Valt Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 9, 2026

Valt is an independent app built and operated by one person. This policy describes what the app collects, why, and what you can do about it. Contact: support@thevalt.app.

What we collect

Account information. Your email address, a username, a display name, your date of birth, and an optional bio. Your password is never stored. We store only an argon2id hash of it, from which the password cannot be recovered.

Date of birth. Creating an account requires your full date of birth, which we ask for to confirm you are at least 13. It is stored with your account as a date only, with no time, so that we can confirm the account holder's age if it is ever in question, for example if someone reports that an account belongs to a child. It is not used for anything else. It is kept for as long as your account exists, and is deleted with your account. It is never shown to other users, and the app never displays it, including to you. Only we can read it, directly in our database. Accounts created before we began asking for a date of birth hold none, and are not asked for one.

Your agreement to our terms. When you create an account, we record the date and time you agreed to the Terms of Service and this Privacy Policy, and which version of each you agreed to. It is kept for as long as your account exists, is never shown to anyone, and is deleted with your account.

Sign ins. Each time you create an account or sign in, we keep a record of that sign in: when it began and the day it was last used. The record holds nothing about your device; if you turn on notifications, your device's push token is tied to the sign in it was registered under, as described below. This record is how Valt keeps you signed in while you use the app. A sign in ends when you sign out on that device, after 180 days without using Valt there, when your password is reset, if we end your account's sessions, or when your account is deleted. If your device can't reach us when you sign out, the app asks again each time it opens until we do, and the sign in ends then. In older versions of the app, signing out ends the sign in only if notifications were turned on; otherwise it ends after 180 days without use. A sign in's record is deleted when it ends, or within about an hour for one that ends from not being used. For a sign in made before we began keeping these records, the record also holds a hash of its sign in token, so we can recognize it; if you sign out of one, its record is kept, marked as ended, for about 31 days after the sign in began, so that it cannot be used again.

Content you create. Your reviews, ratings, the date you played a game if you add one, comments and replies to comments, the reviews and comments you like, the accounts you follow, the accounts you block, the games you mark as favorites, the artwork you choose for your profile and reviews, and your lists: each list's title, its description if you add one, the games in it and their order, any note you add to a game, whether the list is ranked, and whether it is private or public. We also store when each of these was created and last edited, and when a list was first made public. A block is kept until you unblock the person or either account is deleted. When a comment is deleted, the replies filed under it are deleted with it. When a reply is deleted, only that reply is removed: replies that answered it stay where they are.

Activity. Valt shows you who liked or commented on your reviews, who liked or replied to your comments, and who followed you, read from those likes, comments and follows; nothing more is stored about them. To mark what is new, we store when you last opened Activity. It is never shown to anyone and is deleted with your account.

Notifications. If you turn on notifications, your device gives Valt a push token, which we store with your account, along with whether it came from a test build and when it was last registered. We use it only to send you notifications about likes, comments, replies and new followers. When you sign out on that device, or that sign in ends, we delete it. If your device can't reach us at that moment, the app asks again each time it opens until we do; until then, notifications can still reach that device. We also delete it when you delete your account, when Apple tells us it no longer works (for example because Valt was removed from the device), or when ten newer devices have been registered to your account. If someone else signs in to Valt on that device with notifications on, it moves to their account. After a password reset, or if we end your account's sessions, we stop sending to it at once and delete it, at the latest the next time we would have notified you. We also store which kinds of notification you have turned off. A notification's text (for example who liked your review, or the words of a reply) is sent to your device through Apple's push notification service.

Limits on notifications and follows. To avoid sending too many notifications, we keep a few short lived records. For each of your reviews and comments that someone likes, we keep when we last notified you about its likes and whether a grouped update is waiting; it is deleted once three hours have passed since that notification and nothing is waiting. We keep the time of each like notification we send you for a day. To limit how often anyone can follow or be notified of a follow, we keep the time of each follow you make, and when we last told someone that you followed them, for a day. The like records are deleted within about five minutes after their time is up, and the follow records within about an hour. If we switch notifications off for everyone, the like records stay until we switch them back on or your account is deleted.

Profile photo. A profile photo is optional. You choose it with the system photo picker, which runs outside the app. Valt receives only the photo you pick, gets no access to your photo library, and asks for no permission. Before your photo is checked or stored, it is cropped to a square, resized, and stripped of all its metadata, including any location. Every photo is then checked automatically by Amazon Rekognition before anyone can see it, and a photo the check refuses is not stored. When you replace or remove your photo, or delete your account, it is deleted from our storage within about an hour. Copies already shown on a device, or held by Amazon CloudFront, which delivers photos, can last up to a day.

Reports. When you report a review, a comment, a list, a person, or a profile photo, we keep the report so we can review it: who reported it, the reason, and any details you write. A report is deleted when we dismiss it, when the reported review, comment, or list is deleted, or when the account that posted the reported content or the account that reported it is deleted. When a report is made, we are normally sent an email about it. It contains the reporter's username and internal id, the reason, any details they wrote, and who or what was reported, with an excerpt of a reported review or comment, or the title and description of a reported list. We keep that email in our support inbox as a moderation record, including after the report itself is deleted.

Reported photos. When someone reports a profile photo, we keep a private copy of it that only we can see, so the report can be reviewed even if the photo is changed or removed. The copy is kept for as long as the report exists: until we remove the report, or until the account that posted the photo or the account that reported it is deleted. It is deleted within about two hours after that. If a photo appears to show the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child, we report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as the law requires. We keep a copy of it and the details of the account for the period the law requires, even if the account is deleted.

