Why is an account used?
The account securely verifies your subscription and connects support requests to the right record. We process only the information needed for these purposes.
Game Caption does not ask for a separate sign-up, password, or email for its own service. When you sign in with Sony for the PS5 or PS4 connection, your password stays on Sony’s secure page; Game Caption does not see or store it. For the Xbox connection, you sign in with your Microsoft account on Microsoft’s own page, opened in the app; Game Caption does not read or store your password. When you optionally sign in with a Samsung account to install the TV app on a Samsung TV from Android, your password also stays on Samsung’s own page; the email address and account ID that Samsung returns are used only to get the install permit from Samsung and never reach our servers. See the Samsung TV section below for details. Android can use an anonymous Firebase account without a password or email. A PS5 or PS4 code is used briefly during pairing; camera images and game audio are not uploaded to your account. To delete data, use Delete Account and Data.
Android 18+ age requirement
The Game Caption Android app is intended only for users aged 18 or older. The Android app records an age-eligibility confirmation and does not request a date of birth. The Android eligibility record is designed to remain valid for no more than 365 days. This Android confirmation flow does not apply to the iOS app.
Camera, OCR, and Gemini
Camera images, the PS5 and PS4 picture, and the stream picture on the Xbox remote play page are converted into text by OCR on the device. No photo, video stream, or audio recording is uploaded to the Game Caption backend, Gemini, DeepL, or another translation provider.
For Gemini-powered translation, only OCR-extracted text, source and target language, selected game scope, and limited prior-subtitle context needed to preserve meaning are sent to the secure Firebase backend. The translation is returned to the app and may be stored in an identity-free cache to speed up repeated text.
On iOS, a user may optionally use DeepL Quality Mode with their own API key; that key is stored in iOS Keychain and is not stored on Game Caption servers. DeepL is not included in the Android app.
PS5, PS4, and Xbox connection
PS5 and PS4: The PS4 connection works the same way as the PS5 connection. The game picture comes from the console to your phone only over your home network and is processed on your phone to read the subtitles; the picture and game audio are not uploaded to our servers. When you sign in with Sony, your password stays on Sony’s secure page. The pairing code shown by the console is used only briefly during pairing. The pairing information is stored encrypted on the phone and is deleted when you delete your account.
Xbox Series X|S: When you choose Xbox mode, Microsoft’s remote play page (xbox.com) opens in a window inside the app. The page belongs to Microsoft; signing in with your Microsoft account and using the page are subject to Microsoft’s own terms and privacy statement. Game Caption never reads, stores, or sends your password, your account details, or Microsoft’s cookies; they are kept only in the app’s window on your phone, for Microsoft’s page. To read subtitles, the area you select of the stream picture is processed on your phone, and only while the window shows www.xbox.com. Microsoft’s sign-in and account pages are never read, and the picture never leaves your phone. As in the other modes, only the recognized subtitle text is sent to our servers for translation. On the page, the app reads only the stream picture and its playback state, and may mute the stream’s sound on the phone to prevent an echo; it makes no other change to the page and sends no command to the console.
Signing out of Xbox: “Sign out of Xbox” signs out of Microsoft in this window: it removes the session cookies and the page’s local records from your phone. Deleting your account removes them too. Files the page cached on the phone are removed when you clear the app’s data in Android settings.
Game Caption is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Microsoft. Xbox is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.
Game Caption TV and TV pairing
If you use Game Caption TV, your phone pairs with your TV by scanning the QR code shown on the TV or by typing the code shown on the TV. With the Android TV / Google TV and Samsung TV apps, the caption connection between the phone and the TV is made directly on your own home network; this connection does not go through our servers, and only the translation and caption appearance settings are sent to the TV. On Android TV / Google TV, pairing also happens only on your home network. On a Samsung TV, only the encrypted pairing message goes through our short-lived relay server, described below. With the TV browser (LG), captions go through the end-to-end encrypted TV relay described below instead of the home network. Game Caption TV does not record the game picture; you can delete the pairing information of the TV apps by uninstalling the TV app.
Samsung TV: installation from the phone and pairing
The Android app can install the Game Caption TV app on your Samsung (Tizen) TV from the phone. This feature is optional and runs only when you start it.
Finding and installing on the TV: The phone finds Samsung TVs on your home network, reads the TV’s name, model, Developer Mode status, and Samsung device ID (DUID) from the TV, and installs the app on the TV over your home network. This information is not sent to our servers.
Samsung account sign-in: Samsung requires a TV-specific install permit and certificate to install an app on a TV. For this, Samsung’s own sign-in page opens in your phone’s browser; it is not embedded in the app, and Game Caption does not see or store your password. After sign-in, Samsung gives the phone a short-lived access token, your Samsung account ID, and your account’s email address. The phone keeps these in memory only and does not save them separately.
What is sent to Samsung: The phone sends this access token, your Samsung account ID, your email address (inside the certificate request), the device IDs of up to 10 TVs set up from this phone, and public keys unique to this installation directly to Samsung’s developer certificate service (svdca.samsungqbe.com). The private keys never leave the phone. None of this reaches Game Caption servers. Samsung processes this information under its own privacy policy.
