Your cricket. Your privacy.

Information we handle

• Age and guardian approval: a declared age range, approval status and policy version. For players aged 13–15 we process the parent or legal guardian’s email, a hashed approval-link token, request/decision timestamps and the decision. We do not collect an exact birthday or identity document for this flow. The email recipient confirms that they are an adult parent or legal guardian; this is email-based approval, not government identity verification. Unapproved accounts cannot access cricket features. Approval emails identify the requesting player by display name.
• Account: Firebase sign-in identifier, email, email-verification status, chosen display name and player ID. Google sign-in is processed through Google/Firebase; our API does not receive your Google password.
• Cricket profile: your selected city/locality, playing role, batting/bowling styles and optional profile photo. City search works without location permission. On entering the mobile app, it requests the operating system’s foreground location permission if you have not already made a choice. With permission, it detects your cricket city and can refresh it when you return to the app. A manual city choice takes precedence and is remembered on your device for that account. You can also choose ‘Use my location’ to find nearby cities and towns. City detection can use approximate location. City-lookup coordinates are matched on your device, not sent to our API or a geocoding service, and are not saved or tracked in the background. Optional match check-in is described separately below. Location detection does not change your profile or team city; only cities you explicitly save there update those records.
• Grounds and match venues: if you deliberately add a public cricket ground, its name, selected city and confirmed map pin are shared in the ground directory. This is a fixed venue location, not a record of your movements. When you open the venue map, OpenStreetMap receives map-tile requests for the viewed area and your network IP address. Viewed tiles are cached on your device; native map tiles are reused for at least seven days when available. No offline map downloads or background location tracking are offered. The account that submitted the ground is retained for accountability but is not exposed in the directory. Open-field venues remain attached to the match rather than being published automatically as grounds. Their optional confirmed pins and venue details follow the match’s access and sharing settings. Selecting a venue does not establish ownership, verify a booking or enable payments.
• Optional player check-in: when you choose to check in for a match, a fresh foreground device location, its accuracy and capture time are sent to our API to compare with the selected venue pin. Precise access is optional; you may instead confirm participation without GPS and ask both captains to approve a location exception. Raw player coordinates and location readings are not saved in our database or shown to other players. We retain your participation choice, server check-in time, proximity-check outcome, exception approvals and final squad membership as match records. Selected players and authorised match representatives can see check-in progress. Location checks provide proximity evidence, not proof that a match is genuine or that a ground pin is verified. Captains cannot submit a player’s participation confirmation. No background tracking is used.
• Teams and matches: membership consent, individual invitations, public team codes, join requests and approval decisions, squads, scheduled times, scoring actions, results, awards and recorded career statistics. A public team code lets a signed-in player request membership; the current team administrator must approve it before the player joins. The administrator can review the requester’s display name and player ID, plus an opted-in profile photo. Public-code previews do not disclose the private roster. Individual invitations still require the recipient’s acceptance.
• Follows and private messages: we store your follow connections, participants, text, sent times, and device-delivery/read receipts. Follows are visible through discoverable profiles, subject to safety restrictions. Private text messaging is limited to mutual followers whose accounts have an allowed 18+ age declaration. If Family chat is enabled for India, players aged 13–17 can instead chat only with approved teen teammates after separate guardian verification, both guardians’ contact approvals and the player safety reminder. Adult-to-minor private messages remain blocked. Family chat is not currently activated. Messages use encrypted transport but are not end-to-end encrypted and are stored on our servers. The app retains up to 50 unsent messages locally per account for up to seven days, checked when the queue reopens. You can remove an unsent message. Push alerts do not contain message text. Typing indicators are temporary and not stored. Blocking stops new contact and removes both follow connections; it does not erase existing shared chat history. Specific reported messages may be reviewed by authorised moderators. Account deletion removes follows and redacts outgoing message text; conversation structure can remain for the other participant. We do not import your address book or track last-seen activity for this feature.
• Family chat, when available: we use the guardian email, declared residence country and age range, an expiring management-link hash, verification result and expiry, contact requests and versioned permission decisions. A reviewed verification service must confirm adult status, parental authority and the player’s age range. Its name and privacy notice are shown before verification; it receives the guardian email, age range, country and a random reference. Identity evidence is collected by that service, not uploaded to GaliStars. We retain a hashed proof reference rather than raw identity documents. Youth Family profiles stay private. Both players request their contacts and each guardian approves their own child’s contacts. A guardian can pause or withdraw chat consent from the emailed management page; the player can remove a contact, block or report messages. This does not withdraw the separate cricket-account permission. These controls do not give guardians unrestricted access to message contents. Account deletion removes guardian contact details, management links and contact permissions; minimal permission/audit records may remain where needed to establish consent or meet legal obligations. Contact [email protected] about access, correction, guardian changes, withdrawal or deletion. The verification service and its retention terms must be reviewed before this feature is activated.
• Referral rewards, when available: we store referral-code ownership, inviter/invitee account references, explicit acceptance, qualification and reward timestamps, eligible match reference, policy version, eligibility decisions and the Plus reward ledger. No address book, device fingerprint or IP-based identity matching is collected for this program. Your invite history omits the friend’s private identity. Guardian approval for youth referrals is separate from chat permission. Deletion removes the shareable code and wallet and cancels pending referrals; minimal pseudonymous reward records may remain for fraud prevention, disputes and necessary legal obligations. The retention schedule must be approved before campaign activation. See referral terms.
• Community safety: reports contain the reported item, your account identifier, selected reason and any detail you choose to submit. We also store your blocked-player list. Reports are available to authorised Poize Games moderators for abuse review; they are not shown to the reported player. Avoid including private contact information in a report. Blocking hides discovery profiles and award highlights, without erasing shared match history or changing team membership.
• Notifications: device push registration token, inbox events and delivery status when you enable phone notifications.
• Purchases: Google Play subscription identifiers, encrypted purchase tokens, verification/acknowledgement state, plan and expiry. Google Play processes payment details; we do not store card numbers.
• Technical information: operational request/security logs, device/app diagnostics, crash reports and usage events. Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics help us understand usage and reliability.

