Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2 October 2026 · Applies to the Island of Cats app (Android and iOS) and islandofcats.org · Also see our Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Island of Cats is run by Skoulix Labs, the trading name of Kyriakos Alexandrou, an individual based in Cyprus ("we", "us"). Kyriakos Alexandrou is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

Contact us about privacy at IslandOfCatsTeam@gmail.com.

2. What we collect

Your account

• From Google sign-in: your name, email address and profile photo.
• Your profile: your username, display name and avatar (your Google photo or an emoji you pick). This is how you appear to other players.

What you add to the app

• Cats you catch: the photo, a small copy of it, a cut-out of the cat, the name and note you give it, when and where you took it (the exact spot and its area), and the rarity the game gives it.
• Your pets, if you add them: their photos, name, species, breed and birth date.
• Lost pets: if you report a pet as lost, when it went missing and where it was last seen (the exact spot you pick on the map and its area), any changes you make to them, and when it was found.
• Albums you make from your cats.
• Your game: friends, follows, friend requests, paws you give, Cat Crush votes, badges, XP and streak days.
• Safety: people you block and things you report.

Sightings of a lost pet

On a lost pet's page, anyone can tell its owner they've seen it, without an account. We keep the spot you tap on the map, the time you pick, your note, a photo if you add one in the app and, only if you give it, how the owner can reach you (a phone number, WhatsApp or email). Only the pet's owner sees these; in the app they also see your username. To stop the form being flooded, we keep a scrambled code made from your IP address with a secret key (a SHA-256 hash), which can't be turned back into the address. When the pet is found, your contact and that code are deleted; the spot, time, note and photo stay with the owner's lost pet until they delete the pet or their account, and you can delete your account to remove photos you sent.

Location

With your permission, the app uses your phone's location only while you're using it: to save where you caught a cat or where a lost pet was last seen, centre the map, and place you on the National leaderboard. For that leaderboard your phone works out which country you're in, and we keep only that country and the town of your latest catch, never your position. The app does not use background location. You can turn location off in your phone's settings.

Camera and photos

We only access the photos you take or pick. The check that there's a cat in the photo, and cutting the cat out, run on your phone. A photo is uploaded only when you save it as a catch, a pet photo or your avatar. The app never reads the rest of your photo library. Saving a share card to your photos only adds that image.

Contacts

Nothing is read until you tap Find your contacts and allow access. Your phone then turns each email address into a scrambled code (a SHA-256 hash) and sends only those codes, to find which of your contacts already play. Names and phone numbers never leave your phone. We keep the codes we've checked for you so they aren't checked twice and so we can limit how many a person can check a day. When you invite someone, the text goes from your own phone's messaging app.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, we store a push token for your phone (with its platform and app version) so we can tell you about friend requests, paws, your friends' rare catches and lost pets. You can turn each kind off in Settings, except sightings of your own lost pet.

Lost pets nearby

When someone reports a pet lost, we tell the players who caught a cat near where it was last seen in the last 14 days (within about 500 m for a cat, 3 km for a dog or other pet), using the catch spots we already keep. We don't track where you are for this. The owner never learns who was told. You can turn these off in Settings → Notifications → Lost pets nearby.

Technical data

• Cat check log: each time the app checks a photo for a cat, it sends what the check found (scores and labels), how long it took, and your phone's model, system and app version. No photo and no location.
• Crash reports: if the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report: what went wrong in the code, your phone's model and system, the app version and your account id, so we can fix it. No photos, email, name or location.
• Server logs: our providers keep standard logs (IP address, time, request type) for security and troubleshooting.

