Privacy policy
This text describes the ad-supported edition. The ad-free beta policy is separate.
About this policy
Lightway is a route-planning puzzle published by Southwind AB, Sweden. Southwind is responsible for the game, its support correspondence and its dedicated website. Contact us at viktor.sunnersjo@gmail.com.
This policy covers the ad-supported Android edition and Lightway website. Last revised 31 October 2026. Policy revision: LW-PRIVACY-0.16.0-2026-10-31-r5. It describes Lightway 0.16.0 with the changes in this revision and later editions with the same processing. The first public release excludes the United Kingdom and Brazil. The original 0.16.0 app can still display the earlier policy text; this correction records the current account setting and does not change the app's existing age or objection controls.
A short explanation
Southwind AB makes Lightway. You can ask us for help or about privacy at viktor.sunnersjo@gmail.com. You do not need a player account. Your progress, planned route, opened help and settings stay on your device unless you choose to export them.
You can play every puzzle without answering the age question. If you are under 16, choose Prefer not to say, or leave the question unanswered, the app does not start its usual Google privacy checks or request ads. The full game and free help remain available.
If you say you are 16–17 or an adult, the app can contact Google to check which privacy choices apply before requesting ads. This first check sends technical information, including your IP address, app and device details and saved Google privacy choices, before you answer Google's form. Continue starts this check; it is not consent. Back closes the information for now. A later return to play can start the check.
Ads for players aged 16 and over are requested without personalisation. Google and advertising partners can receive technical details and information about ad delivery and interactions. These ads do not use your past interests to choose an ad, but they are not anonymous and can still use device storage. Lightway also requests Google's teen age treatment for players who say they are 16–17.
Open Help & privacy and find the Privacy section. Privacy options opens Google's available controls. Advertising data rights → Record my objection on this device stops future ad requests and the usual Google privacy checks on this installation. It keeps the game and free help available. Choosing to open Privacy options afterwards is a separate contact with Google: it does not remove your objection or enable ads.
If you email us, Gmail receives your message. If you visit our website, Cloudflare receives technical connection information to deliver and protect the pages. The sections below explain these services, storage, legal grounds and your rights. You can also visit Support or the Lightway website. Reading this policy or continuing to play does not give consent.
Your game on your device
The game stores completed charts, your current planned route, tutorial progress, opened help and your choices for music, sound effects, mute and reduced motion. These records allow you to continue playing and remember your preferences. Music and effects are included in the app and play locally. There are no purchases, social features, chat, developer-operated player analytics, player accounts or cloud saves. We do not ask for contacts, precise location, camera or microphone access. The campaign works offline.
Moving or deleting your progress
Help & privacy → Move progress lets you export or import a file using the Android file picker. The file contains your journey, settings and opened help, including your own current plan. It does not contain the authored solution library, age declaration, advertising identifiers, consent records, the local advertising-objection restriction or ad-operation receipts. Import requires confirmation. We do not receive the file unless you choose to send it to us. A cloud folder you select is handled by that service. You can delete an export at its destination and remove local game data in Android settings. Uninstalling or clearing app data can erase your journey. Normal Play updates preserve compatible progress.
Local retention and backup
Progress, opened help and preferences remain until you remove or replace them, or incompatible or obsolete records are discarded. Age and privacy choices have their own purposes and remain until changed or app data is removed.
Temporary reward-operation records have a limit of 64. When a new help-ad offer is made with a full list, records already applied to saved help are removed. Finished or cancelled operations without a reward are removed only after their late-result window: 60 seconds after the operation deadline, or 60 seconds after closing where that resets the deadline. If 64 non-removable records remain, a new operation is blocked rather than discarding an unapplied reward. Cleanup is saved with the next operation.
The separate free-help fallback list keeps at most 64 records. Each fallback save trims the old list to its latest 63 valid entries and adds the current request if it is not already there. Neither list has automatic day-based expiry; without another qualifying operation, stored records remain until app data is removed. Opened help and the identifiers used to prevent duplicate grants within each chart remain separately with the saved journey.
Android cloud backup is disabled. A device maker can offer separate device-to-device transfer, which we do not operate or guarantee. Export lets you keep a separate copy under your control.
