Dec's Game Vault ("the Vault", "we") is a personal, hobby-run place to catalogue your game collection. This notice explains what personal data we collect, why, who processes it on our behalf, and the rights you have over it. We've kept it plain — no dark patterns, no ad tracking, no selling your data. Ever.

Who's responsible

The Vault is run by Dec (the site owner), based in the United Kingdom. For any privacy question or request, get in touch via the Contact page.

What we collect

• Your account — the email address, handle and display name you sign up with, plus your visibility preference. New vaults start private (only you can see them); you can switch to public anytime. Your password is never stored as-is; we keep only a one-way hash of it (PBKDF2).
• Your collection — the games, hardware and demos you add, and the details you attach: platform, region, condition, year, value, rating and notes. This is the whole point of the app.
• Photos you upload — box-art or item photos you choose to attach to a game are stored as part of your collection.
• Import credentials (only if you connect a platform) — if you choose to import from Steam, Xbox or PlayStation, the credentials needed to fetch your own library are stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM) and used only for that import, and — if you tap the load button on one of your imported games — to fetch your own achievement/trophy progress for it. That progress is private by default — shown only to you, cached briefly (~6 hours) to avoid re-polling the platforms, and never written into your saved collection. If you switch on Share achievements (account menu; off by default), your followers can see the progress you've already loaded — they're served your latest snapshot, never a fresh lookup with your credentials — and switching it off hides everything again instantly. If you connect RetroAchievements (username + web API key, stored the same encrypted way), the key is used to find each retro game's page on their site and to fetch your own achievement progress for it, which is shown on the game's card and cached the same brief ~6 hours as every other platform. It is treated exactly like your Steam/Xbox/PlayStation progress: private by default, never written into your saved collection, and only visible to followers if you switch on Share achievements. You never have to connect anything — manual and barcode/photo entry work without it.
• Technical basics — like any website, our host processes your IP address and request info to serve pages and to rate-limit abuse (e.g. brute-force login attempts). We don't build advertising profiles from it.

The community feed

The homepage shows a small "recently vaulted" ticker of games being added across the Vault. It carries the game title and platform only — never your name, handle, a link to your vault, or anything that reveals whose collection a game came from. It works the same whether your vault is private or public, so it can't be used to identify you or to browse what you own. Prefer that nothing you add ever appears there? Get in touch and we'll exclude your account.

Following & activity feed

If your vault is public, other signed-in people can follow it, and a short summary of your updates — new games added, titles you mark beaten, and collection milestones — appears in their "Following" feed, tied to your public handle. This only ever applies to public vaults: a private vault generates no followable activity at all, and no one can follow it. Following is one-way (there's no approval step). Make your vault private again — or delete your account — and your activity stops being recorded and drops out of everyone's feed straight away, because visibility is re-checked every time a feed is read.

Public directory & follower lists. A public vault can appear in Discover (a browse list of public collections, ordered by recent activity) and in the follower / following lists on public profiles — the same way public members are listed on sites like Letterboxd. These lists show only public accounts by name; a follower whose own vault is private is shown anonymously as a "private collector", never by handle. A private vault is never listed anywhere. Follower and following counts are public on a public profile.

Likes. If you follow a public vault you can ♥ like its games. We store which games you've liked so you can unlike them and so each game can show a like count — the count is what others (and the vault's owner) see; who liked a game is never shown to anyone. Your likes are deleted with your account, and blocking someone removes the likes between you from view.

Notifications. We keep a short, private notification history for you — who followed you, and that one of your games picked up likes (a count, not who). Only you can ever see it; entries are trimmed after around 90 days, and the lot is deleted with your account.

Blocking. You can block another account from any profile. Blocking removes any follows between you, stops either of you from following the other, and hides each of you from the other's feed, follower lists, Discover and signed-in profile view. Manage your blocks under the account menu → "Blocked users". (Note that a public vault is, by design, still viewable by signed-out visitors, so blocking governs signed-in interactions rather than making a public page secret.)

