RTRO.

Privacy Policy

Last updated 25 July 2026

RTRO is a retro-gaming app you use inside a venue: it pairs your phone with an arcade station, remembers what you played, and can stream that station’s game audio to your headphones. This policy explains exactly what we hold, why we hold it, and how to get rid of it.

RTRO is operated by Woollen, based in Douglas, Isle of Man. We are the data controller for everything described below. If you want anything here explained or actioned, email privacy@rtro.im.

What we collect

  • Your account. Your email address, the first and last name you give us, your handle (the gamertag shown on station screens), and an avatar image if you choose to set one. Signing in with Apple uses whatever address Apple passes on — including a private relay address if you pick that.
  • What you play. Play history, favourites, playlists, your backlog, and your save states — including console memory-card data — so you can pick a game back up on another visit or another station.
  • Session activity. Which station you claimed and when, plus in-session actions like extending a session or toggling a game’s cheats.
  • Audio diagnostics. When you stream game audio to your phone, the app reports playback quality figures — buffer depth, packet loss, timing jitter, your device model and OS version. This is how we find and fix audio dropouts. It goes to the venue’s own equipment on the local network, not to a third party.

What we deliberately don't collect

This is a short list on purpose. RTRO has no advertising identifier, no third-party analytics or tracking SDKs, and no ad networks. We don’t ask for your location. We don’t take payments in the app. The microphone permission is explicitly stripped from the build.

The camera is used for one thing — scanning the QR code on a station to claim it. Nothing the camera sees is stored or transmitted. Photo access is only used to read the single image you pick as your avatar.

Why we hold it

  • To sign you in and keep you signed in.
  • To give you your own history, saves and playlists across visits and stations.
  • To run a session on a station and show your handle on it.
  • To diagnose and improve audio streaming quality.

We don’t sell your data, and we don’t share it for advertising. Your handle and avatar are visible to other people in the venue, because that’s the point of them.

In data protection terms: your account, saves and sessions are held because we can’t provide the service you asked for without them (performance of a contract), and the audio diagnostics are held because we have a genuine need to make audio streaming work and they don’t reveal anything about you beyond your device model (legitimate interests). Anything optional — an avatar, a camera or photo permission — is consent, which you can withdraw.

Where it goes

  • Amazon Web Services (Ireland, eu-west-1) — hosting, sign-in, database and image storage.
  • Apple — only if you use Sign in with Apple, or receive a session notification on the lock screen.
  • Google Play — app distribution and crash reports on Android.
  • The venue’s own equipment — the station and local bridge on the venue network, for session control and audio.

That means your data leaves the Isle of Man and is stored in the European Union. The Island and the EU each recognise the other’s data protection regime as adequate, and the UK recognises the Island’s, so no extra transfer safeguards are needed. Nothing is stored outside the UK, the EU or the Island.

How long we keep it

Your account and its contents stay until you ask us to delete them. Audio diagnostics are short-lived operational data and are not tied to a public profile.

Your choices

You can change your name, handle and avatar in the app at any time. You can delete your account and everything attached to it — see deleting your account.

You also have the right to access a copy of what we hold, correct anything wrong, export it in a portable form, restrict or object to how we use it, and erase it. Email us and we’ll sort it — free, and within one month.

If we get it wrong you can complain to a regulator. RTRO operates from the Isle of Man, which has its own data protection law — the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Applied GDPR — so our supervisory authority is the Isle of Man Information Commissioner. If you’re in the United Kingdom you can instead complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and if you’re in the EU, to your national authority.

Children

RTRO isn’t aimed at children under 13 and we don’t knowingly hold their data. If you think a child has created an account, email us and we’ll remove it.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, we’ll update the date at the top and, where it matters, tell you in the app.