Privacy Policy of Car Hunters

Last updated: 29 October 2026

Car Hunters is a game: you photograph cars, the app recognises them, and you collect them, earn points and compare with other players. This page explains what the game collects, why, who sees it, and how to have it deleted.

In short: you can play without giving us your name or email. We keep your check-ins to run the game, and we use your photos to train car recognition, ours and other companies'. Before any photo goes to another company, we crop it to the car, blur number plates and faces, and remove everything that links it to you. We never sell anything that identifies you. You can object at any time.

Who we are

Car Hunters is made by OneStar OÜ, Reg. No 14870489, Narva mnt 7, 10117 Tallinn, Estonia ("we"). We decide how your data is used: we are the "controller" under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Questions and requests: contact@carhunters.app. Reports: report@carhunters.app.

What we collect

Your account

• A random id that ties your phone to your player. On iPhone the app creates it and keeps it on the phone; on Android it is the id Android gives this app on your phone. You don't need a name, email or password to play.
• Your player number and the player name you choose, which other players see.
• If you sign in with Facebook, Google or Apple: your name, email address and profile picture from that service, and the id it gives you. With Apple you can hide your email; we then get an address Apple makes up that forwards to your real one.
• The settings you choose in the app, such as region, language and currency.

Your check-ins

When you check in a car, the app sends us:

• the photo and where the car is in it;
• what the app recognised (make, model, generation, colour) and any correction you make;
• where and when: your phone's location at that moment, if you allow location, and the address we work out from it (country, city, street);
• details about your phone and the app: brand, model, system version, app version, camera zoom, how long the recognition took, and similar technical details such as screen orientation and the time since the app started;
• a few small pictures of the car that the app cut from the camera while recognising it, with the location, unless you turn off Send statistics in Settings.

The camera picture is analysed on your phone and leaves it only when you check in. Your location, if you allow it, goes to our server a little earlier: when the check-in screen opens, to work out the address, and when the game looks for quests near you.

An automatic check looks for fake check-ins (for example, photos of a screen). A check-in it flags earns no points.

Reports

When you report something, we get your report and your email address.

Crash reports

If the app crashes, it sends a crash report through Google's Firebase Crashlytics: what went wrong in the code, the phone model, system version, app version, an id for this installation of the app and your player number.

The map

On Android the map in the app is Google Maps; on iPhone it is Apple Maps. When you open it, Google or Apple receives your phone's internet address and the part of the map you look at, as for any map app. A link in a check-in can also open the Google Maps app.

Our servers' logs

Our servers record each request: time, internet (IP) address, which part of the game was called, and whether it worked. We use these to keep the game running and to stop abuse.

This website

carhunters.app is delivered through Cloudflare, which sees your internet address when you open a page. Our web server's log holds only Cloudflare's addresses, for 14 days.

What other players see

Other players can see your player name and picture, your points and places in the ratings, your achievements and your game statistics.

Other players don't see your exact location, email address or phone details. You can hide your profile from other players in Settings.

How we use it

• To run the game, because you asked us to (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)): your account, check-ins, points and ratings. You need an account to play; location is optional.
• To keep the game working and fair, our "legitimate interest" in the law's words: a real need of ours that doesn't outweigh your rights (Art. 6(1)(f)). This covers crash reports, server logs, the check for fake check-ins, and handling reports.
• To improve car recognition, our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)): we use check-in photos, the car pictures and what the app and you said the car was to train and test the car recognition that Car Hunters uses. The same recognition also runs our CarNET service for businesses. People who help us label the photos see them while working for us under contract. The Terms of Use give us the copyright licence for this.
• To make car picture collections for others, our legitimate interest in earning from the car pictures the game produces (Art. 6(1)(f)): we may give, license or sell collections of cleaned car pictures made from check-ins to other companies, to train and test car and image recognition. They only ever get cleaned pictures, which contain no personal data and can't be linked to you (next section).
• Location is used only if you allow it in your phone's settings, and you can turn it off at any time. The game still works without it.

You can object to the last two uses at any time: see "Your right to object". These rules also cover photos sent with older versions of the game.

