Version: 2026-10-25 · Last updated: 25 October 2026

Privacy Policy

PencilDrop is operated by Rowe Digital Holdings Pty Ltd (ACN 697 515 521) in its capacity as trustee for the Rowe Digital Trust (ABN 13 313 912 737), from Australia. We are responsible for the personal information described here. This policy explains what we collect, why, who helps us process it and the choices you have.

What we collect

Account identifiers: a random user ID, the sign-in method you chose (Apple, Google or email link) and, where that method provides one, your email address.
Profile: the display name, avatar and country you choose. Your avatar is one of our avatar drawings that you pick and, once you have coloured it, a picture of your colouring. Country is picked from a list; the app never asks for access to your device's location.
Your colouring: entries you submit, including the finished image and the stroke document that records how it was coloured, and drafts you choose to keep with your account.
Taking part: your judgements, reports you make, points, placings, streaks, Ink and prizes.
Device: a random identifier created when the app is installed (not a hardware identifier), used to prevent abuse of judging, and a notification token while notifications are on.
Notifications: the notifications you have switched on and your quiet hours. While they are on and can reach one of your devices, we also keep when you last opened the app, so we can send fewer if you stop opening it, and which competition pages you have started colouring, so we can remind you before entries close (we delete that record as soon as the reminder is planned).
Diagnostics, if enabled: crash reports; usage events from a fixed list (such as the screens you visit and the tools you colour with); and recordings of some visits to the app, showing how the screens looked and where you tapped, with all text, pictures and drawings hidden and never while you are colouring. Usage events carry your device's time zone setting, and Mixpanel works out the approximate location they come from (country, region and city) from the network address they arrive from; it does not keep the address itself. Once you sign in, or once your first entry is in, usage events and recordings are linked to your account: Mixpanel receives your random user ID together with your display name (the one we picked for you until you choose your own) and the country you chose for your profile (never your email address). Once they are linked, so is their approximate location, and your Mixpanel profile shows the latest one beside the country you chose. A crash report carries, besides the error, details of your device as it was at the time, such as its make and model, processor, operating system and version, language and time zone settings, screen, memory, storage and battery, network type and the permissions the app has, and a random identifier the crash reporter creates for this installation; it also carries the references of the app's recent requests to our servers, so we can find our servers' record of them. You can turn this off in Settings, Privacy and diagnostics; that stops anything new being sent from that device.
Server logs: our servers keep a record of each request the app, or judging on the website, makes to them: your user ID (on the website, its anonymous session's), what was asked, how it ended, how long it took, the app or browser version the request names and, if it failed, the error. We use it to keep PencilDrop running and to fix problems, so it does not depend on your diagnostics setting. The copy Better Stack keeps never includes your network address.
Feedback: if you send us feedback, what you write, what it is about, where in the app you sent it from and, if you leave them in, the app's version and your device's model and system version. If you ask us to write back, the email address of your account. Only our team reads it.
Purchases: whether you have an active subscription, via RevenueCat. We never see your payment card details.
Advertising identifiers: only if you consent to personalised advertising.
Sharing: when you share an entry, we make a short time-lapse video and a poster image from its stroke document and publish them at a public link for as long as the entry is live.
Invites: if you join from a friend's invite code, we record which account invited you so that both of you can earn Ink.
App links: if you tap "Get the app" on the PencilDrop website and then install the app, we match the two for up to 24 hours using a one-way hash of your network address and coarse device details (platform, operating system version, device type, time zone, language and screen size), so the app can open the page you came from. We keep nothing that identifies you and delete the record after 24 hours or as soon as it is used.
Website visitors: judging a pair on the PencilDrop website uses an anonymous session and Google reCAPTCHA to tell people from bots. Web judgements carry a low weight and are never linked to a person.
Website visits: we count visits to the PencilDrop website with Google Analytics: the pages you view, the site or campaign link that brought you there, and your browser, type of device and approximate location (worked out from your network address, which Google does not keep). Invite codes and anything else a link carries, other than its campaign tags, are left out, and the sign-in page is never counted. This is not linked to your PencilDrop account. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, no analytics cookie is set unless you agree to one; elsewhere a cookie lets us tell a returning visitor from a new one.

What we do not collect

We do not ask for or store your date of birth or age. We do not collect precise location (the app never asks for access to your device's location), contacts, photos or microphone audio. There are no messages between users, comments or free-text profiles.