Storage and deletion: The certificates and the install-permit file issued by Samsung may contain the TV device IDs and your Samsung email address. They are stored on the phone in an area that is not backed up, and are also transferred to the TV during installation. Deleting your account in the app or clearing the app’s data removes the copies on the phone. When you uninstall the TV app, the app is removed from the TV; files copied to the TV’s developer folder during installation (the install permit and a copy of the package) may remain there. For data held by Samsung, you need to contact Samsung.
Pairing relay server: The Samsung TV app cannot receive the pairing message directly from the phone on the home network. So the phone leaves the pairing and reconnect message on our short-lived relay server on Firebase, and the TV picks it up from there. The message is end-to-end encrypted; it contains the phone’s home-network address, a one-time connection code, and a reconnect key. We cannot read its content. To verify that the request comes from the app, the phone also sends a short-lived verification token of your anonymous account. The message is valid for at most 2 minutes and is deleted when the TV picks it up. An unclaimed message becomes invalid when it expires; the records are deleted automatically according to the target period in the retention table below. Your account ID and IP address are used only briefly in the server’s memory for abuse limits; they are not kept in these records and are not written to our app logs. Google Cloud’s standard request logs, however, may contain the IP address and follow the Google Cloud Logging period below. Captions still go from the phone to the TV directly, only on your home network.
TV browser (LG)
Nothing is installed on an LG TV: the page gamecaptionapp.com/tv opens in the TV’s own web browser. This feature is part of the Android app (1.73 and later) and is in testing. The page only shows the console’s picture from the TV’s HDMI input on the screen; it does not record the picture or send it anywhere.
How captions travel: The caption connection between the phone and the TV page goes through our TV relay (relay.gamecaptionapp.com), which runs on Cloudflare. The connection is end-to-end encrypted: the key exists only in the QR code on the TV screen and is never sent to the relay. The relay cannot read, store, or record the caption text; it only passes the encrypted data between the phone and the TV.
What the relay uses: To verify that the request comes from the app, the phone sends a short-lived verification token of your anonymous account and a Firebase App Check token; the relay checks them with Google’s public keys and does not store them. Your account ID, the App Check token, and the IP address of the phone and of the TV are used only while the connection lasts, in the relay’s memory and as irreversible hashes, for abuse and capacity limits and to tell whether both devices are on the same network. If they are not, you confirm a 4-digit code on the TV. This information is deleted when the connection closes. The relay keeps no logs and stores no personal data; it keeps only aggregate usage counts. These are technical daily totals, such as message and request counts, kept to limit the relay’s monthly cost; they contain no information about people, devices, connections, or addresses, and counts older than 40 days are deleted. The relay’s connection rooms run in Cloudflare data centers in the European Union region; your connection passes through the Cloudflare location nearest to you. Cloudflare may process connection information such as IP addresses for the security of its network under its own terms of service.
Reconnecting the phone: The relay gives the phone a reconnect pass that it signs itself and that is valid for at most 24 hours. The pass is kept only on the phone, with the pairing record; it contains an irreversible hash of your account ID and gives no access to the encrypted captions.
What the TV browser keeps: The pairing information (a reconnect key and the pairing ID) and the page settings (language, text size, the chosen HDMI input) are kept only in the TV browser’s local storage. The pairing information becomes invalid 12 hours after the last successful connection. You can remove it with “Delete pairing” on the page or by clearing the browser’s site data. The page uses no cookies, ads, or analytics tools. The test page (gamecaptionapp.com/tv/test) sends no data; it only shows its result on the screen and keeps it in the browser.
App settings
The app fetches settings that are the same for everyone, such as the trial length, plan allowances and help-video links, from our server. This request contains no account, device ID, or other user data.
Help videos and external links
Help-video links open the video in YouTube or Instagram, outside the app. What you do on those platforms is governed by that platform's own privacy policy.
Voice Translation by platform
iOS: System Voice uses the iOS speech synthesizer. The existing optional Natural Voice runs a Core ML model bundled with the app on the device; text and audio files are not sent to the backend or Google Cloud Text-to-Speech for voice generation.
Android: Only the Android system Text-to-Speech engine is used. DeepL, Studio Voice, and Natural Voice are not offered on Android. Studio Voice is not used for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). Android does not upload text or audio recordings for voice generation.
Android account, Support ID, and security
The Android app creates an anonymous Firebase Authentication account to bind the service, trial, and purchase entitlements securely. The account receives a Support ID that helps locate a support record and is not an authentication secret by itself.
Android requests may be verified with Firebase App Check and Google Play Integrity. Irreversible hashes of protected installation/device-related identifiers may be processed to prevent abuse and to protect the one-time trial and purchase ownership.
The Android account and associated Android data can be deleted in the app. See Delete Account and Data for detailed steps. To prevent the free trial from being used again, an irreversible record tied to the device is kept; it contains no personal information such as your name or email.
