Privacy policy

Effective 2 September 2026. This policy covers the Wild Relic app and this website.

Who we are

Wild Relic is made by VARSUITE MEDIA GROUP LTD, a company registered in the United Kingdom. We are the data controller for everything described here. You can reach us at support@relic.game.

The short version

What we collect, and why

Your account. An email address, a display name and a password. The password is stored as a one-way hash, never as the password itself. We use the address to sign you in, to verify the account, to reset a forgotten password and to confirm account deletion. We send email about your account only. The one exception is the waitlist below, which you have to ask for.

Your profile, if you choose. A short bio, a country, an avatar picture and your privacy settings. All optional, all written by you, all deleted with the account.

Your precise location, during play. This is the most sensitive thing Wild Relic holds, so here is exactly when a position is recorded: when the app requests a claim near a treasure, when you claim it, and when you hide a relic for others to find. Each record is a single position with its accuracy and time. Nothing records your position because time passed, and there is no periodic location log. We use these positions for two things only: showing you what is nearby, and checking that a claim was made by someone who physically stood there. That check includes comparing a new position against your own previous one to catch impossible speeds; when such an incident is flagged, the two positions behind it may be kept as evidence until the account is deleted. Location is requested from your device only while the app is in use. Background location is never requested. The game is playable without location, but claiming a treasure requires it, because a claim is a statement about where you were.

Your device. The device model, operating system version, app version, a push notification token if you allow notifications, and an identifier the app computes itself. That identifier is a salted per-install value, not a hardware or advertising identifier, and it cannot be matched across accounts or across other apps. We use device information to keep you signed in, to deliver notifications and to detect cheating.

Your gameplay. Discoveries, quests, collections, challenges, adventures, progression, and a wallet of virtual currency with its transaction history. This is the state of your game, not a behavioural profile, and none of it is used for advertising.

Things you write. A declaration when you hide a relic, the text of any report you file, and anything you tell us when deleting your account. Reports are read by moderators.

What we never do

• We do not sell precise location data, or any other data.
• We do not use your movement for advertising, and no advertising network receives anything.
• We do not request background location.
• We do not publish your live position or your home location, and there is no automatic movement sharing.
• We do not link your data with data from other companies' apps or websites. The app contains no analytics, crash reporting, advertising or attribution kits.

Who else is involved

Map tiles. Some Wild Relic map styles are drawn entirely on your device and fetch nothing from the internet. When a map style uses an online map provider, your device requests the map images directly from that provider's servers. That provider sees your device's IP address and which map tiles were requested, which reveals the rough area you are looking at. It does not receive your Wild Relic account, your recorded positions or any identifier we hold. Requests happen only while the map is on screen. The providers behind the current online styles are OpenStreetMap, Carto, Ordnance Survey and OpenTopoMap, depending on the style in use.

AI adventure generation. Wild Relic can use an AI model from DeepSeek, on our servers, to help write adventures. This is currently switched off. When it is on, the model receives only abstract values: an approved region, your player level, a rough preference, the time you have available, a difficulty, and a list of location identifiers we have already approved. It never receives your email address, your name, your recorded positions or anything you have written. Its output is checked against those approved locations and rejected outright if it strays. The app itself holds no AI credentials, so nothing can reach the model from your device.

Service providers. Our servers run with a cloud hosting provider and our account emails are delivered by an email provider. Both process data only on our instructions, to run Wild Relic. Nothing else receives your data: no advertising network, no analytics service, no data broker.

How long we keep things

• Your account, profile and gameplay are kept while your account exists, and deleted with it.
• Recorded positions are kept while your account exists, because the anti-cheat checks compare new claims against your own previous ones. They are deleted with the account.
• A claim token expires five minutes after it is issued.
• A data export you request is downloadable for 72 hours and is then removed.
• An account deletion confirmation link expires after one hour.
• After deletion we keep a one-way hash of the deleted account's email address, so a banned account cannot simply return, and the record that a deletion was requested and completed, with all links to the account removed. Neither identifies you.
• Backups are overwritten on their own schedule and are never restored to bring a deleted account back.

Deleting your account

There are two ways, and both end in the same erasure.

• In the app: Settings, then Privacy, then Delete Account. You are signed in, so no email round trip is needed and the erasure is queued at once.
• On the web, without the app: the account deletion page. You enter your email address, we send a confirmation link to it, and the erasure starts when you open the link.

Erasure normally completes within minutes. It removes your account, credentials, profile, avatar, progression, devices, push tokens, wallet, notifications, friendships, blocks and your entire private location history.

One thing is anonymised rather than destroyed. Some relics are trackable objects passed from player to player, and their recorded journey is part of every carrier's game, not only yours. When you delete your account, the places and dates in that journey survive, and you are removed from them: your entries become an anonymous holder with no name and no identifier. A place and a date with nobody attached identifies no one. Records needed for player safety, such as reports and moderation decisions, are also kept, with any location detail stripped out. The deletion page states all of this before you confirm.

The waitlist

Your email address, if you give it to us. The form on the front page stores the address you type, which of the two forms you used, and the address of the page that sent you here if your browser supplied one. Nothing else. We do not record your IP address or your device, and there is no tracking pixel in the message we send.

We use it for one thing: to write to you once, when the game reaches the App Store and Google Play. There is no newsletter behind it. The confirmation you receive carries a link that deletes your address immediately, you can use it at any time, and you can also email support@relic.game and ask. Addresses are deleted once the launch message has been sent, and sooner if you ask first.

The waitlist is separate from an account. Joining it does not create one, and deleting your account does not remove you from it, because we have no way to tell that the two addresses belong to the same person without linking them, which would be worse.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to or ask us to restrict what we do with it, and take your data elsewhere. The app can build you a complete export of everything Wild Relic holds about you, from Settings, and deletion is described above. For anything else, email support@relic.game. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Our lawful bases

• Performing our contract with you: the account, gameplay state, and the location checks that make a claim mean something.
• Our legitimate interests: preventing cheating and abuse, keeping players safe, and moderating reported content. These protect every player, and none of them involves advertising or profiling beyond the game itself.
• Your consent: optional profile details, and the device permissions you grant. The operating system asks for location permission before the game ever uses it, and you can withdraw it in your device settings at any time.

Children

Wild Relic is not directed at children and is intended for players aged 13 and over.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version appears here with a new effective date. A change that affects what we collect or share will also be announced in the app.

Questions about any of this: support@relic.game.