Legal
Privacy Policy
Portal Design Studio · Last updated: 9 October 2026
The short version. This website uses no cookies, no analytics and no trackers. Our game Onyx Flow has no accounts, keeps your progress on your own phone and sends nothing to us. It is free because it shows banner ads through Google AdMob, and AdMob does collect information about your device to show and measure those ads — section 7 explains exactly what, and how to limit it.
1. Who we are
Portal Design Studio (“we”, “us”) is an independent studio based in Romania that makes games and apps. We are responsible for the information described in this policy. For anything related to privacy, write to contact@portaldesignstudio.com.
2. What this policy covers
This policy covers:
- this website, portaldesignstudio.com;
- the Android game Onyx Flow (package
com.portaldesignstudio.onyxflow), including its advertising.
Our other products have their own policies, written for what each of them actually does: Water Sort and TiroCare (in Romanian). Open-source projects we publish on GitHub are covered by GitHub's own terms. Google Play, which distributes our apps, has its own privacy policy.
3. This website
This is a static website. It has no sign-up, no forms, no comments and no newsletter, and it sets no cookies. We do not use analytics, advertising tags, social-media buttons or embedded third-party content. The fonts and images are served from our own domain, so opening a page does not contact any other company.
The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare necessarily processes technical data when your browser requests a page — your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time — in order to deliver it and to protect the site from abuse. We do not use that data to identify visitors and we have not enabled any visitor analytics. Cloudflare's handling of it is described in the Cloudflare Privacy Policy.
Links to Google Play, GitHub, LinkedIn and our other product sites take you to services with their own privacy policies; once you follow one, this policy no longer applies.
4. When you email us
If you write to contact@portaldesignstudio.com, we receive your email address, your name if your mail program includes it, and whatever you put in the message. We use it only to reply and to deal with what you asked — for example to look into a bug — and we never add you to a mailing list or pass your address to anyone else. Your message is stored only in our mailbox, held by our email provider.
5. Onyx Flow: what we collect
Sections 5 to 11 are about the game Onyx Flow.
Nothing. Onyx Flow does not ask for, collect or send to us:
- names, email addresses, phone numbers or postal addresses;
- accounts, logins or social-network profiles;
- contacts, photos, files, microphone or camera input;
- precise location;
- usage analytics, event telemetry or crash reports.
There is no registration, no player profile and no server of ours that stores anything about you — we do not operate a server for the game at all. The only data leaving your device is the ad traffic described in section 7, and it goes to Google, not to us.
6. Onyx Flow: what stays on your device
To keep your progress and let you pick up an unfinished run, the game writes a small save file into its own private storage on your phone. It contains only game state:
- your best score and lifetime play statistics;
- your daily streak, grace tokens and daily-challenge status;
- today's missions and their progress;
- unlocked achievements;
- your settings (sound, haptics, reduced motion, piece skin);
- the board of an unfinished run, so it can be resumed.
This file stays on your device. It is not uploaded anywhere, other apps cannot read it, and we have no way to access it. Clearing the app's data or uninstalling the game deletes it permanently.
7. Advertising (Google AdMob)
Onyx Flow is free and funded by banner ads served by Google AdMob, a service of Google. To select, deliver and measure those ads, and to prevent ad fraud, Google may collect and process:
- your advertising ID (the resettable Android Advertising ID);
- your IP address, and an approximate location derived from it;
- device and app information — device model, operating-system version, language, screen size, network type and the app the ad was shown in;
- ad interaction data — whether an ad was loaded, shown or tapped.
Google processes this data as an independent controller under its own terms. We never receive it in a form that identifies you: what reaches us is aggregate reporting, such as how many ads were shown and what they earned. Google describes this processing in the Google Privacy Policy, in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services, and in the AdMob help centre.
Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the game asks for your choice about advertising the first time you open it, using Google's certified consent platform (the User Messaging Platform). You can accept personalised ads, or decline them and get non-personalised ads instead — the game plays exactly the same either way.