Photos you scan to identify a game

When you use Snap / Upload a Photo, Bulk photos or Scan a shelf, the picture is sent once to a vision service to read the title, and is not stored afterwards. Identification runs on Cloudflare's Workers AI (the free tier) and, for harder reads and shelf scans, Anthropic's API. The image is used only to name the game — not to train models or for anything else. (Box-art photos you deliberately upload and attach to a game are different — those are saved as part of your collection until you remove them.)

Where it's stored, and who processes it

The Vault runs on Cloudflare, which hosts the site, database (D1), storage (KV and R2) and the free vision tier. We also rely on a small number of trusted processors, and only share the minimum each one needs:

• Cloudflare — hosting, database and file storage for your account and collection.
• Resend — sends your account confirmation and password-reset emails. Receives your email address for that purpose only.
• Anthropic — powers the photo/shelf identifier for harder scans. Receives the image you're identifying (not stored).
• Games & barcode lookups — IGDB (box art & details — we sign in to IGDB through Twitch/Amazon's developer login) and barcode databases (PriceCharting, eBay, UPCitemdb) receive a game title or barcode to look things up — not your identity. Price checks are links you tap through to eBay/PriceCharting/CeX; those open in your own browser, so we send nothing to them for pricing.
• speedrun.com — when you open a game, we check whether it has a speedrun.com leaderboard so we can show a link to it. speedrun.com receives the game title — and, if that finds nothing, a shortened form of it — to find that page, never your identity. The link opens speedrun.com in your own browser, and we don't display any of their run data on the Vault.
• Wikimedia Commons — console and accessory photos load from Wikimedia Commons. Your browser fetches the image by filename; no account or identity is shared.
• Steam / Xbox / PlayStation — contacted only if you set up an import, using your own credentials, to fetch your library.
• OpenXBL — the Xbox import runs through OpenXBL (xbl.io), a third-party service you get your own API key from; it relays your own Xbox library to the Vault, and is used only if you connect Xbox.
• RetroAchievements — contacted only if you connect an RA account, using your own API key, to work out which game on their site yours is and to fetch your own achievement progress for it. Because retro games were often renamed between regions, working that out can involve looking your title up in IGDB (above) to find the name RetroAchievements files it under — a game title, not your identity.

Some of these providers are based outside the UK/EEA (for example in the US). Where data is transferred internationally, it's under the safeguards those providers operate.

Cookies & local storage

We use a single essential cookie to keep you logged in — no advertising or third-party tracking cookies. Your browser also keeps a copy of your collection in local storage so the app works offline and loads instantly; that copy lives on your device and clears when you log out or clear your browser data.

How long we keep it

• Your account and collection are kept for as long as your account exists.
• A few rolling weekly snapshots of your vault are kept so you can restore an earlier version; older ones drop off automatically.
• Photos you scan to identify a game aren't stored. Photos you upload and attach are kept until you delete them or your account.
• Price, art and identify results are cached briefly to keep things fast and cheap, and expire on their own.

Your rights

Under UK data-protection law you can ask to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, and object to certain processing. Most of it is in your hands directly — you can edit or remove anything in your collection at any time, and log out to clear the local copy.

To delete your account and everything tied to it — your profile, collection, uploaded photos and snapshots — open the account menu (top-right avatar) and choose Delete account. It asks for your password to confirm, then erases everything for good, straight away. You can also message Dec via the Contact page to have it done, or to request a copy of your data.

Security

Passwords are stored only as PBKDF2 hashes, any import credentials are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM), everything travels over HTTPS, and logins are rate-limited against brute-force attempts. No online service can promise perfect security, but your data is handled with care and kept to the minimum needed to run the app.

Children

The Vault isn't aimed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

Changes

If this notice changes, we'll update the date at the top. Significant changes affecting how your data is used will be made clear in the app.