Barakah Games
Privacy.
Last updated 18 August 2026.
The short version
You can read the whole thing, but here is what matters most.
- We collect what we need to sell you a game and run the app, and nothing else.
- The photos you take in the app are sealed and encrypted on your phone. We cannot see them. Section three explains the one brief exception, because there is one and we would rather you heard it from us.
- Your photos belong to you and your partner together, not to either account alone.
- You can delete your account and your data at any time, from inside the app.
- We do not sell your personal information.
1. Who we are
Barakah Games makes One Step Closer, a physical card game for couples, and the free companion app of the same name.
This policy covers:
- barakahgames.com, this site
- The One Step Closer app on iOS
- osc.barakahgames.com, the invitation link used to pair with a partner
The store is not open yet. When it opens, this policy will be updated to describe it before it takes a single order.
[LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [ADDRESS]
2. What we collect
When you join the waitlist on this site
Your email address, and nothing else. We use it once, to tell you when the game is available. Every email we send carries an unsubscribe link. This site has no analytics and sets no cookies.
When you use the app
- Account: your email address and a display name you choose. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the identifier and email they provide. Apple’s Hide My Email is supported and works normally.
- Pairing: the invitation code linking your account to your partner’s
- Your year: which nights you marked as kept, and when
- Photos: one photo per night, if you choose to take one. See section three.
- Notifications: a device push token, if you turn reminders on
What we do not collect
We do not collect your contacts, your location, your calendar, your photo library beyond the single photo you choose each night, or your microphone. The app contains no analytics and no third-party tracking of any kind. We receive crash and performance reports only in the aggregated, anonymised form Apple provides to every developer; we cannot tie those to you.
3. Photos, sealing, and encryption
This is the part of the app people ask about most, so it is written plainly, including the part that is inconvenient for us.
Sealing. The app is built around one photo per night, and you cannot see any of them until your year is complete. This is a design choice rather than a technical restriction — the point is that the year reveals itself at the end.
Encryption. Photos are encrypted on your phone before they are uploaded, with a key held by you and your partner. The key is stored in your device’s secure hardware keystore. It does not sync to iCloud and it does not move to a new phone. We cannot decrypt your photos, and neither can anyone who obtains access to our storage. If you contact support about a photo, we will not be able to look at it, because there is nothing on our side to look at.
The exception, and it is brief. Your key has to reach your partner’s phone somehow. While you are pairing, a copy of it — encrypted with your four-character invitation code — sits on our servers so their phone can collect it. We also hold that code, which means that during this window we could in principle read that copy of your key. We do not, and the copy is destroyed the moment your partner pairs, or after forty-eight hours if they never do. The same thing happens for fifteen minutes if you sign in on a new phone and your partner approves your request to restore your key. Outside those windows your key exists only on your two phones.
We are telling you this because “we can never see your photos” is a simpler sentence, and it would not be exactly true.
Shared ownership. Sealed photos belong to the couple rather than to either account. This has real consequences worth understanding:
- Either of you can see the completed year at the end.
- If one of you deletes their account, the other keeps the shared year. See section eight.
- We cannot hand one partner’s photos to the other on request, and we cannot remove a photo from a shared year on one partner’s instruction alone, because we cannot read them and cannot verify what any given photo contains.
What this means if you lose access. Because we do not hold your key, we cannot recover your photos if you and your partner both lose access to your accounts and devices. If only one of you loses a phone, the other can approve a restore from inside the app. This is the trade-off that comes with encryption we cannot undo.
4. How we use what we collect
- To run your account, pair you with your partner, and keep your year
- To send the daily reminder, if you turned it on
- To answer support requests
- To tell you when the game is available, if you joined the waitlist
- To send you the game you ordered and handle returns, once the store opens
We do not use your data to train machine learning models. We do not build advertising profiles. We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
5. Who we share it with
We share only what each provider needs to do its job.
| Provider | What they handle | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | App accounts, database, storage | Email, display name, your year, encrypted photo files |
| Apple | Sign-in, push notifications, app distribution | Account identifier, push token |
| Sign-in | Account identifier | |
| Resend | Waitlist and support email | Email address |
| Vercel | Hosting for this site and the invitation link | Standard server logs, including IP address |
When the store opens, Shopify, its payment providers and shipping carriers will be added to this list, and this policy will say so before the first order is taken.
We may disclose information if required by law. For sealed photos, a legal demand would produce encrypted files we cannot decrypt.
6. Your partner
One Step Closer takes two people, so some of what you do is visible to the person you are paired with. Your partner can see your display name, which nights you marked as kept, and the completed year at the end, including its photos.
Your partner cannot see your email address, your account settings, or anything you do outside the app.
Pairing lasts for the year. There is no way to unpair and keep the year, because the year belongs to both of you. If you want out of a pairing, delete your account — section eight describes exactly what happens.
7. Notifications
If you turn on reminders, we send a daily reminder at the time you choose and a nudge to return to a session you left open. Both are behind one switch, and you can turn it off inside the app or in your device settings. We do not send marketing push notifications.
8. Deleting your account and your data
You can delete your account from inside the app: Settings → Delete account.
When you delete your account:
- Your account, email address, display name and your record of nights kept are permanently deleted.
- The key stored on your device is destroyed.
- If you have a partner, the photos are not deleted, because they are not only yours. One photo per night belongs to the couple, and your partner keeps a complete year. Their year is paused and they are told. The photos are deleted when nobody is left to see them — that is, when your partner deletes their account too, or if you had no partner when you deleted yours.
- Once the store opens, order records will be retained where tax and accounting law requires it.
Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. If you have trouble deleting your account, contact us through our support page and we will do it for you.
9. How long we keep things
- Account and app data: until you delete your account
- Photos: until the last member of the couple deletes their account
- Invitation codes and the key copy described in section three: forty-eight hours at most, and normally seconds
- Waitlist email: until you unsubscribe, or until the game ships
- Server logs: as retained by Vercel, currently thirty days
10. Children
One Step Closer is made for married couples and is not directed at children. The app is not intended for anyone under sixteen, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us through our support page and we will delete it.
11. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- Ask what personal information we hold about you
- Ask us to correct it
- Ask us to delete it
- Ask for a copy in a portable format
- Object to or restrict certain processing
- Withdraw consent you previously gave
- Complain to your local data protection authority
If you are in California, you also have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising these rights. We do not sell personal information.
To exercise any of these, contact us through our support page. We will respond within the time your law requires, and within thirty days in any case.
12. Where your data lives
We are based in the United States, and our providers store data in the United States and other countries. If you are in the UK, EU, or another region with data transfer rules, your information may be transferred outside your country. Where required, our providers rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent mechanism.
13. Cookies
This site sets no cookies and runs no analytics. The app does not use cookies. The invitation page at osc.barakahgames.com sets no tracking cookies. When the store opens it will need cookies to hold a cart and keep you signed in, and this section will be rewritten before it does.
14. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top, and if the change is significant we will tell you by email or in the app.
15. Contact
Our support page reaches us, and it is the fastest route.
[LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [ADDRESS]