Age range and younger players
Lightway is intended for ages 13 and over: 13–15, 16–17 and adults. This describes the audience, not verified age or permission to advertise to everyone aged 13. There is no age barrier to opening the game.
Before requesting advertising privacy information, the app offers Under 13, 13–15, 16–17, 18 or over, and Prefer not to say, with no answer preselected. It stores your self-declared range, a version and any pending correction locally, separately from your journey. It does not collect a birthday or identity document, or obtain an age range from the app store or operating system.
Under-16, unknown and unanswered players keep the full game and free help without the usual app-initiated Google privacy checks or ads. An explicit request to manage earlier Google choices is separate and does not enable ads. For players who declare that they are 16–17 and can enter the advertising flow, Lightway requests Google's teen age treatment in addition to the advertising restrictions described here. Personalisation is disabled for adults too.
Correcting your age range
Open Help & privacy → Privacy → Age range. Your first answer takes effect without a correction delay. A later change towards more protection applies immediately. A later change towards less protection stays pending for at least 24 hours and requires you to select and confirm it again. The app stores the pending range and earliest confirmation time, not a birthday or an age-change history. This is an app safeguard, not verification of age or a legal waiting period. Changing the range invalidates pending ads and requires a fresh applicable privacy check. Age records are not exported or imported with progress and remain on this installation until corrected or app data is removed.
When ads can appear
Lightway is funded by advertising. For players aged 16 and over whose privacy and protective settings allow ads, an automatic Interstitial can appear after a saved later campaign victory, before the next-chart controls. This includes replays. Tutorial, the first five campaign charts, practice and bonus charts have no Interstitials. An Interstitial never grants help.
The AdMob Interstitial unit is set to one impression per user per three minutes. Google controls delivery and frequency; its cap is not an exact timing guarantee. The game has no own play-time or completed-chart counter to space ads, and no three-minute wait before the first possible break. Watching a Rewarded ad does not itself reset the separate Interstitial limit. Google does not support frequency capping for limited ads, so this account setting must not be read as a three-minute spacing guarantee for those ads.
Rewarded ads are voluntary. They can unlock a route section or a separately confirmed solution preview. Opened help stays available. Closing before earning the reward does not unlock new help. Text hints are free, and an unavailable help ad has a clearly labelled free alternative.
Ads do not interrupt planning or sailing, or appear just because you return to the app or close a Rewarded ad. An Interstitial not ready at the saved-victory pause is skipped; it cannot appear late over the next chart. The High-engagement ads setting is off, but this does not guarantee every ad's duration.
Advertising privacy choices
There is no paid ad-free subscription. You can stop future advertising requests on this installation using Help & privacy → Privacy → Advertising data rights, as explained below. This restriction is separate from Google's privacy choices and does not delete information already received by providers.
Before the first Google privacy check, an information screen explains what is sent before Google's form. The app remembers the version shown and shows it again after a material change. Continue starts the check. Back closes the screen without starting it now; a later chart entry, return to play or app restart can start it. Back does not record a lasting objection. Neither button, the stored information version nor continued play is consent.
Google presents the choices available for your location, including refusal, changes and withdrawal. Open Help & privacy → Privacy → Privacy options to request these controls, including when ads are blocked. This explicit rights action can contact Google with your current protective settings. It does not change your age, withdraw a local objection, initialise the advertising SDK or preload an ad. If no form is available, the app explains this and provides our privacy contact.
A later ad request still needs a fresh privacy check and must pass the age and objection controls. Refusal or withdrawal does not remove the game or free help. Ads can be restricted or unavailable. Personalisation stays off even if Google's form offers a broader choice.
Objecting to advertising data processing
Open Advertising data rights in the Privacy section of Help & privacy, from the age page, or from the information before Google's privacy check. Choose Record my objection on this device. You do not need to give a reason, identity document or different age.
The app stops future app-initiated ad requests and routine Google privacy-message requests on this installation. It stores only a version and the active restriction locally, separately from your journey and Google's choices. It sends no objection message to Southwind or Google, does not recall requests already sent and does not delete provider records. The full game, free help and opened help remain available.
You can still explicitly open Google Privacy options as a separate rights action. That contact does not withdraw the objection or enable ads. The restriction survives compatible updates and restarts until you confirm its withdrawal or remove app data. If saving fails, the app reports it and keeps requests blocked for the current session; retry saving before relying on it after a restart.