Match device verification

Trusted Android match check-in also uses Google Play Integrity to verify the app, device integrity and Play entitlement. Google processes the verification request under its privacy policy. We send an opaque request hash, not raw player coordinates, to Google for this check. Our API processes the returned verdict and retains only a verification timestamp with the participation record. Short-lived request challenges expire after two minutes and are removed when used or during later check-in activity. Raw integrity tokens and verdicts are not saved. Developer options do not block ordinary app use. A location exception approved by both captains allows participation but is not trusted evidence for competitive leaderboards. A match enters those rankings only when every final playing member has a trusted check-in; historical unverified matches remain in ordinary scorecards and career statistics.

Why we use it and who can see it

We use this information to authenticate accounts, run consent-based teams and matches, synchronize scores, calculate cricket records, deliver requested notifications, verify purchases, prevent misuse and improve reliability.

Your name, player ID and cricket information are visible to people allowed to access your teams and matches. Uploaded profile photos are served from public image URLs; avoid uploading sensitive images. Team icons and exported share cards may be visible outside the app. Anyone receiving a share image can keep or reshare their copy. Personal progress PDFs are generated on request from your own recorded figures, downloaded privately, and shared only through the destination you choose. A recipient can keep or reshare an exported report.

We use hosting/storage providers and Google services including Firebase Authentication, Cloud Messaging, Analytics, Crashlytics, Google Play Billing, AdMob and Google Workspace for account emails. These providers process information needed to operate their services and may process it outside your country. Read Google's privacy policy. We do not sell your cricket account records.

Community discovery is optional and off by default for player profiles. If you enable it, signed-in players can see your basic cricket identity, photo, player ID, selected city and playing style. Recent confirmed Player of the Match awards may appear as city highlights; Plus viewers can see your career totals, averages and recent contributions. You may withdraw profile discovery in Discovery & privacy. Payment never overrides this preference. Discoverable profiles may show an active Plus membership marker. We do not publish payment details or renewal dates with that marker.

Captains or team administrators may publish a city-level opponent request containing the team name, proposed start time, overs and ball type. Requests expire at that time and may be cancelled. Expressing interest shares the responding team's name with the host team, without automatically joining squads or approving a match. Public city match summaries are public by default for new matches in the current app, with a notice before each team confirms. Existing private matches stay private; either team can withdraw sharing. Summaries are visible without signing in on the GaliStars website and show team names and scores, without private player rosters, check-in coordinates, contact information or ball-by-ball events. Website record-leader spotlights use existing profile discovery and leaderboard preferences and are limited to allowed adult accounts. Discovery uses a selected city, rather than precise device coordinates.