No photo leaves us as you took it

Your photos and car pictures go uncleaned only to the people and services that work for us under contract (listed below), never to anyone who uses them for their own purposes. Before a picture goes to anyone else, we clean it:

• we crop it to the car;
• we blur number plates and faces, including faces behind car windows and in reflections;
• we save it as a new picture, with a new name and without any details from the original file;
• we leave out your player name and number, account, location, the time of the check-in and your phone's details.

We then check each cleaned picture again for plates and faces, and leave it out if we find any. We keep no list of which player a cleaned picture came from. Companies that receive cleaned pictures must agree in writing not to try to find out who took them or whose car they show, not to use them to identify people or follow vehicles, and to pass these rules on to anyone they give them to.

What we never do

• We never sell anything that identifies you, and we don't share it outside the game except as this page says: with the services that work for us, with the authorities when the law requires it, and with a new owner if the company is sold.
• We never put data from Facebook, Google or Apple sign-in into these collections, and never sell it or share it outside the game; other players see only your player name and picture.
• We don't show ads in the game, don't use your phone's advertising id, and don't track you across other companies' apps or websites.

Who else handles your data

These work for us under contracts that limit them to that work and require them to protect your data as this page does:

• our servers, in data centres in the European Union;
• Google Cloud Storage, where photos are kept;
• Google Firebase Crashlytics, for crash reports;
• Google Maps and Apple Maps, for the map;
• Slack, our team chat, where our automatic check shows us check-ins it thinks are fake, with the photo and the player name;
• Cloudflare, which delivers this website;
• Zoho, our email provider, in the EU, when you write to us or report something;
• the people who help us label photos for training car recognition.

Facebook (Meta), Google and Apple get what they need to sign you in, if you use them; their own privacy policies apply to your account with them.

Companies that get cleaned car pictures, as described above, get nothing that identifies you.

Some of these services are run from the United States (Google, Apple, Slack, Cloudflare). Data sent there is covered by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses: legal arrangements that keep it protected there.

We give data to authorities only when the law requires it. If OneStar OÜ, Car Hunters or CarNET is sold or merged, your data may pass to the new owner, who must keep to this policy; we will tell you in the app first.

Keeping your data safe

The app talks to our servers only over encrypted connections. Only our team can sign in to our servers and photo storage, and photos are stored under names that can't be guessed.

If you or your car are in a player's photo

Players photograph cars in the street, so their photos can show other people's cars, number plates and sometimes people. We use these photos as this page describes: in the game and for car recognition. Nothing goes to another company before it is cleaned. If a photo shows you or your car and you want it removed, write to report@carhunters.app and we will delete it.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and check-ins while you play. If you delete your account, we delete it within 30 days, as set out below. Crash reports are kept for 90 days. Server logs are kept for up to 30 days. Backups of our database are overwritten within 30 days.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app, under Settings → Delete account, or by writing to contact@carhunters.app with your player name as shown in the app. We may ask you to show that the account is yours.

When an account is deleted, we delete within 30 days: the account, its name and picture, sign-in details, check-ins, photos, car pictures and ratings history. Copies of your photos already in our training data stay there, but we remove everything that links them to you. Recognition already trained with your photos, and cleaned pictures already made, stay too; nothing links them to you.

Deleting a single check-in removes it from the game.

Deleting the app from your phone does not delete your account. The app's id can stay on the phone (in the iPhone's keychain, or as the id Android gives this app), so installing the game again may bring you back to the same player.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to:

• show you the data we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct it;
• delete it;
• limit how we use it;
• give it to you in a common format so you can take it elsewhere.

Write to contact@carhunters.app. We answer within one month and don't charge for it.

You can also complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, www.aki.ee); you can also go to the authority where you live.

Your right to object

You can object at any time to our using your photos and car pictures to train car recognition or to make car picture collections. Write to contact@carhunters.app with your player name as shown in the app. From then on we leave your photos out of training and collections. Recognition already trained, and cleaned pictures already made or given to others, can't be undone.

You can also object to our other uses that rest on our legitimate interest. Tell us why, and we stop unless we have compelling reasons that outweigh yours.

Children

Car Hunters is not meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. If you think a child under 13 has an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we update this page and the date at the top. If a change matters for how we use data you have already given us, we tell you in the app first.