Withdrawing this local objection does not give consent, change your age or Google choices, or start a request. Future advertising must pass fresh checks. The restriction does not change another installation: record it there too. Contact us about existing provider records or an objection to other legitimate-interest processing based on your particular situation.
Before a Google privacy form
For players whose age and local settings allow it, Google's User Messaging Platform (UMP) contacts Google to find the applicable privacy requirements, present choices and respect existing choices. This happens before a new form response and separately from a help-ad request.
The check can send the app identifier, package/name/version, privacy SDK version, device model and Android version, language, screen/display information, an under-age protection signal and existing provider consent values. Google also receives the connection IP address and user-agent information. The exact local age band, birthday and puzzle progress are not sent by this check. UMP stores privacy-choice and message state locally.
Southwind's limited purpose and legal basis are explained under Why information is used. This privacy administration does not authorise unrelated advertising, measurement or providers' separate uses.
Information used for advertising
Lightway expressly requests non-personalised ads for Rewarded and Interstitial and separately disables advertising personalisation. Google can process IP address and approximate location derived from it, app and ad interactions, performance and diagnostic information, and device or other identifiers for delivery, measurement and fraud protection. The app removes Android advertising-ID and ad-services permissions, but that does not eliminate all identifiers or data use.
The app sends age-treatment and under-consent signals, rather than your exact local age range, and requests the G ad-content limit. Google documents encrypted SDK transport. See Google's privacy policy and its explanation for partner apps.
We add no mediation SDKs or separate player-tracking service. AdMob can still use other ad-technology providers and auction buyers. They can receive request, auction, context and technical data with the relevant privacy signals. Google's message identifies the applicable partner selection; this does not mean every selected partner receives every request.
Regional privacy messages
Google's privacy messages supply the available regional controls. In applicable US states, these include choices about sale or sharing for advertising. Google stores the choices and its advertising SDK uses the relevant opt-out and Restricted Data Processing signals. Lightway does not replace your choices with its own consent string.
Non-personalised ads, Restricted Data Processing and no ads are different states. Non-personalised ads are not selected from your past interests, but still involve data use. Restricted Data Processing further limits Google's use under the relevant terms; it does not necessarily stop ads or exclude outside auction buyers. A local Advertising data rights objection stops future requests from this installation.
Google and other advertising providers also receive information from other websites and apps. Subject to their disclosures, your choices and the restrictions on the request, they can collect and use information about activity over time and across services, for example for measurement or fraud prevention. Lightway's non-personalised requests do not establish that all such processing stops. Southwind does not build cross-app or cross-site player profiles. The website has no advertising or analytics scripts supplied by Southwind. See Google's partner-app explanation and the privacy information of the partners identified in Google's message.
Storage used by advertising
Non-personalised ads can use device storage and identifiers for delivery, measurement, frequency control and fraud prevention. Consent required for non-essential storage or access is separate from the legal basis for processing personal data.
Correction, 31 October 2026: Programmatic Limited Ads is enabled on the shared AdMob account. The earlier statement that it was off described the former account setting.
Lightway 0.16.0 can make an ad request only after its age, local advertising-objection and current Google privacy checks allow it. Where Google's privacy signals do not permit ordinary non-personalised ads, Google may instead deliver a limited ad. Google states that Programmatic Limited Ads uses local storage specifically for invalid-traffic detection, including on traffic without storage consent. This account setting does not establish that a limited ad has actually been delivered.
This does not enable ads for under-16, unanswered or Prefer not to say profiles, remove a recorded advertising objection, or add advertising to the separate ad-free edition. If no ad is available, the ad is skipped and free help remains available. Limited delivery can still involve an IP address and temporary creative storage; it is not anonymous.
Google manages its own privacy-choice and advertising storage. Clearing your journey does not clear provider records.
Local advertising records
Local reward receipts connect an earned reward to the right chart once; separate records distinguish help opened through the free fallback from rewards earned by viewing an ad. Their entry limits are explained under Local retention and backup. Temporary state for the current chart and ad operation prevents duplicate or late displays.