Technical information. Your IP address is held briefly in server memory to limit repeated signup, login, and password reset attempts. It is kept for up to thirty minutes for login and password reset, and up to two hours for registration, is never written to a database or a file, and is discarded when the server restarts. Our server logs record when an error occurs and which part of the service it occurred in. They also record when a password reset or email verification code is sent to your account or held back, when a report is received, when an account is deleted (and whether you deleted it or it was deleted automatically because its email address was never confirmed), when a notification to your device cannot be delivered or your device's push token is removed, when our automatic text check refuses something you wrote (which kind of field it was, never the text), and, for profile photos, whether an upload was accepted or refused and why, with the names of the automatic check's categories and its version. These entries may include your account's internal id, an identifier that is not your username. Scheduled maintenance tasks record only counts, except that the automatic deletion of unconfirmed accounts records each deleted account's internal id. Server logs never record your email, password, IP address, or the photo itself. Server logs are kept for 30 days, and each entry is deleted within a day after that.

Password resets. If you ask to reset your password, we store a keyed hash of the one time code we email you, when it was issued, and a count of recent requests, alongside your account. The code itself is never stored. It expires after fifteen minutes, and the record is deleted once the code is used, when your account is deleted, or within about a day of expiring.

Email verification. When you create an account, we email you a one time code to confirm your address, and you can ask for a new code from within the app. When we send a code, we store a keyed hash of it, when it was issued, when it expires, how many times it has been tried, and a count of codes sent recently, alongside your account. The code itself is never stored. It expires after thirty minutes, and the record is deleted once the code is used, when your account is deleted, or within about a day of expiring. Once you confirm your address, we store the date and time you confirmed it with your account, for as long as your account exists. We email your account address only to send a verification or reset code, or to confirm that your password was changed.

What we do not collect

Valt contains no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. There are no third party software kits in the app. We do not collect your location, contacts, camera, microphone, or any advertising identifier, and the app has no access to your photo library. The only photo we receive is a profile photo you choose. The only system permission the app asks for is to send you notifications, and only when you choose to turn them on.

What is public

Your username, display name, profile photo, bio, reviews, ratings, played dates, comments and replies, follows, favorite games, and public lists are visible to anyone using Valt. A list is private when you create it, and a private list is visible only to you until you make it public. How many people like a review or a comment is visible to anyone using Valt. Who liked it is shown only to its author, in their Activity. Your profile photo can also be opened by anyone who has its web address. Your email address and date of birth are never shown to other users. The accounts you block are not shown to other users, but a person you block can tell from your profile that you have blocked them.

Third parties

Game information and artwork come from IGDB, owned by Twitch. When you search for a game, the text you type is sent to IGDB to run the search. Game cover and background images are loaded by your device directly from IGDB's image servers, which means IGDB receives your device's IP address for those requests. IGDB's own handling of that data is governed by Twitch's privacy notice.

Valt runs on Amazon Web Services in the United States. AWS stores and processes the data described above on our behalf.

Profile photos are stored in Amazon S3 and delivered to devices through Amazon CloudFront. When a device loads a profile photo, CloudFront receives that device's IP address, as with any web request. Amazon Rekognition checks each photo as described above, and we have opted out of AWS using this content to improve its services.

Email is sent through Amazon Simple Email Service. If a message to you cannot be delivered, or you mark one as spam, Amazon reports your address to our support inbox so we can stop sending to it.

Notifications are delivered through Apple Push Notification service. To deliver one, Apple receives your device's push token and the notification's text.

We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, or transfer it to data brokers.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. Deletion is immediate and permanent. It removes your account, your profile photo, your reviews, your comments, your likes, your follows in both directions, the accounts you block, your favorite games, your lists, your artwork choices, when you last opened Activity, your sign in records, your devices' push tokens, your notification settings, and the records we keep to limit notifications and follows. Your profile photo is deleted from our storage within about an hour, and any private copy of it kept for a report within about two hours, except where the law requires us to keep it, as described above. Because comments belong to the review they sit under, comments other people left on your reviews are removed along with them, and so are other people's likes of your reviews. Replies other people left under your top level comments are removed with them, and so are other people's likes of your comments and replies. A reply someone wrote to one of your replies in another person's thread is not removed: it stays there, under that person's comment. Deleted accounts cannot be recovered. Database backups are retained for 7 days and then expire.

If you do not confirm your email address within twenty four hours of creating your account, the account is deleted automatically and without notice. Asking for a new code does not extend this. The account is deleted in the same way as if you had deleted it yourself: everything listed above is removed, and it cannot be recovered. An account whose address has been confirmed is never deleted this way.

Signing out of the app ends that sign in, as described above, and clears your saved session and any cached content on the device.

Security

Passwords are hashed with argon2id. All traffic between the app and our servers uses HTTPS. Your session token is stored in the iOS keychain, marked so that it is not synced to iCloud or included in encrypted backups.

Children

Valt is not intended for anyone under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. When you create an account we ask for your date of birth. If it shows you are under 13, no account is created, and nothing you entered is stored, logged, or emailed. If you believe a child has an account anyway, contact us at support@thevalt.app and we will remove it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal information. You can edit your profile and delete your account in the app. For anything else, contact support@thevalt.app.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top. Continuing to use Valt after a change means you accept the updated policy.