Why we use it

To run your account and keep your entries, streak and results across devices.
To run competitions: judging, ranking, awarding points and prizes, and showing leaderboards.
To keep PencilDrop safe: moderating entries, handling reports, and preventing cheating and vote manipulation.
To fix problems and improve the app, using our server logs and, if you allow them, diagnostics. Once you sign in or enter a competition, your display name and chosen country let us see who the usage statistics are about (for example, to look into a problem you have told us about) and how PencilDrop is used in each country. The approximate location and time zone of usage events let us see how the app, and its advertising, work in each place (for example, a network that blocks advertising), whether or not you have an account.
To read the feedback you send us, put right what it tells us about and, if you ask, write back.
To provide subscriptions and, where you consent, personalised advertising.
To let you share your work and invite friends, and to measure which shares bring people to PencilDrop using a campaign tag in the link (never anything about the person who tapped it).
To understand how people find and use the website, from visit statistics that are not linked to your account.

Who can see what

Your display name, avatar, country and competition entries are public inside PencilDrop, on leaderboards, on the PencilDrop website (its entry pages and, for placed entries, its winners' pages, with a time-lapse of the entry) and, as described in the Terms of Use, in promotional material. Your email address, judgements and reports are never shown to other users.

Service providers

We use these providers to run PencilDrop. They process information on our behalf:

Google Firebase (authentication, database, file storage, server functions, Crashlytics and Analytics).
Better Stack (crash and error reports, if you allow diagnostics, and our server logs).
Mixpanel (usage statistics and session recordings, if you allow diagnostics, with your device's time zone setting and the approximate location Mixpanel works out from your network address; once you sign in or your first entry is in, linked to your user ID, display name and chosen country, never your email address).
RevenueCat (subscription status; it reports subscription events, such as a trial ending or a renewal, to Mixpanel under your user ID).
Google AdMob (advertising).
Google reCAPTCHA (bot protection on the website only).
Google Analytics (visit statistics for the website; Google signals and advertising features are turned off).
Google AdSense (advertising on the website, where it is shown; it may set cookies in your browser, subject to your consent where the law requires it).
Amazon Web Services (generating colouring pages, with none of your personal information; and sending the emails we send, among them a copy of each piece of feedback to our support mailbox).
Microsoft 365 (our support mailbox, where feedback you send us is copied so we can read and answer it).

We store data in Australia where the service allows it. Some providers process data in other countries, including the United States. Where we transfer personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to make sure it is protected.

How long we keep it

Account and profile information: while your account exists.
When you delete your account, we delete your personal information within 30 days, and ask Mixpanel to delete the usage statistics and recordings linked to it, and its copy of your display name, country and approximate location. You choose whether your past entries are deleted or kept in anonymised form.
Judgements you made are kept without any link to you, because removing them would change other people's results.
Shared time-lapses and posters, and the time-lapse of a placed entry on the website, are removed when the entry is withdrawn, removed or deleted, or when your account is deleted. Copies you or others have already saved or posted elsewhere are outside our control.
Feedback you send us: while your account exists, and deleted with it. The copy in our support mailbox is kept for as long as we need it to answer you, and deleted on request.
App-link matching records are deleted after 24 hours.
Server logs are kept for 30 days.
Website visit statistics: the detailed visit records Google holds for us are kept for 14 months at most; the aggregated totals (such as how many visits a page had in a month), which identify no one, are kept while we run the website.
Crash reports, usage statistics and session recordings are kept for a limited period set in our provider settings, currently up to 90 days for crash reports, 30 days for session recordings and 14 months for usage statistics. The display name and country Mixpanel holds for your account are kept while your account exists, updated when you change them, and deleted with it; so is the approximate location on your Mixpanel profile, updated as your usage events arrive.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, including under the Australian Privacy Act, the GDPR and UK GDPR, and the CCPA, you can:

get a copy of your information (available in the app);
correct it (edit your profile at any time);
delete it (delete your account in the app);
object to or withdraw consent for diagnostics and personalised advertising at any time;
stop Google Analytics counting your visits to the website, with Google's opt-out browser add-on; blocking or deleting the site's cookies stops it recognising you as a returning visitor.

We do not sell your personal information. If you are unhappy with how we handled a request, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or to the data protection authority where you live.

Age

PencilDrop is for people aged 16 and over. If we learn that an account holder is under 16, we suspend the account and delete it and its personal information within 30 days.

Security and breaches

We protect your information with access controls, encryption in transit and server-side checks. If a data breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify you and the regulator as the law requires.

Changes and contact

We will tell you in the app about significant changes to this policy. Questions or requests: hello@altdevapps.com.