The game does not keep its own ad-frequency counters, accumulate active play time for advertising or reconstruct ad spacing from your journey. On startup, this revision removes the current profile's obsolete spacing record left by older versions, without reading or using its values. If local storage prevents removal, the record remains unused and removal is tried on a later start. This cleanup does not remove progress, opened help, age or privacy choices.
Google's own privacy-choice, advertising and frequency-control records are separate.
A note for younger players
You can play without telling us your age. If you say you are under 16, or prefer not to say, this release does not request ads for you. You do not need to send your birthday or a photo. If something worries you, ask a trusted adult to help or contact us. When reporting an ad, its approximate time and a description are usually enough; please avoid unnecessary personal information.
Email support
Email to viktor.sunnersjo@gmail.com is received by Southwind AB in a Google Gmail mailbox. We use your address, any name, message, attachments and email metadata to reply, investigate the issue and handle privacy requests. Support is optional. Do not send passwords or unrelated sensitive information; send a progress file only when relevant and when you choose to do so.
We delete closed support conversations and attachments no later than 12 months after closure, sooner when they are no longer needed. This includes sent messages, trash and any other copies under our control; moving a message to Trash does not extend the deadline.
For a specific legal duty or ongoing dispute, we keep only the material needed, review the exception at least annually and delete it when that reason ends. Evidence of handling a statutory rights request is assessed for that particular duty, not used to retain every support message. Google's separate service and security records follow its own retention criteria.
The Lightway website
Cloudflare Pages delivers and protects the Lightway website. Visiting the site sends Cloudflare technical connection information, including your IP address, requested address, time, browser details and traffic-routing information. Cloudflare Web Analytics is disabled. Our static site has no account, upload form, advertising scripts or website-analytics scripts. It does not receive game progress, and Southwind does not keep a separate visitor database or request-log archive.
For personal data processed on Southwind’s behalf to provide this hosting, Cloudflare’s Customer Data Processing Addendum limits retention to the earlier of the end of our service agreement or the point at which processing is no longer needed to perform the obligations under that agreement, subject to applicable legal requirements.
Cloudflare also processes certain service and security information for its own purposes as an independent controller. Its privacy policy explains that processing and its retention criteria.
Why information is used
Game, support and website
Our GDPR basis is legitimate interests for local progress and preferences, to provide the resume, settings and portability features you request; for optional support, to answer and investigate your request; and for website delivery and security, to serve requested pages and resist misuse. We weigh these interests against your rights, including younger players' interests.
A specific legal obligation, such as handling a statutory data-rights request, supplies the basis for that duty. It is not a blanket basis for all support retention.
Age protection and privacy administration
Our legitimate interest in the local age category is to prevent unsuitable requests. For the limited Google privacy check before advertising, it is to retrieve the relevant message, provide usable controls and respect existing choices before ads start. This basis covers that necessary privacy administration, not subsequent advertising or a provider's wider uses. A later consent response is not used to justify the earlier check.
Contextual advertising and basic accounting
For this release outside the UK, our legitimate interest in necessary participation in non-personalised ad delivery is to fund the free game. This covers the minimum technical connection, app/context, format and privacy/protection signals needed to request and deliver a permitted contextual ad. It does not justify unnecessary identifiers, behavioural targeting or every independent use by a provider.
Our legitimate interest in basic delivery and revenue accounting is to check that ads were delivered and payments are correct. We use summarised AdMob reports, without adding player analytics, audience research or cross-app profiles. Anonymous totals are not personal data, but inputs used to produce them are not automatically anonymous.
We have weighed these limited interests against privacy, giving extra weight to 16–17-year-olds. Non-personalised requests, age protections, full game and free-help access without advertising requests, and accessible objection controls limit the interference.
A specific error or suspected fraud
For a concrete payment discrepancy or suspected false impressions or clicks, our separate legitimate interests are resolving that issue and preventing the associated financial loss. We use only minimum relevant information already lawfully available when summary reports are insufficient. We add no routine player monitoring or SDK collection for the investigation. Case material is removed when no longer needed, unless a specific legal duty requires retention.
Device access, consent and provider purposes
Consent required for non-essential device storage or access is a separate requirement, handled through Google's available privacy controls. Legitimate interests do not override that requirement, refusal, withdrawal or an applicable advertising objection. We do not switch a consent-dependent processing purpose to another basis to evade a refusal or withdrawal.
