LEGAL
PRIVACY POLICY
Effective date: October 10, 2026
Forkensics is operated by Lucholli Game Studios ("Forkensics," "we," "us," or "our"). This Privacy Policy explains the information handled when you use the Forkensics iOS app and related services.
Information We Collect
Account and profile information
We collect your email address, detective alias, internal user identifier, sign-in provider information, profile settings, and limited account-status information. If you use Sign in with Apple, Apple provides us with an account identifier and, depending on your choices, your name or email address. We do not receive your Apple ID password.
Content and gameplay information
We collect content you create or submit, including food photos, case titles, clues, dish and place answers, city or place names you enter, guesses, scores, rankings, Table memberships, Table Talk and comments, follows, saved restaurants, blocks, reports, beta feedback, optional feedback screenshots, and related gameplay activity. Private Table activity is available to the people participating in that Table as the game requires. Public creator cases, creator profiles, and their related results may be visible to other Forkensics users.
Photos and camera
Forkensics accesses only the photos you select or images you capture for a case, or a screenshot you explicitly choose to attach to beta feedback. We do not scan your entire photo library. Uploaded images are processed to create a game-ready display copy and to remove unnecessary embedded metadata, including EXIF and GPS metadata, before that copy is shown in gameplay.
Publisher verification and safety information
If you apply to act as a verified publisher, we collect the evidence and account information you submit for review. We also collect content reports, moderation decisions, block relationships, and limited security and audit records used to protect users and enforce our rules.
Notifications, analytics, and diagnostics
If you enable notifications, we collect an Apple push-notification token and your notification preferences. We use TelemetryDeck for limited product-usage events, such as onboarding completion, case submission, guess submission, and reveal viewing. We do not intentionally send your email address, detective alias, guess text, or photo content to TelemetryDeck. We use Firebase Crashlytics for crash and error reports, which may include device model, iOS version, app version, and technical diagnostic details.
Location and Apple Maps
Forkensics does not request or collect your precise or background device location. When you search for, select, or view a restaurant or place, Forkensics may send the restaurant or place name, city or other search terms, and a selected Apple Maps place identifier to Apple's MapKit or Apple Maps services to find and display matching place information. If you select a place, Forkensics may store the selected place identifier and related details provided by Apple Maps, such as the restaurant name, address, city, region, and coordinates, with a case, restaurant guess, or publisher profile. These are the venue's coordinates, not your device's location. If a specific location cannot be found, Forkensics may store the restaurant name you enter as a text-only guess and does not display a guessed map pin.
Dish Answer Processing
After a Case closes, Forkensics may send the correct dish name and a detective's submitted dish answer to an AI service to evaluate whether the two names mean the same dish. Before transmission, Forkensics inspects the text for obvious personal information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and web addresses. If removing that information would make the answer unreadable or change its meaning, the answer is not sent. The AI service recommends an outcome; Forkensics makes the final decision about scoring. Forkensics does not send player names, account information, profile photographs, restaurant or location information, persistent device or account identifiers, or Case photos for this purpose.
Saved Restaurants
If you save a restaurant, Forkensics stores your account identifier, the selected Forkensics place identifier, when you saved it, and the revealed Case that first led to the save when available. Your individual saved-restaurant list is private to your account. Forkensics may provide restaurants and creators with aggregate save counts, but not the identities or saved lists of individual players. Removing a saved restaurant removes it from your current list. Opening a saved restaurant may send its selected Apple Maps place identifier to MapKit or Apple Maps.
How We Use Information
- Provide accounts, private Tables, public cases, guesses, reveals, scoring, and leaderboards.
- Process and display the cases and other content you choose to submit.
- Resolve and display restaurant locations that you select, and avoid displaying a map location when a specific place has not been confirmed.
- Store and display restaurants you choose to save and provide private aggregate save counts to eligible restaurant or creator teams.
- Deliver requested notifications and remember your notification choices.
- Moderate content, investigate reports, prevent abuse, and protect the service.
- Verify eligible creator or other publisher accounts.
- Measure product reliability and understand whether core features work.
- Review beta feedback and plan product improvements.
- Respond to support, privacy, security, and legal requests.
How Information Is Shared
We share information only as needed to provide and protect Forkensics, when you direct us to share it through the game, or when required by law. Our service providers include:
- Supabase for authentication, database hosting, and server functions.
- Cloudflare for private media storage, image processing, and delivery.
- Apple for Sign in with Apple, push-notification delivery, and MapKit or Apple Maps restaurant/place search, selection, and display.
- OpenAI for automated content-safety review and limited dish-answer equivalence review.
- Google Gemini for limited dish-answer equivalence review.
- Google Firebase Crashlytics for crash and diagnostic reporting.
- TelemetryDeck for limited product analytics.
These providers may process information for us under their own service terms and privacy commitments. We do not sell personal information and do not use personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Retention and Account Deletion
We retain information while your account is active and as reasonably needed for gameplay integrity, safety, fraud prevention, legal compliance, dispute resolution, product improvement, and backups. Feedback may be retained after account deletion without its account link or detective alias. Some completed-game or audit records may be anonymized or retained where necessary to preserve other players' history or meet legal and security obligations. Backup copies may expire on their normal schedule.
Delete your account in the app: Profile > Settings > Safety & Privacy > Delete Account. The in-app process permanently deactivates and anonymizes your profile and removes or redacts associated personal content as described during confirmation. If you cannot access the app, contact privacy@forkensics.com.
Your Choices and Rights
You can update your alias, manage notification preferences, save or remove restaurants, revoke notification or camera access in iOS Settings, report content, block other users, and delete your account. Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to request access, correction, deletion, or a copy of certain personal information. Contact privacy@forkensics.com to make a request. We may need to verify your identity before completing it.
Children's Privacy
Forkensics is intended for people age 13 and older and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided information, contact us so we can act.
Security
We use technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including encrypted connections, access controls, private media storage, and database authorization rules. No system is perfectly secure. Report a suspected security issue to security@forkensics.com.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy as Forkensics evolves. We will update the effective date above and provide additional notice when required by law.
Contact
Lucholli Game Studios
Privacy: privacy@forkensics.com
Support: support@forkensics.com