3. What other people can see

• Your profile: username, display name, avatar, level, badges, and your follower and friend counts. Your email address is never shown.
• Your cats: their photos, names, notes and paw counts can be seen by other players: your friends, and anyone on Latest catches, the map, Cat Crush and your page.
• Links to your cats: each of your cats that other players can see also has a page on islandofcats.org, reached only through its link, which you get from Share → Link in the app. Anyone who opens the link, without an account, sees the cat's photo, name, tagline, town, the date it was caught and your username, never the exact spot or your notes. We ask search engines not to list these pages. Hiding or deleting the cat takes its page down within about 5 minutes.
• The live map on our website: the photos and names of your cats that other players can see also show on the live map at islandofcats.org, to anyone, without an account. Each sits in the middle of a map square about 2 km wide, and the map can't be zoomed in closer than that. It never shows who caught a cat, when, or the exact spot, and it doesn't link to the cat's page. Hiding or deleting the cat takes it off the map within about 5 minutes.
• Lost pet pages: when you report a pet as lost, it gets a page on islandofcats.org that anyone with its link can open, without an account, so neighbours can help. It shows the pet's photo, name, species and breed, when it went missing, the area (for example "Acropolis, Strovolos"), a circle on a map over a square about 400 m wide, and your username. It never shows the exact spot, your notes or any phone number. We ask search engines not to list these pages. While the pet is lost, it is also listed on our Lost & Found page (islandofcats.org/lost) with its photo, name, species, when it went missing and the area, on a map at the same area, and players of Island of Cats see it on the app's map there too. Once found, the Lost & Found page shows it as back home, with its photo, name and the date, for 30 days. It also has a form anyone can use to tell you they've seen the pet (see Sightings of a lost pet). When you mark the pet found, the page says it's back home, and it ends 30 days later.
• Where your cats were caught: only you see the exact spot. Everyone else, friends included, sees only the town (for example "Strovolos") and the middle of a map square about 400 m wide. On the website's live map the square is about 2 km wide.
• Leaderboards: your username, avatar, level, XP and town. The National board uses your country to decide who you're ranked with.
• Cat Crush: voters see only a cat's photo and name, not who caught it or where. Weekly winners show the owner's username. Votes are never shown to anyone.
• Contacts: someone who has your email address in their contacts can find you in the app.

4. Why we use your data (legal bases)

• To provide the app you signed up for (performance of a contract): your account, your cats, friends, leaderboards and Cat Crush.
• With your consent: location, camera and photo access, contacts and notifications. You can withdraw consent at any time in your phone's settings, without affecting what happened before.
• Our legitimate interests: keeping the game safe and fair (blocking, reports, stopping fake locations and cheating), helping lost pets get home (passing sightings to their owner) and stopping fake sightings, improving the cat check, and fixing bugs.
• Legal obligations: for example responding to lawful requests.

5. Who we share data with

We don't sell your personal data and there are no ads. We share it only with service providers that run parts of the app for us, under contracts that limit how they use it:

• Supabase: database, sign-in and photo storage.
• Google: Google sign-in, Google Maps on Android, and Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android notifications.
• Apple: Apple Maps and notifications on iPhone.
• Expo: sends push notifications on our behalf.
• Sentry: receives crash reports from the app so we can fix bugs.
• OpenStreetMap: draws the live map and the lost pet pages on our website. When you open one of those pages, your browser fetches map images from OpenStreetMap's servers, which see your IP address.
• Brevo: stores the email address you give us on the website waitlist and sends our launch and newsletter emails. Every email has an unsubscribe link.

When you share a photo or a link to another app (WhatsApp, Instagram and others), that app handles it under its own privacy policy, and may show a preview of the linked page with the cat's or pet's photo. We may also disclose data if the law requires it, or to protect people's safety.

6. International transfers

Some of these providers process data outside the European Economic Area (for example in the United States). Where they do, we rely on safeguards recognised under the GDPR, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.

7. How long we keep it

• Your account and everything you added: until you delete a cat, a pet or your account.
• A finder's contact and IP code on a sighting: until the pet is found.
• Data on your phone: until you reset it in the app or uninstall the app.
• Your data download: the zip is kept for 7 days, then the link stops working.
• Crash reports: up to 90 days.
• Server logs: kept only for a short time for security.

8. Deleting your account

In the app: open Settings → Delete account and confirm. This takes effect immediately.

Without the app: email IslandOfCatsTeam@gmail.com from the email address on your account, with the subject "Delete my Island of Cats account". We'll confirm and complete it within 30 days.

What's deleted: everything: your sign-in, profile, cats, pets, photos, albums, friends, follows, paws, votes, progress, contact codes and push tokens. Your friends lose your cats. Nothing is kept under your name.

9. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, receive it in a portable format, and withdraw consent at any time. Settings → Download my data gives you a zip of your data and photos at any time. For anything else, email IslandOfCatsTeam@gmail.com. We'll reply within one month.

You can also complain to the Cyprus data protection authority, the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection, or to the authority where you live.

10. Children

You must be at least 16 to use Island of Cats. If you believe someone under 16 has created an account, email us and we'll delete it.

11. Security

Data is encrypted in transit, cat photos are kept in private storage, and access rules in our database limit each record to the people who should see it. No system is perfectly secure, but we'll tell you and the authorities if a breach puts your data at risk, as the law requires.

12. Changes to this policy

If we make a significant change, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this policy was last updated.