Google and other providers have their own disclosed purposes and legal bases. Those bases do not automatically apply to Southwind, and our interests do not authorise their wider uses. Your age answer, Continue and continued play are not consent.
Service providers and international processing
Southwind and Google advertising
Southwind is responsible for its own purposes and safeguards. Our AdMob agreement is with Google Ireland Ltd. Google's Ads Controller-Controller Data Protection Terms describe an independent-controller relationship, which is our working model for this integration. Southwind decides when the app can initiate requests; Google operates its SDK and advertising service and is responsible for its disclosed processing. The contract label does not by itself determine the legal classification of every operation.
Google Ireland Ltd is the receiving controller identified for EEA and Swiss advertising data. Sending data to Ireland is distinct from later transfers outside the EEA. Other advertising providers and buyers have their own responsibilities; use the partner disclosures in Google's message to find their privacy information. Google's Restricted Data Processing commitments have their own scope and do not automatically cover every third party.
Gmail support
Our support mailbox is ordinary Google Gmail under Google's consumer terms and privacy policy, not a Google Workspace processor arrangement. Southwind handles the correspondence; Google operates the mail service. The support setup has no delegated mailbox access, automatic forwarding or separate Southwind support archive.
Cloudflare hosting
Cloudflare provides the website under its Self-Serve Agreement and incorporated Customer Data Processing Addendum for processing on Southwind's behalf. Its separately controlled service and security processing is described in its privacy policy.
Transfers outside the EEA
These services operate internationally, including in the United States. For covered transfers to certified Google LLC and Cloudflare, Inc., the EU–US Data Privacy Framework provides the protection recognised by the European Commission's adequacy decision. This mechanism covers the certified recipient and relevant processing, not all possible advertising partners or every destination.
Google states that its advertising services use that framework for covered EEA-to-US transfers, including onward transfers through the EEA. Where an applicable adequacy framework does not cover a transfer, its advertising terms provide standard contractual clauses as the relevant alternative. Google's general transfer framework also covers its consumer services, including Gmail, and uses standard contractual clauses where required and not covered by adequacy. These clauses impose contractual data-protection obligations on recipients.
Cloudflare's Customer DPA likewise provides the applicable framework or standard contractual clauses for covered transfers of data processed for Southwind. Its independent processing follows the transfer mechanisms in its privacy policy. We do not promise EU-only storage.
See Google's advertising transfer information, Google's general transfer framework, and the Cloudflare DPA and privacy policy linked above. Ask our privacy contact for the relevant recipient, transfer basis and information about or a copy of safeguards for processing under our responsibility.
Provider retention
Deleting the app does not delete support email or independently controlled provider records. Google and Cloudflare retain their own records for the purposes and periods or criteria in their notices. Google's retention explanation describes its criteria. Our local, support and website retention rules are set out separately above.
Your choices and rights
Email viktor.sunnersjo@gmail.com to ask about personal data held by Southwind AB, request access, correction or deletion, or exercise applicable rights to restriction, portability, objection or withdrawal of consent. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on that consent before it was withdrawn.
Where processing relies on legitimate interests, you can object for reasons relating to your particular situation; continuing that processing then requires the grounds specified by law. You can object to direct marketing at any time and that processing must stop. Non-personalised advertising is not automatically outside this right.
Depending on your location and the applicable law, you can also have rights concerning advertising disclosures or to appeal a decision on a rights request. To appeal where that right applies, reply to our decision at the same email address, identify the request and explain what you want reviewed. We will explain the outcome and any further route available under that law.
We do not charge or reduce game access for exercising rights. Identify the interaction concerned without sending unnecessary identity documents. We can ask for proportionate information to confirm a request. You can complain to Sweden's Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten or your competent local authority.
We cannot remotely erase device-only saves; use Android settings and your export location. Google's in-app choices and the local advertising objection are separate controls. An email does not automatically change an installation or Google's records. We can help you find provider controls but cannot promise deletion of records independently controlled by a provider. There is no Lightway player account to delete.
Changes
Changes to this policy will be published with an updated revision date on the dedicated Lightway website and in the app. Material changes requiring a new choice or notice will be presented as required. This policy does not cover unrelated websites or services you choose to open.
Google privacy policy · Google partner-site and app information