Iris Edge Studios/Cowardly Heroes/Privacy
Privacy Policy: Cowardly Heroes
Effective date: 22 September 2026
This policy covers the mobile game Cowardly Heroes: Pixel Runner by Iris Edge
Studios (Android package com.IrisEdgeStudios.CowardlyHeroes), on Android and iOS (the
"Game"). It does not cover this website, which has its own privacy policy, or our other
game, Pinteza, which has its own.
1. Who we are
The data controller for the Game is Iris Edge Studios, based in Portugal (full provider details are in our terms). For any privacy question or request, write to legal@irisedgestudios.com.
2. What the Game keeps on your device
You play without an account. There is no sign-up, no login, no email address to give, no cloud save and no online leaderboard, and we run no server for the Game. Nothing you do in the Game is sent to us.
The Game saves its state in your device's own app storage (Unity PlayerPrefs): your scores and
coins, the heroes you have unlocked, missions, achievements and trophies, your daily-reward streak, your
settings, your answer on the AD PRIVACY screen, and the timers that decide when a reward is next available. We
never receive a copy of any of it.
Device backups. Your phone may include this saved data in its own backup, and restore it when you reinstall the Game or move to a new phone: on Android through Android Auto Backup to your Google account, and on iPhone and iPad through iCloud or a computer backup. That backup belongs to your Google or Apple account and is controlled by your device settings. We cannot see or access it.
To erase this data, see section 9.
3. Notifications
If you allow it, the Game shows reminders, for example that a free reward is ready or that your daily streak is about to reset. These are local notifications: the Game schedules them on your device through your phone's own notification system. We run no push service, and scheduling one sends nothing about you anywhere. Where your phone requires it, it asks for your permission first, and you can turn them off in the Game's settings or in your phone's settings.
4. Advertising
The Game is free, and ads pay for it. Its only ad provider is Unity: ads are requested through Unity LevelPlay (formerly ironSource LevelPlay), Unity's ad mediation service, and served by the Unity Ads network. No other ad network is connected. If we ever add one, we will name it here before it serves an ad.
You may see:
- Reward videos, only when you choose to watch one: to revive and carry on a run after you are caught, to double the coins from a run (x2 COINS), or for free coins. They are always optional.
- One kind of full-screen ad: on the results screen, when you tap RUN AGAIN, at most one every five minutes.
There are no ads during a run and no banner ads. The Game has no in-app purchases: nothing in it costs real money, and it never asks for payment details.
5. Your choice: the AD PRIVACY screen
In the EU, the EEA, the UK and Switzerland (the Game works this out from your device's region and time-zone settings), ads are not personalised unless you agree. The Game asks nothing when you first open it. It asks once, with an AD PRIVACY screen, just before the first ad would be shown, for example the first time you tap a reward video. The screen has two buttons of the same size, ACCEPT and NO THANKS, and a PRIVACY POLICY link to this page. Ads are shown whichever you choose; the question is only whether they may be personalised.
- ACCEPT: Unity and ironSource may use data from your device, such as its advertising ID, to show you personalised ads and to measure them.
- NO THANKS, or no answer: ads stay non-personalised. They are chosen from the context, such as the game you are playing and your approximate location, not from a profile of you, and Unity and ironSource are told that you did not consent. Reward videos work the same either way.
The Game remembers your answer on your device. If you close the screen without answering, it asks again before a later ad. Once you have answered, it does not ask again unless you use DELETE MY DATA.
Everywhere else, there is no such question: ads may be personalised where the law allows it. The same choice is always available in the Game's settings.
Changing your mind. Wherever you are, Settings → AD PRIVACY opens the same screen at any time. Choosing NO THANKS after having accepted withdraws your consent to personalised ads, and it also works as an opt-out of the "sale" or "sharing" of your data for targeted advertising under US state laws (section 13). The change applies to the next ads the Game requests, or at the latest from the next time you open it. It does not undo what Unity received while you had accepted; section 9 explains how to ask Unity to delete it.
6. iPhone and iPad: Apple's tracking prompt
On iOS the Game also shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt, just before the first ad (never when you first open the Game), which asks whether the Game may track your activity across other companies' apps and websites. If you ask the Game not to track, your device's advertising identifier (IDFA) is not available to the Game or to the ad software.