The game does not currently have a separate menu for changing that answer later. To be asked again, clear the app's data (Android Settings → Apps → Onyx Flow → Storage → Clear data — the exact names vary by phone); the consent form appears on the next launch. Note that this also erases your saved progress. You can also limit ad tracking at any time with the controls below.
Limiting ad tracking yourself
Independently of the game, Android lets you reset or delete your advertising ID under Settings → Privacy → Ads (the exact path varies by manufacturer). Deleting it stops apps from receiving an advertising identifier at all. You can also turn off personalised Google ads at adssettings.google.com.
8. Network access and permissions
The game connects to the internet only to request ads. All gameplay happens on your device: the board, scoring, the Flow meter, statistics and the daily challenge, which is generated from the calendar date itself — that is why every player gets the same daily board without anything being sent anywhere. Offline, the game is fully playable; you simply see no ads.
The game requests internet access, plus the network-state and advertising-ID permissions that Google's ads SDK declares. It does not request access to your location, contacts, storage, camera or microphone. Vibration is used only for haptic feedback and can be switched off in the game's Settings.
9. Sharing your score
If you tap share after a run, Android's own share sheet opens with a short text containing your score. Nothing is sent until you pick an app and confirm, and the message goes directly from your device through the app you chose. We never see it, and the game keeps no copy.
10. Third parties
We do not sell, rent or trade information about you, and we hold no database that would let us. Google, as our advertising provider, is the only third party that receives data from the game, and only for the purposes in section 7. The game bundles no analytics, attribution or social-network libraries. Google Play collects its own data when you install and update apps, as described in Google's privacy policy.
11. Children
Onyx Flow is a general-audience puzzle game. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information — for example by email — contact us and we will delete it.
12. Legal bases (GDPR)
| What | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Technical request data on this website (Cloudflare) | Delivering the site and protecting it from abuse | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Your email and message | Replying to you and handling your request | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); where you ask for something we have agreed to provide, contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Personalised ads in Onyx Flow (EEA, UK, Switzerland) | Showing ads based on your advertising ID | Your consent, collected through Google's consent platform (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Non-personalised ads in Onyx Flow | Showing, measuring and protecting ads that fund the game | Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)); Google acts as an independent controller |
13. Your rights and choices
Data-protection laws such as the GDPR give you the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of personal data about you, the right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time. The only personal data we may hold ourselves is an email you sent us — ask, and we will show it to you or delete it.
For Onyx Flow, where we hold nothing, your practical controls are:
- reset or delete your advertising ID in Android's settings, which resets ad profiling;
- clear the app's data, which erases everything the game stored and makes it ask for your advertising consent again on the next launch;
- uninstall the game, which removes all of it;
- exercise your rights against Google directly for the ad data it processes, using the contacts in Google's privacy policy.
If you are in the EU and think we have handled your data wrongly, you can complain to a data protection authority — in Romania, the National Supervisory Authority for Personal Data Processing (ANSPDCP). We would appreciate the chance to fix it first, so please write to us.
US state privacy laws
If you live in a US state with a comprehensive privacy law — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah and others — you have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for targeted advertising. We do not sell your personal information, and we hold none of it to sell. What those laws call “sharing” is the advertising ID and device information Google AdMob receives to serve ads in Onyx Flow. You can opt out at any time by resetting or deleting your advertising ID in Android's settings, or by clearing the app's data. Doing so costs you nothing: the game plays exactly the same, and we will not treat you differently for it.
14. Retention and security
We keep emails only as long as we need them to handle your request and any follow-up, then delete them; you can ask us to delete yours sooner. The Onyx Flow save file lives only on your device, in storage Android isolates from other apps, until you clear it or uninstall the game. This website is served only over HTTPS, and ad traffic is handled by Google over encrypted connections. Because we keep no database of players or visitors, there is none of ours that could be breached.
15. Changes to this policy
If a future version of Onyx Flow or of this website introduces anything else that handles data — in-app purchases, cloud saves, online leaderboards, analytics or crash reporting — we will update this policy before that version is released and change the date at the top. Material changes to the game will also be noted in its store listing.
16. Contact
Questions about privacy or about this policy: contact@portaldesignstudio.com.