What we keep, and what we don’t.
NextGame plans game nights. To do that it needs very little about you, and this page lists all of it in plain words. Last updated: 1 November 2026.
NextGame is made in Australia by NextGame (“we” and “us” on this page). This is our privacy policy under the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). It covers the NextGame app, its App Clip and nextgame.now.
What we collect
| What | Where it comes from | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your name and a sign-in | Sign in with Apple (you can hide your email) or an email address with a one-time code. No passwords. With Apple we also keep Apple’s ID for you and, encrypted, a token Apple gives us. | So your table knows who’s hosting and replying, so you can sign in again, and so we can unlink NextGame from your Apple Account if you delete it. |
| Your profile photo | The one photo you choose with Apple’s photo picker, if you add one. We keep a small square copy. | So the people at your nights recognise you. |
| Your game nights | What you plan: date, time or the times you suggest, place name and address, seats, a note, who you invite, replies, the game. | It’s the product. |
| Your shelf | Games you add by name or by scanning spines, and games you save for later. | So the games you’re offered come from what you own. |
| Shelf photos | The camera, when you scan. | Read on your phone to recognise spines, then discarded. We don’t upload or keep the photos; only the words read off each spine are sent to us to find the game. |
| Plays, ratings, notes | What you enter after a game. | Play history and your table’s reviews. Suggestions use them. |
| Device token | iOS, if you allow notifications, with your phone’s time zone. | Three kinds of notification: a reply, a night is close, your turn. |
| Calendar link | If you turn on Add to Calendar. | A private link your calendar app checks, so your nights update by themselves. |
| Usage counts and errors | Our own server counts things like a night planned or a reply sent, with a scrambled key in place of who you are, and logs errors and requests with the end of the IP address removed. | To see whether NextGame works and to fix things. No outside analytics or crash-reporting company sees them. |
We don’t upload your contacts: when you pick a friend from Contacts, NextGame sees only that card, keeps only the first name, and leaves the phone number on your iPhone. We don’t collect your location or anything from other apps. There are no ads and no ad tracking in NextGame.
How we use it
- To run game nights: send invites, show replies, lock in a time, update calendars.
- To recognise games you scan and keep your shelf.
- To suggest games for a night, using your shelf, who’s coming, and what you’ve played.
- To send the notifications you turned on, and nothing else.
- To keep the service working and secure, fix faults, and answer you when you write to us.
We don’t sell your information, and we don’t use it for advertising.
Guests who reply to a link
Anyone can reply to an invite from the link without an account. When you reply we keep your name (as you typed it) and your reply, attached to that night, so the host can see it. To remember your reply, your browser keeps one cookie, or the App Clip keeps a token on your iPhone, that works only for that night.
If you choose to get updates about the night, we keep your email, or the notification address your browser gives us, for that night only, send you a message if the time or place changes or the night is called off, and one reminder the day before, and delete it 7 days after the night. Every message has a way to stop them. To have your name and reply removed, ask the host or write to us.
The Oracle
The Oracle isn’t switched on yet. When it is, it will answer using a language model, and we’ll update this page first to say which company runs the model and what is sent to it. If you turned on “Tell me when it’s ready”, we keep that choice with your account. Conversations will be kept with your account until you delete them or the account.
Who sees it
- Your table. People you invite see the night, who else is coming, and your name and photo. Replies, and notes on them, are visible to the host. Reviews and notes are shown only to people you’ve played with.
- Anyone with a night’s link sees what the invite shows: the host’s first name, the time, the place name, the first names on the guest list and who’s going. The game and street address appear only once they say “I’m in”.
- Providers that run NextGame. Hosting, photo storage, push delivery through Apple and browsers’ push services, email delivery for sign-in codes and updates, and app updates. They’re listed below. They process data for us and don’t use it for themselves.
- Us. We can reach the database to run and fix NextGame, and look at personal information only when we need to, for example to answer you.
- Nobody else, unless the law requires it, it’s needed to protect someone’s safety, or NextGame passes to a new owner, who would have to keep to this policy.
Where it’s kept
Our servers and database are with DigitalOcean in Sydney, Australia. Some of the companies that help us are outside Australia, so some information is handled overseas:
| Who | What they handle | Where |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Our servers and database: everything on this page. | Sydney, Australia |
| Cloudflare | Profile photos, and our domain’s addresses. | Stored in the Oceania region, served worldwide |
| Resend | Email addresses and the words of sign-in codes and guests’ update emails. | United States |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, push notifications and their words, Live Activities, the App Clip and the App Store. | United States and worldwide |
| Your browser’s push service (Apple, Google, Mozilla or Microsoft) | Guests’ update notifications, if they chose them, delivered to their browser. The words are encrypted so only the browser can read them. | United States and worldwide |
| Expo | App updates: your phone’s IP address and a random install ID when the app checks for one. | United States |
We use them only to provide NextGame, and take reasonable steps so they protect your information as Australian privacy law expects. We don’t send text messages.
How long we keep it
- Your account and what’s in it: until you delete it. Deleting takes effect straight away.
- Guests’ names and replies: as long as the night they belong to.
- Guest emails and notification addresses for updates: 7 days after the night, or sooner if they stop the updates.
- Sign-in codes: a day after they expire. Sign-ins: 30 days after they end; they end after 90 days unused or when you sign out.
- Usage counts: 13 months. Server logs: a few weeks at most.
- Backups: our database host keeps daily backups for 7 days, so deleted information can stay in a backup that long.
Keeping it safe
Connections to NextGame are encrypted. Sign-in codes, and the tokens behind sign-ins, guest replies and calendar links, are stored only as one-way hashes, and Apple’s token is encrypted. On your iPhone your sign-in is kept in the Keychain. Every request is checked against the account or invite it belongs to. No system is perfectly secure; if a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we’ll tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the law requires.
Your choices
- See and correct most of what we hold in the app. For a copy of everything we hold about you, or to correct something, write to us.
- Delete your account from Settings. It takes effect straight away and can’t be undone. Your profile, photo, shelf, plays, ratings and your replies go; nights you host that haven’t happened are called off and the guests who said yes or maybe are told. If you signed in with Apple, we also unlink NextGame from your Apple Account.
- Notifications can be turned off in Settings or iOS at any time.
- Complaints. Tell us first and we’ll answer within 30 days. If you’re not happy with the answer, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au. If you’re in the EU or UK you also have the rights your local law gives you, and you can complain to your regulator.
NextGame is for people 13 and over. We don’t knowingly keep accounts for anyone younger; tell us and we’ll remove it.
Contact
NextGame is made by NextGame, Adelaide, Australia. Write to admin@nextgame.now. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within 30.
When this page changes we’ll say so here with the date, and in the app before the change takes effect if it matters to what we collect.