The AD PRIVACY choice in section 5 applies on top of that. If you deny tracking, the IDFA is not used, whatever you choose on the AD PRIVACY screen; if you choose NO THANKS, ads are not personalised, whatever you answered Apple. You can change your answer to Apple at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
7. What the ad software collects
While the Game runs, the Unity LevelPlay and Unity Ads software inside it collects the data below from your device and shares it with Unity and ironSource, to deliver, measure and pay for ads and to prevent fraud. This is the same list we give in the Google Play Data safety section. All of it is sent over encrypted connections. If you chose NO THANKS on the AD PRIVACY screen, Unity and ironSource are told that you did not consent: the data is not used to personalise ads or to build a profile of you, only for non-personalised ads, ad measurement and fraud prevention, which Unity and ironSource base on their legitimate interests.
| Approximate location | Your country or region, estimated from your IP address. Never your precise location: the Game asks for no location permission. Used for advertising or marketing, analytics, fraud prevention, security and compliance, and app functionality. |
|---|---|
| User IDs | Unity lists user IDs in its own data disclosure for its ad software, meaning identifiers Unity assigns and uses to make its service work. The Game itself has no accounts and never asks who you are. Used for app functionality. |
| Purchase history | Unity also lists purchase history in its own disclosure for its ad software. The Game sells nothing and has no in-app purchases, so it has no purchases of its own to report. Used for advertising or marketing, and analytics. |
| App interactions | How the Game is used where ads are concerned, such as when it was opened and how long a session lasted. Used for advertising or marketing, analytics, and fraud prevention, security and compliance. |
| Other actions | Your interaction with ads: whether an ad loaded, was shown, was watched to the end, was closed or was tapped. Used for advertising or marketing, analytics, and fraud prevention, security and compliance. |
| Diagnostics | Performance and error data from the ad software. Used for app functionality, analytics, advertising or marketing, and fraud prevention, security and compliance. |
| Device or other IDs | Your advertising ID (the Google Advertising ID on Android; Apple's IDFA on iOS, only if you allow tracking), the App Set ID on Android (an ID shared only by apps from the same developer), and identifiers the ad software creates for your installation. Used for advertising or marketing, analytics, fraud prevention, security and compliance, and app functionality. |
Like any app that talks to a server, the ad software also sends the technical details it needs to show an ad on your screen, such as device model, operating system version, language, screen size and network type.
On iPhone and iPad, the App Store privacy label groups the same data in Apple's own categories. Besides the rows above, Unity lists product interaction, advertising data, other usage data, performance data, other data types (such as the technical details above) and customer support content, which is collected only if you report an ad to Unity from inside the ad. The device ID (IDFA) is used for tracking only if you allow it in Apple's prompt.
On Android, the ad software can also use Android's Privacy Sandbox ad features (ad topics and ad measurement). You can switch these off in your phone's ad privacy settings (section 8).
This data is collected by Unity and ironSource, not by us. We operate no server for the Game and never receive this data about any individual player; what we see is an aggregated dashboard of how many ads were shown, in which countries, and what they earned. Unity uses the data under its own policy, the Unity Game Player and App User Privacy Policy, which also covers ironSource. ironSource's former privacy page now leads to Unity's Privacy Policy Hub. Inside a Unity ad you can also tap the Data Privacy icon to see the data Unity holds about your device for this Game, opt out of personalised ads, or ask Unity to delete it.
8. Resetting your advertising ID, or limiting tracking
The advertising ID is a random identifier your phone gives apps for advertising. It is not your name, phone number or email address, but because other apps can read the same ID, it can be used to link what you do across apps. It is under your control, and none of the steps below breaks the Game.
Android: open Settings → Google → All services → Ads (on some phones Settings → Google → Ads or Settings → Privacy → Ads; searching Settings for "Ads" finds it). Tap Reset advertising ID to get a new one, or Delete advertising ID where your phone offers it, after which apps receive only zeros instead of an ID. The same screen has Ads privacy, where you can turn off ad topics, app-suggested ads and ad measurement. Google's help: advertising ID and ad privacy settings.
iPhone and iPad: open Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking and switch off Cowardly Heroes, or turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track for every app. Apple's help: support.apple.com.