Trial and paid plans
When this feature is enabled and the eligibility conditions are met, users without a subscription may receive one free in-app trial. The trial length and scope are shown in the app. When offered, it does not automatically start a subscription. Premium AI and Professional include a daily quality-translation allowance that renews every day; the current amounts are shown in the app before purchase. Android purchases are processed by Google Play and iOS purchases by Apple App Store; Game Caption does not see or store payment-card details.
Records processed and why
- Anonymous user ID, Support ID, age eligibility, and account/deletion state: service delivery, security, and request management.
- Trial time, translation activity, and daily word counters: the one-time trial and plan limits.
- Product, a secure purchase-token hash, subscription state, and expiry: Apple App Store or Google Play entitlement verification.
- OCR text, limited context, and translation result: requested translation and the identity-free translation cache.
- App Check/Play Integrity results and limited security records: automation, fraud, and cost-abuse prevention.
- Encrypted Samsung TV pairing message and its validity times (without an account ID or IP address): delivering the pairing message to the Samsung TV.
- Short-lived download link for a voice pack (contains no user or device ID): downloading the pack after the access check.
- For the TV browser (LG) connection: end-to-end encrypted caption data, the anonymous account’s verification token and App Check token, and irreversible hashes of the account ID, the App Check token, and the IP address (in memory only while the connection lasts): passing captions to the TV page and preventing abuse.
- Daily aggregate usage counts of the TV relay (no information about people, devices, connections, or addresses): limiting the relay’s monthly cost.
Diagnostics, advertising, and tracking
Firebase Crashlytics is enabled only in the Android production release for crashes and limited diagnostics that do not contain personal content; it is disabled in debug/developer builds. OCR text, tokens, and raw user or device identifiers are not added to Crashlytics events.
Game Caption does not use Firebase Analytics, show ads, run advertising SDKs, or track users across apps or websites. On iOS, Apple may provide aggregated crash or performance diagnostics only according to the user's device sharing settings.
Service providers and retention
| Data or provider | Retention information |
|---|
| Android translation cache | Target maximum of 30 days from last access; it does not contain a user identifier. |
| Android usage-limit records | Target maximum of 48 hours, to apply rate and daily cost limits. |
| Android age eligibility | Up to 365 days; it may be removed earlier through account deletion. |
| Deletion receipt and unlinked Play RTDN record | Target maximum of 30 days for job safety and duplicate-processing prevention. |
| Google Cloud Logging | Standard _Default logs are retained for 30 days; security/audit _Required logs are retained for 400 days under Google Cloud configuration. |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Up to 90 days under the provider's standard retention. |
| Google Gemini | Provider storage is disabled for Android production requests; Google may retain request/response data for abuse monitoring for up to 55 days. |
| Samsung TV pairing relay server (Firebase) | The encrypted pairing message is valid for at most 2 minutes and is deleted when the TV picks it up. Unclaimed messages and remaining short records are targeted for automatic deletion within 20 minutes at most. Account IDs and IP addresses are not kept in these records. |
| Cloudflare R2 (voice packs) | On Android 1.72 and later, voice packs are downloaded from Cloudflare R2 storage through a link that our server creates after the access check and that is valid for at most 1 hour; if R2 cannot be reached, the pack is downloaded the same way from Google Cloud Storage. The link contains no user or device ID. Cloudflare may process request metadata under its service terms. |
| TV relay (Cloudflare, LG TV browser) | Captions and connection information are not stored; they are held only in the relay’s memory in the European Union region while the connection lasts. The relay keeps no logs and stores no personal data; it keeps only aggregate usage counts (daily totals; counts older than 40 days are deleted). The reconnect pass on the phone is valid for at most 24 hours; the pairing information in the TV browser becomes invalid 12 hours after the last connection. |
| Samsung (account and developer certificate service) | Information sent to Samsung during Samsung TV installation follows Samsung’s own privacy policy and retention periods. Contact Samsung about this data. |
| Cloudflare Email Routing | Routing-event analytics for up to 31 days. Email is forwarded to a private Microsoft-hosted support mailbox; the private destination address is not published. |
| Support messages | Target deletion within 30 days after the request closes; minimum records may be retained longer only when required for law, security, fraud, payment, or disputes. |
Firestore periods are target maximum application-retention windows. Automatic physical deletion depends on the relevant live Firestore TTL policy being enabled and applied. If TTL has not yet been verified, an expired record may remain in physical storage longer even though the app no longer treats it as valid.
Website and support email
gamecaptionapp.com is a static website. Cloudflare may process traffic and security metadata under its service terms.
Cloudflare Email Routing is active and verified for support@gamecaptionapp.com. Messages are forwarded to a private Microsoft-hosted support mailbox. Your email address, message, and attachments are used only to answer the request and complete necessary security or legal work.
Your choices and requests
You may request access, correction, or deletion by contacting support. For an Android account, the safest and fastest method is Settings > Privacy and Data > Delete account and Android data in the app. On iOS 1.55 and later, use Delete my account in the app. If the app is unavailable, follow the web deletion instructions.
Deleting an account or app data does not automatically cancel an Apple App Store or Google Play subscription; manage the subscription separately in the relevant store.
