Privacy Policy
Heelstorm · Last updated 28 September 2026
Your progress stays on your iPhone. What leaves it goes to Google: what Google needs to show the ads that keep Heelstorm free, anonymous gameplay analytics if you allow them, and crash reports. If you use Game Center, your Challenge mode score goes to Apple.
Heelstorm is made by SwiftyApp. This policy explains what the app does with data, and what it does not do.
Your progress
Heelstorm saves one small file in its own storage on your iPhone. It holds your coins, the heels, boots and outfits you have bought and which ones she is wearing, your best score and best combo, how many runs you have played, what you have achieved in each city, and your ten best Challenge mode runs with the date of each.
That file is never uploaded and never sent to me. Like other app data, it is included in your iPhone’s own backup — iCloud Backup or a backup to your computer — which Apple handles under your backup settings. Deleting Heelstorm deletes it.
There is no account and no sign-in. Nothing you do in Heelstorm is tied to an identity I hold.
What is collected
Advertising — Google AdMob
Heelstorm is free and shows ads, never while you are playing a run. There are two kinds:
- Ads you choose to watch. After a run, you can watch an ad to double the coins it paid. In a city, when you run out of lives, you can watch one to keep going. Both are optional, and saying no costs you nothing you already had.
- An occasional full-screen ad when you leave the results screen. It never appears in your first few runs, and never more often than every few runs and a few minutes.
To show and measure these ads, Google receives technical information from your iPhone: its model and iOS version, its IP address and the general location that comes from it, an identifier for the app install, and whether you saw or tapped an ad. If you allow tracking (see below), Google also receives Apple’s advertising identifier (IDFA) and can use it to show ads that are more relevant to you.
Google also tells me, for each ad shown, which advertising network filled it, what kind of ad it was and the small amount it earned — usually a fraction of a cent. That is joined to the gameplay analytics below, where you have allowed them, so I can see whether the optional ads are worth offering at all.
Gameplay analytics — Google Firebase Analytics
Heelstorm records anonymous events about how the game is played, so I can see which cities are too hard, whether the optional ads are worth offering, and what is worth making next:
- a run starting and ending: the World Tour city or Challenge mode, the score, how long it lasted, the best combo, whether you cleared it, whether you kept going after watching an ad, and the heels and outfit she was wearing;
- coins earned and coins spent in the wardrobe, and on what;
- an optional ad being offered, and whether it was watched to the end;
- which screens are opened.
Firebase also records a small amount of information on its own: an identifier for the app install, the device model, iOS version and app version, the country or region, and when the app was first opened and used. Nothing you could type is included, because there is nowhere in Heelstorm to type anything.
Where Heelstorm asks for consent (see below), analytics wait for your answer. If you decline, Heelstorm tells Firebase so, and your answer limits what Firebase may store and rules out any use of it for advertising. If you allow tracking, Firebase can also read the IDFA.
Crash reports — Google Firebase Crashlytics
If Heelstorm crashes, a report is sent the next time it opens. It contains the crash itself, the device model, iOS version and app version, an identifier for the app install, what kind of run was being played (the World Tour city or Challenge mode, the heels and outfit, whether you kept going after an ad), and a short trail of what the app was doing beforehand — which screens were opened, runs starting and ending, and ads opening and closing. That trail is drawn from a fixed list of app actions. The same kind of report is sent, without a crash, if the file holding your progress is found damaged and has to be replaced. It says what went wrong with the file and never includes what was in it.
Crash reports are sent whatever you answer to the consent message. They carry no advertising identifier, they are not used for advertising, and they are how bugs get found and fixed.
Consent and tracking
In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Heelstorm shows Google’s consent message when it first opens, and does not request ads or collect analytics until you have answered. If you decline, you still see ads, but they are not personalised. You can change your answer at any time with the PRIVACY button at the bottom of the home screen.
Tracking. Heelstorm may show a short explanation from Google followed by Apple’s “Allow tracking?” prompt. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, the IDFA is never read, and the game plays exactly the same. You can change this later in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
Game Center
Game Center is optional, and is only used for the Challenge mode leaderboard.
If you are signed in to Game Center, Heelstorm sends your best Challenge mode score to Apple, together with a number identifying the run’s randomly generated street. Apple shows that score on the leaderboard alongside your Game Center name, to other players, according to your Game Center settings. Heelstorm also receives the player identifier Game Center gives it, and keeps it in the progress file on your iPhone so that it does not post the same score twice, or post one account’s score as another’s. That identifier is never sent to Google.
If you are not signed in, nothing is sent to Game Center. Scores are kept on your iPhone either way.
What is not collected
- No account. There is no sign-in, and nothing is tied to your name, email address or phone number.
- No purchases. Coins are earned by playing and cannot be bought, so there is no payment information of any kind.
- No device access. Heelstorm does not use the camera, microphone, photos, contacts or precise location.
Why
Ads pay for a free game. Analytics and crash reports tell me which parts of it work, which cities are too hard and what is broken, so that the next version is better.
Who receives data
Google, as the provider of AdMob, Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics, and Apple, as the operator of Game Center if you are signed in to it. Nobody else. I do not sell data about you, and what I see is anonymous: totals and trends, and crash reports that are not tied to a person.
- Google’s privacy policy
- How Google uses information from apps that use its services
- Apple’s privacy policy
Children
Heelstorm is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Game Center accounts for children are managed by Apple through Family Sharing and Screen Time.
Your choices
- The PRIVACY button on the home screen, where it appears, changes your consent answer.
- iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking controls whether Heelstorm, and every other app, may read the IDFA. → Apple Advertising controls personalised ads from Apple.
- The optional ads are always optional: saying no to one costs nothing.
- Signing out of Game Center, in iOS Settings → Game Center, stops Heelstorm sending scores. Your Game Center profile’s visibility is set in the same place.
- Deleting Heelstorm removes its saved progress from your iPhone, immediately and permanently, unless you later restore it from a backup.
- To ask what is held about your install, or to have it deleted, write to info@swiftyapp.ca. Because nothing is tied to an identity, I may need the approximate dates and your device model to find anything at all.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and material changes are noted on this page.
- 28 September 2026: Endless mode is called Challenge mode from version 1.1, and the cities are the World Tour. Only the names changed; nothing about data did.
- 17 September 2026: Google now reports what each ad shown earned, so I can tell whether the optional ads are worth offering.
- 16 September 2026: Crash reports now also cover a damaged progress file that had to be replaced.
- 14 September 2026: Heelstorm now shows ads from Google AdMob, asks for consent where required, may ask permission to track, and sends gameplay analytics and crash reports to Google Firebase. The earlier version of this policy described a Heelstorm with none of these.