Your international privacy rights

Where applicable, we use account and cricket information to provide the service you request; use proportionate security and abuse-prevention information for our legitimate interests; and retain necessary billing/legal records to meet legal obligations. Optional usage analytics and crash reporting rely on your choice. Advertising consent is requested separately where required. A young player’s parent or legal guardian must approve access in the age ranges described below.

Depending on your country, you may request access, correction, deletion, a portable copy, restriction of processing or objection to processing, and withdraw consent without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing. Email [email protected]. We may ask for information needed to verify authority over the account; do not email passwords or identity documents unless a secure, necessary verification process has been agreed. These privacy requests do not require Plus. You may also complain to your local data protection authority, including your EEA supervisory authority or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office where applicable.

Our hosting and service providers may process information outside your country. For international transfers, processing locations and applicable safeguards vary by provider. Contact support for information about the relevant providers, processing locations and safeguards. We do not promise that all information stays in your country or in the EU.

City names and approximate city-centre coordinates are derived from GeoNames, available under CC BY 4.0. The catalogue includes major international cities and may not include every settlement.

Advertising and measurement

The free app may display Google AdMob ads. The ads SDK may process device/advertising identifiers, IP-derived approximate location, app interactions, diagnostics and ad performance information for advertising, measurement and fraud prevention. Where required, the app requests advertising consent before requesting ads and offers the applicable privacy choices. Google Play/Android settings also provide advertising controls. Plus removes app ads on the signed-in subscriber account. Ads are disabled for players declared under 18 and for accounts without a completed age check. Adult users can revisit applicable advertising choices in Account & privacy.

Analytics and crash reporting are separate from advertising. They may process app/device identifiers, interaction events and diagnostics. Our custom telemetry avoids sending player names, emails, purchase tokens or match invitation tokens as event parameters. Deleting a cricket account does not necessarily erase previously aggregated or independently retained provider measurements; contact support for associated privacy requests. Optional usage analytics and crash reporting are off by default, have separate choices in Account & privacy, and remain disabled for under-18 accounts. Changing these choices does not prevent ordinary cricket use. Withdrawal stops future optional collection; it does not automatically erase information already processed by service providers.

Permissions and your choices

Camera access supports match QR scanning. Photo selection supports optional profile/team images; saving a share image may request the permission needed by your Android version. Notification permission is optional and can be changed in Android settings. Denying these permissions does not prevent basic scoring. Local offline scores stay on the device until synced or removed; sync them before signing out, uninstalling or deleting your account.

Retention and account deletion

We keep account and cricket records while the account is active, subject to operational needs. You can initiate deletion in the app through the header profile menu → Account & privacy → Delete account, or request deletion without the app.

Once an in-app deletion request is accepted, account access is disabled immediately. Personal identity/contact/profile information, photos and notification registrations are removed through a retryable cleanup process. Shared match records retain cricket figures under “Deleted player” rather than your name. Existing share images held by others cannot be recalled. Age/guardian approval records and the guardian contact email are removed with the account. Declined or withdrawn approval links are invalidated and their guardian email is cleared. Expired unapproved requests cannot grant access.

Necessary billing, fraud-prevention and legal records may be retained separately for those purposes; subscription status is handled by Google Play. Limited deletion audit identifiers are kept so a failed cleanup or restored backup does not recreate the deleted identity. Backups containing deleted personal data expire within 30 days. If a backup is restored, deletion records must be reapplied before returning the service to use.

Deleting your GaliStars account does not cancel a Google Play subscription. Manage subscriptions in Google Play.

Security, children and changes

We use HTTPS, authenticated access controls and restricted server credentials. No service can promise absolute security. Report a suspected issue to support without sending passwords or private keys.

GaliStars is intended for players aged 13 and over. We ask for an age range before new sign-in details are entered. Players aged 13–15 need email-based approval from a parent or legal guardian before using cricket features. A declaration cannot be changed to an older age to bypass a pending or declined request; contact support for corrections or when moving into a new age range. Players aged 16–17 should use the service with their parent or guardian’s involvement. Under-13 accounts cannot access cricket features. A guardian can approve or decline within 48 hours using the email link. After approval, that link can withdraw access later; support can also handle withdrawal or deletion. If you believe a child has provided information without appropriate permission, contact us so we can investigate and remove it where appropriate.

We update this page when practices change and show the revision date above. Material changes will be communicated through an appropriate app or service notice.