks, your finished and in-progress puzzles, and the identifiers iOS gives the chats you play in. Those chat identifiers are random values specific to your install — not phone numbers or names — and they never leave your device.

What is stored in your private iCloud

Your stats: games played, wins, current and best streak, and the spread of how many guesses you take. This syncs through your own iCloud account so your streak follows you between devices. It lives in your private iCloud storage, and we cannot read it.

What is stored in Cipher's shared database

Three things go to a shared database that we, as the developer, can also read.

1. Daily leaderboard entries. When you finish a Daily and share it into a chat, we store the nickname you chose, an identifier Apple gives us for your iCloud account within Cipher (this is not your Apple ID and cannot identify you outside the app), how many guesses you took, how long you took, whether you solved it, and the grid of coloured squares — the pattern only, not the words you typed. A nickname is required in order to share, and everyone on that chat's leaderboard sees it.

2. Duel records. When you play a Duel, your side of the round is stored so your opponent's screen can follow along: the word length, your progress, and the words you guessed. Unlike the daily grid, this one does include the letters.

3. Feedback and word requests. If you use "Send feedback" or "Request a word", the text you type and your app version are stored so we can read and act on it. We do not attach your name or Apple ID — but iCloud records which account submitted each one, so these are not anonymous: if you ask us, we can tell which submissions are yours. Please don't type anything into those boxes you would not want us to read.

Who can see the shared database. Leaderboard entries and duel records are addressed by a random identifier your chat generates, so in practice only people in that chat can find them, and they are never published, indexed, or searchable. They are not individually locked, though — so treat anything you put on a leaderboard as shared with your chat rather than private.

How we use it

To run the game — save your progress, show your stats, and build the leaderboards — and to improve Cipher by reading your feedback and reviewing the words you ask us to add. We do not use it for anything else, and we do not build a profile of you.

Sharing

We do not sell your information and we do not share it with third parties. Data held in iCloud/CloudKit is processed by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy.

Keeping and deleting

Automatic deletion. Leaderboard entries and duel records are deleted 60 days after you finish them. Your stats and streaks are stored as running totals and are not affected — clearing out old entries never changes a streak.

Delete everything yourself, at any time. Open Cipher → Settings → Privacy → Delete My Data. That removes your stats and streaks, your play history, and every leaderboard entry and duel record you have created — from that device and from iCloud. It cannot be undone. If Cipher is installed on more than one device signed in to the same iCloud account, do it on each of them: every device keeps its own copy and can restore the others.

What it does not cover. Feedback and word requests are kept, so that a bug report we are still working on doesn't disappear mid-fix; email us to have one removed. And friends who already have a leaderboard open may still see your old row for a few days, until their copy refreshes.

Your choices and rights

You can change or clear your nickname at any time on the app's Home tab, turn notifications off in Settings, and delete everything as described above. To ask what we hold about you, or to have a feedback submission removed, email michael@velocityinteractive.us and we will respond as quickly as we can.

Security

Everything Cipher stores travels over encrypted connections and lives in Apple's CloudKit, protected by your iCloud account. No system is perfectly secure and we cannot promise otherwise — but we hold as little as possible, which is the best protection there is.

Children

Cipher is not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Changes

We may update this policy as the app evolves. Material changes will be noted here with a new "Last updated" date.