Pace Monster — Privacy Policy
Effective date: 2026-09-21 (v2.1 — names Apple Health on iPhone alongside Health Connect)
Pace Monster is a step-based game. Without an account, everything it knows lives on your phone. An account is optional and exists for one reason: to back up your game so it can follow you to a new phone.
The short version
- No account (the default): nothing about you ever leaves your device — the only thing sent anywhere is an anonymous crash report if the app crashes (see below).
- With an account: your email and your game progress (streak, distance, settings) are stored with your account so they can be restored. Raw step data, Health Connect data and Apple Health data never leave your device, account or not.
What the app reads
- Step counts from your phone's built-in step sensor (Physical Activity permission on Android, Motion & Fitness on iPhone).
- Step records via Health Connect, only if you connect it, so steps counted by your watch or other fitness apps can join the game. Pace Monster reads Steps records only — nothing else.
- Step counts from Apple Health on iPhone, only if you allow it, so steps counted by your Apple Watch can join the game. Pace Monster reads Steps only, and never writes anything to Apple Health.
What the app stores on your device
- Your settings (daily pace, hearts, alert preferences)
- The game state (distance, lives, streak, monster phase)
- A history of daily outcomes (date, steps, won/caught/frozen)
What is stored in the cloud — only if you create an account
- Your email address and sign-in identifiers (managed by Google Firebase Authentication; if you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive the email and identifier those services share).
- A backup of your game: settings, game state, and the daily-outcome history listed above. These are derived game numbers — never raw step samples, never Health Connect or Apple Health records, never sensor timestamps.
This data is stored in Google Firebase (Authentication and Cloud Firestore), encrypted in transit, readable only by your signed-in account. We run no analytics, and sell or share nothing with anyone. Data is kept until you delete your account, and is used for nothing except showing you your own game. (Ads are served by Google separately — see “Advertising” — and never see this data.)
Crash reports
If the app crashes, a crash report is sent to Google Firebase Crashlytics so we can fix the bug: the stack trace, device model, OS version, app version, and a random installation identifier. Crash reports never contain your steps, health data, email, or game state, and are not used for anything except fixing crashes. Together with advertising (next section), this is the only data that leaves your device without an account.
Advertising
Pace Monster shows two short video ads and no others: one before you spend a freeze token, and at most one a day when you open your streak history. They are served by Google AdMob. To do that, the AdMob software in the app sends Google your device’s advertising ID, your IP address (from which Google infers an approximate location), whether you watched or tapped the ad, and technical details about the app and device. Google uses this under its own privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy) to select and measure ads. Where the law requires it (EEA, UK, some US states) you will be asked for consent first, and “Ad choices” in Settings lets you change your answer at any time; you can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone’s settings. Nothing about your steps, health data, account or game is ever given to the ads software. Pausing the game is always free of ads.
Location
Pace Monster never requests or uses location. The chase is driven by step counts alone.
Health Connect
If you enable the "Watch & fitness apps" connection, Pace Monster uses Android's Health Connect to read Steps records. This data is used solely to count your daily steps inside the game, is processed entirely on your device, and is never stored beyond the current day's tally, transmitted, or shared — including if you have an account. You can revoke this access at any time in Health Connect settings; the game continues using the phone's own step sensor.
Apple Health (iPhone)
If you allow it, Pace Monster uses Apple Health (HealthKit) to read your step count — Steps only, never any other health data, and it never writes to Apple Health. Steps from Apple Health are used solely to count your daily steps inside the game and are processed entirely on your iPhone. They are never used for advertising or marketing, never given to the ads software or any other third party, never sold, and never stored in iCloud. Raw Apple Health data is never transmitted — including if you have an account; the account backup holds only the game's own derived daily totals described above. You can turn this access off at any time in the Health app → Sharing → Apps → Pace Monster (or Settings → Privacy & Security → Health); the game continues using the iPhone's own step counter.
Your controls
- Export: Settings → Your data → Export gives you a complete JSON copy of everything the app stores.
- Delete local data: Settings → Delete all data erases everything on the phone permanently.
- Delete your account: Settings → Account → Delete account removes your account, its cloud backup, and the data on your phone — permanently and immediately. You can also delete your account without the app at pacemonster-gg.web.app/pm_delete.html.
- Sign out: stops all syncing; your game continues locally.
- Uninstalling the app removes all of its on-device data.
Children
Pace Monster is for ages 13 and up; creating an account requires being at least 13. Users who indicate they are under 16 receive a gentler minimum difficulty.
Changes
If a future version touches data differently, this policy is updated first and the app asks before enabling anything.
Contact
Pace Monster · ggdata