Firearm Owner SA (“the app”, “we”, “us”) is published by Eks. This policy explains what data the app collects, why, and what choices you have. Contact: Ekspeace@gmail.com.
Summary
You do not create an account and we never ask for your name, email address, ID number or anything else that identifies you. Your study progress stays on your own phone.
Two things do involve the internet: advertising, which is served by Google AdMob, and an optional “explain this” feature that sends the text of a question to a language model. Neither carries your identity. Both are described in full below.
What we collect and why
Study data — stays on your device
Which modules you selected, which questions you have answered, your scores, your spaced-repetition schedule, your chosen pass mark and your settings are written to your phone’s own local storage. This never leaves your device, is not backed up to us, and we cannot read it. Uninstalling the app deletes it.
Advertising — Google AdMob
The app is free and is funded by advertising. It shows banner ads, occasional full-screen ads, an opt-in rewarded video, and an ad when you return to the app after a while. These are served by Google AdMob.
To serve and measure ads, Google may collect and process information such as your device’s advertising identifier, IP address, device and operating system details, and general information about ad interactions. This processing is Google’s, under Google’s own terms, and we receive only aggregate, anonymous performance figures — never anything about an individual person.
- How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services
- Reset or delete your advertising ID on Android
Where the law requires it, you will be asked for consent to personalised advertising before ads are shown, and you can change that choice later.
The optional “explain this” feature
After a paper, you can ask for a plain-language explanation of a question you got wrong. If you use it, the app sends to our server function, and from there to our language-model provider, only:
- the text of that question and its options,
- the correct answer and the study note behind it,
- the section of the Act it cites, and
- which option you picked.
It does not send your name, email address, account, device identifier, advertising ID, location, or anything else about you, because the app does not hold any of that. There is no free-text box, so you cannot accidentally send us personal information through it.
The explanation is cached on your phone so the same question is not sent twice. We do not keep a database of these requests. Our hosting provider and our language-model provider may retain operational request logs under their own policies.
What we do not do
- No user accounts, sign-up, or login.
- No analytics or crash-reporting SDK.
- No access to your location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone or files.
- No selling, renting or sharing of personal information.
- No advertising profile built by us.
- No server-side record of your answers, scores or progress.
- No push notifications.
Purchases
There is nothing to buy. Every module, every question and every explanation is available for free. If that ever changes, payment would be handled entirely by the app store and we would never see your card details.
Children
This app is not directed at children. It is a study aid for adults preparing for firearm competency assessment in South Africa, where the minimum age to hold a competency certificate is 21. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, of any age, because we do not collect personal information at all.
Data retention
- Study data: kept on your phone until you clear the app’s data or uninstall it. That deletes it permanently, and we hold no copy.
- Advertising data: retained by Google under Google’s policies, not ours.
- Explain requests: not stored by us. Operational logs at our hosting and model providers are governed by their policies.
Your rights
Under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA) in South Africa, and under the GDPR if you are in the EEA or the UK, you have rights to access, correct and delete personal information held about you.
In practice we hold none, so there is nothing for us to return or erase. You can delete everything the app has stored by clearing its data or uninstalling it. For advertising data, use the Google links above or contact Google. If you believe we hold something about you, write to Ekspeace@gmail.com and we will answer.
About the study content
Firearm Owner SA is not a government app. We do not represent the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Professional Firearms Trainers Council (PFTC), the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), any accredited training provider, or any government entity or examination body, and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by or accredited by any of them.
The app is a study aid. It is not accredited training and it issues no certificate. See the Terms of Use for what the app is and is not.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s store listing.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about anything in the app: Ekspeace@gmail.com.