Privacy policy
Last updated 23 October 2026
Short version: we keep what you need to rank your music and share it with the people you choose to play with. We do not sell data or show adverts. We count visits and a few in-app actions, in aggregate, with cookieless analytics that does not identify you. You can download your data or delete your account yourself from Me → Settings.
Who we are
Anthem Arena (anthemarena.co.uk) is run by the Anthem Arena developer, based in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact: Me → Settings → Contact us in the app.
What we collect, and why
| Data | Why | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account: a user ID; for Google or email accounts, your email address, display name and profile picture link; for guests, an anonymous ID only. | To sign you in and keep your library yours. | Contract |
| Your music and play: songs you add (title, artist, album, artwork link, genre, year, tempo, video and preview links), ratings, votes, streaks, tournaments, rivalries, playlists, awards and settings. | This is the app: it is how your rankings are built. | Contract |
| Your public profile: display name, picture, friend code, vote and tournament totals, top songs, recent votes and upsets, follower count, and a copy of your library with each song's record. | So other players can follow you, compare taste and appear in the global charts. | Contract |
| Social: who you follow, who follows you, and messages in your activity inbox (for example "added your song" or a follow). | Following and friend features. | Contract |
| Ideas board and requests: ideas you post (title, reason, your display name), your votes, and feature requests you back. | To decide what to build next, in public. | Legitimate interests |
| Shared song fixes: when you pick a working clip or video for a song, the song's title and artist, the video or clip link, and your user ID. | So the fix plays for every player, and misuse can be traced. | Legitimate interests |
| Reports and messages to us: what you report, your reason, your user ID. | To keep the service safe and answer you. | Legitimate interests and legal obligation |
| Supporter status: a note that you donated, if you ask us to add one. | To unlock supporter posting on the ideas board. | Consent |
| YouTube library (only if you connect it): see the YouTube section below. | Import and sync. | Consent |
| Usage counts: page views, and when someone starts the demo, signs up, reaches their 1st, 10th or 50th vote, finishes a tournament, shares a card (which kind), taps a donate link, installs the app, opens an invite link (whether it came from a shared card or a copied link) or signs up from one. Each comes with the page, the site you arrived from, and your country, browser, operating system and device type. No user ID, name, email, song or anything you type is sent with them. | To see which parts of the app people use, and where it loses them, as totals. | Legitimate interests |
We do not collect your location, contacts, payment details, or anything about you from other websites.
Who can see what
- Only you: your library, votes, playlists, settings and inbox.
- Any signed-in player: your public profile, your library copy, your ideas and the shared song fixes. Profiles are listed in people search and the global charts.
- Anyone with your friend code or invite link, signed in or not: your display name and your #1 song (title and artist), so the link can say who sent it. Nothing else — not your email, photo, account ID or the rest of your library — and it is deleted with your account.
- Us: anything in the database, which we look at only to run, fix or moderate the service.
Services we use
These providers process data on our behalf or when your device talks to them directly:
- Google Firebase (authentication and database) — Google Ireland / Google LLC. Firebase privacy.
- Vercel (hosting), which keeps short-lived request logs including IP addresses. Vercel privacy.
- Vercel Web Analytics for the usage counts above. It uses no cookies and stores nothing on your device; it tells visits apart with a hash of the request that it discards within 24 hours, and we see only totals. How Vercel Web Analytics handles data.
- Apple (iTunes Search API) and Deezer: your device sends song searches to them and plays 30-second previews from them, so they see your IP address and the search. Apple privacy · Deezer privacy.
- YouTube: videos and previews play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com). YouTube sees your IP address when it loads and may set cookies once you press play.
- Spotify, only where that import is switched on and you choose to connect.
- Ko-fi, if you follow the donate link. Ko-fi handles the payment; we never see card details. Ko-fi privacy.
Google, Vercel and some of the others may process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, they rely on UK adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) or the UK's international data transfer agreement and addendum.
YouTube
Anthem Arena uses YouTube API Services. By connecting YouTube you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google's handling of your data is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.
When you connect, Google gives the app a short-lived read-only key (and, only if you export a playlist, permission to create that playlist). The key stays in your browser's memory for under an hour and is never stored on our servers. With it, your device reads your playlist names and their videos' titles, channels and IDs. From that we keep:
- the video ID matched to each song in your library;
- songs you choose to import (title, artist, artwork link, video ID);
- on your device only, the result of your last sync and which playlists you chose.
Matched video IDs, with the song's title and artist, also go into the shared song fixes so the song plays for other players. You can remove access at any time from your Google account's third-party connections (or security permissions). Deleting your Anthem Arena account deletes the YouTube data held with it.
On your device
The app stores settings, caches and your sign-in session in your browser's local storage and IndexedDB, and caches the app itself for offline use. These are strictly necessary for the app to work, so no consent banner is needed. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies, and our analytics stores nothing on your device. Demo mode keeps everything on your device and sends nothing to our database.
How long we keep it
- Account data: until you delete your account, or we close an account that breaks the terms.
- Reports: until they are dealt with, and up to 12 months after if needed to handle repeat abuse.
- Shared song fixes and feature-request tallies stay after you leave, linked only to an ID that no longer belongs to anyone.
- Hosting logs: as long as Vercel keeps them, typically days.
- Usage counts: kept by Vercel as aggregate statistics for its analytics dashboard.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or move your data, and object to how we use it. Two of these are built in: Me → Settings → Download my data and Delete my account. For anything else, contact us as above and we will reply within one month.
You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, though we would like the chance to fix it first.
Children
You must be 13 or over to create an account. Players under 18 should check with a parent or guardian first, and should think about what goes in their display name, since profiles are visible to other players.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will say so in the app's news panel before it takes effect.