9. Deleting your data, and how long it is kept
- On your device: kept until you delete it. Settings → DELETE MY DATA (tap it, then tap SURE? TAP AGAIN to confirm) erases all game data stored on your device: progress, scores, coins, heroes, settings, your daily streak, and your answer on the AD PRIVACY screen, so the Game asks that question again where it applies. This cannot be undone, and we cannot restore it.
- Uninstalling the Game also removes this data from your device, as does clearing the Game's data in your phone's settings. A copy inside an earlier device backup is managed in your Google or Apple account settings.
- With us: there is nothing to delete. There are no accounts, and we hold no game data on any server. If you email us, we keep the conversation only as long as we need to handle your request and show that we did, then delete it.
- With Unity and ironSource: ad data is kept for the periods set in Unity's policy, which we cannot change. To ask Unity to delete it, tap the Data Privacy icon inside a Unity ad, or email Unity's privacy team at DPO@unity3d.com naming Cowardly Heroes (see the Unity Game Player and App User Privacy Policy). You can also write to us, and we will pass the request on and help you with it. Resetting or deleting your advertising ID (section 8) also breaks the link between that data and your device from then on.
There is also a short page on deleting your Cowardly Heroes data.
10. Who receives data
| Unity Technologies and its affiliate ironSource | They run Unity LevelPlay and Unity Ads, receive the data in section 7, and use it for the purposes listed there under their own privacy policy. Ads are personalised only if you accept (section 5). |
|---|---|
| Google and Apple | Provide the app stores and the phone features the Game uses (the advertising ID, the tracking prompt, notifications and device backup), under their own terms and your own account with them. |
We do not sell your personal data for money, and we share nothing else with anyone. We would disclose information if the law required it, but we hold no personal data about players.
11. International transfers
Unity Technologies is based in the United States, and Unity and ironSource may process the data in section 7 in the United States, Israel and other countries where they operate. Where data leaves the European Economic Area or the UK, Unity relies on safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or on an adequacy decision where one exists, as set out in its policy.
12. Legal bases (EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland)
- Consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR): for personalised ads and the use of your device's data for them, given with ACCEPT on the AD PRIVACY screen, and on iOS for access to the IDFA through Apple's prompt. You can withdraw it at any time in Settings → AD PRIVACY, as easily as you gave it.
- Providing the Game you chose to play (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): saving your progress and settings on your own device. We never receive this data.
- Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): for showing non-personalised ads that keep the Game free, measuring them and preventing ad fraud, which is also the basis Unity and ironSource state for contextual ads and fraud prevention; and for answering messages and privacy requests you send us, and keeping a record that we handled them. You have the right to object to this processing (section 13).
No decision with legal or similarly significant effects is made about you by automated means.
13. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access, rectify and erase your personal data, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what was done before. Write to legal@irisedgestudios.com. Because we hold no personal data about players and there is no account to look you up by, we will tell you plainly what we can and cannot do, and help you make the request to Unity, which holds the advertising data. We answer within 30 days.
You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. Ours is the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD), Av. D. Carlos I, 134, 1.º, 1200-651 Lisboa, Portugal, geral@cnpd.pt, www.cnpd.pt. You may also complain in the EU country where you live or work.
United States. Depending on your state, you may have the right to know, delete and correct personal information, and to opt out of its sale, of its "sharing" for cross-context behavioural advertising, and of targeted advertising. We do not sell personal information for money, but personalised ads that use your advertising ID can count as sharing or targeted advertising. To opt out, choose NO THANKS in Settings → AD PRIVACY, which turns off personalised ads and passes your opt-out to the ad software, or use the device settings in section 8. You can also write to us with "Do not sell or share" in the subject and we will help. Nothing else in the Game changes when you opt out.
14. Security
We operate no server or database for the Game and store no personal data about players, so there is nothing of yours on our side to lose. Your saved game is protected by your device's own security and the operating system's app sandbox. The ad software sends its data over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS), and Unity protects it once received with its own measures.
15. Children
The Game is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. It is listed on the stores for players aged 13 and over. If you believe a child under 13 has played it and data about them has been collected, write to us and we will help have it deleted with Unity.
16. Changes
If the way the Game handles data changes, for example with a new ad network, we will update this policy before the change reaches you and change the date above. If a change affects something you agreed to, the Game will ask you again where the law requires it. This is the English version and it is the controlling version if a translation differs.
17. Contact
Iris Edge Studios, Portugal
legal@irisedgestudios.com