Last updated 6 November 2026
FREQ is a location-based game made by SyphonGames, the games brand of SyphonDigital ("we", "us"). SyphonDigital is the trading name of Nathan William Stokes, ABN 39 706 235 960, of Western Australia. This policy explains what the FREQ app collects, why, and the choices you have. Contact: support@syphondigital.online.
Game progress such as your collection, levels, fragments, missions, settings and total walking distance is saved in the app's storage on your phone. On Android it may be included in your phone's own backup to your Google account if you have device backup turned on. Clearing the app's data or uninstalling deletes it from the phone.
Your live GPS position is used on your device to place signals, check capture range and filter walking distance. Individual GPS points and routes are not saved. If you activate a lure or daily target, the spot where you activated it is saved on the device until it expires (at most until midnight).
The street map is drawn from OpenStreetMap data served by OpenFreeMap (openfreemap.org). To show the map, your phone requests map tiles for the area on screen. Like any website, the tile server receives your IP address and which map area was requested. We don't receive this information. See OpenFreeMap's website for its own policy.
The game also reads public places (such as parks, artworks and train stations) and streets from those same map tiles to place stations and relays. This happens on your phone; the positions it works out are stored only on your device.
To show a photo of a station, the game asks Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (run by the Wikimedia Foundation) for freely licensed pictures near that station. It also asks the Overpass API (overpass-api.de, a public OpenStreetMap service) which named places within a roughly 3 km square around the stations link to a photo; that request contains the square's corners, not your exact position. These requests include the station's or area's position and, like any website visit, your IP address. Results are kept on your phone for up to 30 days. The game may also ask Mapillary (run by Meta) for street-level photos within about 100 m of a station; that request contains the station's position, not yours. Photos are shown with their author and licence.
If you turn on event reminders in Settings, FREQ schedules notifications on your phone (for example, a disruption starting nearby or a station reopening) when you leave the game. They are created and shown by your phone; nothing is sent to a push service. You can turn them off in Settings or in your phone's notification settings.
When you tap Share this find, the game draws a picture of your capture on your phone. The picture shows the signal, your score and hashtags; it does not include a map or your location. Save image puts it in your phone's gallery (on Android 7–9 this asks for storage permission). Share opens your phone's share menu, and the picture goes only to the app you choose. We don't receive it.
If you choose Join the network, we create a guest account for this device. No email, phone number or Google sign-in is used. We then store:
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| A random account ID, your chosen public nickname, the city you pick from a list, your profile signal (a game character), and a generated friend code | So friends can find you and rankings can show your nickname and picture |
| Friend requests, accepted friends, blocks, gifts and reports | To run friends, gifts and safety features |
| Online captures (which signal, when, a one-way hash of the appearance), station holds, battles against other holders, disruption battles and rewards, and monthly season totals | To run ranked power, stations, disruptions, seasons and leaderboards |
| Your remote link: which station you linked and when | So signals around that station count when you catch them from elsewhere |
| Place suggestions you submit, including their location | So we can review new stations |
Location in online play: when you make a ranked capture, hold or battle a station, battle a disruption, drop a remote link or suggest a place, your current GPS position and its accuracy are sent to our server at that moment to check that you are nearby. None of these keep your position; a remote link keeps only the station's id. Place suggestions keep the suggested place's location. Other players never see your location.
Your nickname, friend code (to people you share it with) and ranked score are visible to other players. Don't use your real name as a nickname.
Our online service runs on Supabase (supabase.com), which hosts the database in Sydney, Australia. Supabase processes this data for us and may keep server logs (such as IP addresses and request times) for security for a limited period.
Reports other players made about you may be kept as long as needed to deal with abuse, then deleted.
FREQ has one kind of ad: a Pirate broadcast, a rewarded video you choose to watch. You pick the reward first (for example a signal lure or a fragment pack), then decide whether to watch. Nothing in the game requires it, and the same gear can be earned by playing. There are at most three a day, at least five minutes apart. Nothing in FREQ is sold for real money.
The ads come from Google AdMob, run by Google. They are only offered once you have chosen 18 or older as your age range in the game's privacy settings. If you choose a younger range or Prefer not to say, the game makes no ad requests. The age range you choose is saved only on your phone, and we never ask for your date of birth.
Before ads can play, Google's consent tool (the User Messaging Platform) asks for your choices where the law requires it, for example in the UK and the European Economic Area. You can change them at any time from the game's privacy options.
When an ad is requested or shown, Google's software in the app may collect your device's advertising ID, your IP address (from which an approximate location can be worked out), information about your device and the app, how you interact with the ad, and crash and performance information. Google uses this to show and measure ads and to prevent fraud and, where you allow it, to personalise ads. We don't receive this information. See how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's settings.
FREQ is intended for players aged 13 and over and is not directed at children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an online profile, contact us and we will delete it.
Data sent between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Online data sits in a private database that the app can only reach through specific checked functions.
Depending on where you live (for example under the Australian Privacy Act, the EU/UK GDPR or US state laws), you may have the right to access, correct or delete your data, or to object to its use. Contact support@syphondigital.online and we will respond within the time the law requires.
If we change this policy we will update the date above and, for important changes, tell you in the app.