Privacy policy

Last updated October 10, 2026

Ludota is a free service for keeping your video game backlog on a board, with an optional public profile. This policy explains what personal data it keeps, why, who else handles it, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not skimmed past: if anything is unclear, write to privacy@ludota.com.

Who is responsible

Ludota is run by Giuseppe Ciotola, a private individual living in Italy, who is the data controller for the personal data described here. You can reach them at privacy@ludota.com, whether or not you have an account.

What Ludota keeps, and why

Your account

Your email address, to sign you in with a one-time code and to tell accounts apart.
Your username and, if you add them, a display name and a bio.
When you confirmed you are at least 14 years old, and, if you did, when you declared you are 18 or older.
Your settings: default platforms, region, hidden and compact columns, whether to blur adult covers, and whether your profile is private, unlisted or public.
The language of the interface, English or Italian: the one you choose in Settings or, until you do, the one of the page you signed up from.
When you joined, and whether you joined during the invite-only release (Founding member) or the public beta (Beta tester).

Your board

The games you add and everything you record about them: their column and its history with dates, platforms, ownership and the price you paid, priority, tags, notes and saved views. Your board is private. If you make your profile unlisted or public, anyone with the link (and, for a public profile, search engines) can see your name, picture, bio and the covers, titles, platforms and dates of the games you are playing, have completed and are waiting for. Ownership, prices, tags, notes and priority are never shown, nor are games marked as adult content.

Profile picture

If you add a picture, Ludota keeps a square copy of it, 256 pixels wide, made when you upload it. The original file is not kept, nor its metadata, such as where a photo was taken. The picture shows wherever your profile can be seen and, for you, in the app. It is stored with Vercel Blob in the European Union (Dublin). Replacing or removing it, or deleting your account, deletes the file. If your profile is made private, or an admin hides it, the picture moves to a new address, so links to it shared earlier stop working.

Signing in

One-time codes, stored only as a hash, which expire after 10 minutes.
Sessions: the IP address and browser of each device you sign in on. A session expires after 7 days without use.
Passkeys, if you add them: the public key, the name you give it, the model of password manager that holds it, and when you added it. The private key never leaves your device or password manager.
Google sign-in, if you use it: Google tells Ludota the email address and the identifier of your Google account, which Ludota keeps to recognise you next time. It does not keep your Google name or picture, and gets no access to your Google account.
Counts of sign-in attempts per email address and per IP address, to stop people from guessing codes or flooding inboxes. They are deleted after a day.
A bot check when you ask for a code: your browser solves an invisible challenge from Vercel BotID, which sends Vercel technical details about the browser, so that automated programs cannot use the form to send emails in bulk. Ludota only learns whether the request passed, and keeps nothing.

Reports and moderation

If you report a profile, Ludota keeps the reason, the details you write, who reported it and when, so the admins can review it. They see the reporter's username, not their email address. If an admin hides a profile, the reason and the date are kept so its owner can be told why.

Feedback

If you send feedback from the app, its type, your message, your username and your email address are emailed to the owner, so they can answer you. Ludota does not store the message; the email stays in the owner's mailbox.

Emails sent

For each email Ludota sends (sign-in codes and feedback), it notes the kind of email and the time, and for feedback your account, to keep within its email provider's limits and to limit feedback to a few messages an hour. These notes never contain the email itself and are deleted after 62 days.

Visits to public pages

Ludota measures visits to its public pages (the home page, profiles, sign-in and these legal pages) with Vercel Web Analytics: the page, the referring site, and your country, browser, operating system and type of device. It sets no cookies and does not identify you or follow you across days or sites. The board, settings and other pages behind sign-in are not measured.

Server logs

Like any website, the hosting provider records each request (IP address, page, time and browser) to run the service and keep it secure. These logs are kept only briefly.

Legal grounds

Providing the service you signed up for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): your account, board, profile, sign-in and the emails you ask for.
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): keeping Ludota secure and free of abuse, moderating public profiles, answering feedback, and understanding how the public pages are found, in ways that do not identify you.
Legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR), where the law requires Ludota to keep or disclose data.

Ludota never sells your data, shows no ads and does not build advertising profiles.

Who else handles your data

Ludota relies on a few providers, who process data only to provide their service to it:

Vercel (United States): hosts the website and the API, keeps the server logs, provides the visit statistics, runs the bot check on sign-in code requests and stores profile pictures.
Neon (United States): hosts the database with everything described above.
Resend (United States): sends the sign-in codes and feedback emails.
Google (United States): if you choose to sign in with Google, it confirms who you are, and learns that you signed in to Ludota.
IGDB, a Twitch service (United States): Ludota's server looks up game information there, without sending anything about you. Game covers are loaded by your browser directly from IGDB's image servers, which therefore receive your IP address, as with any image on the web.

Some of these providers are outside the European Union. Transfers to them rely on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

Cookies

Ludota uses only cookies it needs to work, so it asks for no consent and shows no banner:

ludota.session_token: keeps you signed in. It lasts until you sign out or the session expires.
ludota.passkey-challenge: set for a few minutes while you add or use a passkey.
ludota.state: set for a few minutes while you sign in with Google, to check that you come back from the sign-in you started.
ludota-locale: remembers the language you read Ludota in, English or Italian, for a year. It is set when you open the home page in one of them, or choose a language in Settings.
ludota-theme: remembers the light or dark theme you chose on that device, for a year. It is only set if you pick a theme.

There are no advertising, tracking or third-party cookies.

How long data is kept

Your account and board: until you delete your account, which removes them at once, together with your sessions, passkeys, link to a Google account and reports you made or received.
Profile picture: until you replace or remove it, or delete your account.
Sign-in codes: 10 minutes. Sessions: 7 days without use. Attempt counts: a day.
Notes of emails sent: 62 days.
Backups: the database can be restored to any moment of the last 7 days, and daily backups are kept for 30 days. Deleted data stays in them until they expire, and is then gone from them too.

Your rights

You can ask to access, correct, delete or export your data, to restrict how it is used, or object to it. Most of this you can do yourself in Settings: edit your profile, download your whole board as a CSV file, and delete your account. For anything else, write to privacy@ludota.com; you will get an answer within a month.

If you think your data is mishandled, you can complain to a data protection authority: in Italy, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (garanteprivacy.it), or the authority where you live.

Age

You must be at least 14 years old to use Ludota. If you learn that a younger child has an account, write to privacy@ludota.com and it will be deleted.

Languages

This policy is written in English and in Italian. Both versions say the same and are equally valid.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. Important changes are announced in the app before they apply.