Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 25, 2026

Sidequest is a product of Tsumida AI Inc. ("Sidequest", "we", "us"). Sidequest is a mobile app for audio quests: you download a quest, follow its route through a real neighbourhood, listen to a story at each stop, look for the things the story points at through your camera, and find clues for your clue book. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.

Sidequest is an early product run by a small team. We do not sell your personal information, we show no advertising, and we collect the minimum needed to run the app.

1. Information we collect

Information you provide

• Account information. You can sign in with Google, with Apple, or with a one-time code sent to your email, or use the app as a guest. From Google or Apple we receive your name and email address (Apple lets you hide your real address); we never receive your password for those services. A guest account is a real record on our side, but it carries no name and no address of yours.
• Email sign-in. If you sign in with your email, you type your address, we email you a 6-digit code that expires in 5 minutes, and we keep the address as your account's sign-in. We keep only a scrambled form of the code until it is used or expires, and no password is ever set.
• Your profile. A display name, a short bio, a profile photo if you choose to upload one, and the interests you pick from the app's list. All of these are optional.
• Communications. Messages you send us, for example a support request by email.

Information about your quests

• Your progress stays on this phone. Which stops you have heard, which clues you have found, whether you finished and how far you walked are written to the phone's own storage and to nothing else. We do not receive them and cannot see them. The consequence is worth knowing before you start a quest: your clues and cards do not survive deleting the app or moving to a new phone. Signing in gives you one account across our apps today, not a backup of a quest.
• Which quests you download. A quest's words, pictures and audio are not inside the app when you install it. The app asks our server which quests exist, and downloads a whole quest before you set off: the ones you accept on the first run, and any single one you ask for after that. So our server, and the network that hands over the files, see your IP address, which quest you asked for and when. That is an ordinary server log, and it is the only record we hold that says anything at all about your walking.
• Location, on your phone only. Sidequest uses your location while the app is open to move you along the route and to know when you have arrived at a stop. That processing happens on your phone. Your location is not sent to our servers and we keep no location history.
• The camera, on your phone only. When you look for a clue with the camera the app shows the live camera view and draws the thing you are hunting for over it, working out where to put it from your phone's compass and tilt. It never reads the picture: nothing is captured, recorded, saved or uploaded from the camera.
• The microphone, on your phone only. Some quests ask you to read a clue out loud. The app listens only while you do, turns what you say into text on the phone to check the clue, and never records or keeps it.
• Device motion and compass. The app reads your phone's orientation sensors to keep those overlays steady while you look around. This never leaves the phone.

Information collected automatically

• Usage and log data. Basic technical information such as your IP address, device type, and the time of each request, used to operate, secure and debug the service. Our servers sit behind Cloudflare, which sees the same requests on the way through; your address is also what the sign-in rate limit counts. We do not run any third-party analytics or advertising SDK: no Google Analytics, no Facebook SDK, no attribution kit of any kind.
• A session cookie. One essential cookie keeps you signed in, for up to a year, so that opening the app is not signing in again. There are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
• The map. The map under the route is your phone's own (Apple Maps on iPhone, Google Maps on Android), so drawing it means your device asking Apple or Google for map tiles, under their privacy policies rather than ours. Nothing about where you are goes to us.
• Notifications. The app asks once whether it may send you notifications. It registers no push token with our servers, so we cannot send you anything remotely, and it does not schedule anything on the phone either: today, saying yes changes nothing. If that changes, this policy changes with it.

2. Your profile photo is served from a public address

If you upload a photo we re-encode it into a small JPEG (which strips the data your camera attached to the original, including any location it recorded), store it on the same content network the quest pictures come from, and point your account at that address. Anyone holding the address can open the picture. Nothing publishes it, nothing lists it, and nothing next to it says whose face it is. But the address itself is not a secret, so treat the photo as public.

3. One account across Tsumida AI apps

Your Sidequest account is a Tsumida AI account. Sign in to another Tsumida AI app (such as Koko) with the same Google account and you land on the same account: the same name, photo and bio, which is why editing one of them here changes it there too. Signing in with Apple does not link the two apps: Apple gives each of our apps a different identifier for the same person, so an Apple account here is a separate account from an Apple account in Koko. Email sign-in links by address: sign in to another Tsumida AI app with a code sent to the same email address and you land on the same account, including an account first made with Google under that address.

Each app still keeps its own things. Your interests and your quests are Sidequest's alone and Koko never sees them. Deleting the account is the exception, because there is only one account to delete (see section 6).

4. How we use your information

• To provide and operate Sidequest: signing you in, serving the quests you download, and guiding you along one.
• To show your profile to you, and to any other Tsumida AI app that shares the account.
• To maintain, secure and improve the service, including debugging and preventing abuse.
• To respond to your requests and communicate with you about the service.
• To comply with legal obligations.

5. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only in these limited cases:

• Service providers. Sidequest runs on Amazon Web Services, which holds our database and stores and serves both the quest files and profile photos, and behind Cloudflare, which carries requests to our server. Sign-in is handled by Google or Apple, sign-in codes are emailed through Resend, and map tiles come from Apple or Google, under their own terms. These providers process data on our behalf.
• Legal and safety. We may disclose information if required by law or to protect the rights, safety or property of Sidequest, our users or others.

6. Data retention, and deleting your account

We keep your account (the sign-in identifier, your name and email, your bio, your photo and your interests) for as long as the account exists. We do not hold your quest progress at all: it is on your phone, and it goes when the app does.

When you delete your account we remove your profile, your photo, your interests and the account itself from our active systems, except where we must retain something to comply with law. A photo already cached by the network that serves it can be handed out for a while after the file behind it is gone.

You can delete your account directly in the app: You → Settings → the ⋯ menu → Delete account. Deletion is immediate and it deletes the whole Tsumida AI account, in every app that uses it. If you cannot access the app, email [email protected] from the address on your account with the subject "Delete my account" and we will process it within 30 days.

7. Your choices

• You can edit your name, bio, photo and interests at any time from the You tab.
• You can revoke the app's location and camera permissions in your phone's Settings; the quest cannot guide you without location, but the rest of the app works.
• Deleting the app removes every quest you downloaded and everything you had done in one. Deleting the app is not deleting your account; for that, use the steps in section 6.
• Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information (such as access, portability or objection). Contact us to exercise them.

8. Security

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS) everywhere, and we never hold a password of yours: sign-in is through Google, Apple or a one-time code sent to your email. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Children

Sidequest is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age required in your country), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us information, please contact us and we will delete it.

10. International users

Sidequest is operated from Japan, and your information may be processed there and in other countries where our service providers operate. By using Sidequest you consent to this transfer and processing.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice.

12. Contact us

Questions or requests about this policy or your data? Email us at [email protected].