Privacy Policy
This policy explains what LayoutQ LLC ("we", "us") collects through the LayoutQ app and web app (the "app"), why, and what you can do about it. We collect only what the app needs to work.
Who we are
LayoutQ LLC, an Alabama limited liability company based in Hoover, Alabama, USA. We make the LayoutQ app. Questions about this policy go to smartbowlingapp@gmail.com or (205) 578-2055.
What we collect
We collect four kinds of information.
- Account information: your email address, display name, and a unique account ID. If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive the name and email those services share with us. Guest accounts have an ID only.
- Bowling data you enter: your bowler profile (handedness, positive axis point, ball speed, rev rate, axis tilt and rotation, preferred line, preferred ball weight, and your home centre with its lane pattern), your arsenal and drilled layouts, your saved drilling choices, live sessions including the lane you start each game on and the lane of each shot that follows from it, shots including any you mark as a miss and why you think it missed, the games you log frame by frame including the time you entered each ball, conditioning logs, and what you tell us about how a ball is working after it was drilled or redrilled. For your PAP, ball speed, rev rate, axis tilt and rotation, LayoutQ also stores who entered each one and when. That is you, or a pro shop you have linked.
- Location, only while you use a live session: the app reads your approximate location once every 30 minutes to look up outdoor humidity for the Friction Index. Location is sent to the weather service described below and is not stored by us.
- Pro shop and manufacturer account information: the business record behind a professional account. For a pro shop that is its name, phone number, address, opening hours, the address of its own online store, the staff accounts attached to it, its plan and the record of its subscription, and how the shop heard about us, including the name of another shop where that is the answer. For a manufacturer it is the brand a representative's account is attached to, and the specifications and spec sheets that brand submits. Card and bank details go to our payment processor and never reach us. The records a shop keeps about its own customers are described under Sharing with your pro shop.
Camera and on-device processing
The app uses your camera to scan a shared arsenal QR code, to track a thrown ball, and to estimate knee angle. Camera frames are processed on your device and are never uploaded, stored, or shared. Only the resulting numbers (for example a knee angle or ball path) are saved with your session if you choose to save them.
How we use your information
We use your information to:
- Sign you in and keep your data attached to your account.
- Compute drilling layouts, surface suggestions, ball recommendations, and in-match adjustments.
- Adjust live-session advice for lane surface and humidity.
- Compare two of your balls against each other from your own logged sessions and shots, and order your bag by what those games show. These comparisons are worked out fresh each time and are not stored.
- Let a shop see how a ball it drilled is working, when you turn check-ins on for it.
- Respond when you contact support.
What we do not do
- We do not sell your information.
- We do not show ads or use advertising trackers.
- We do not use analytics or crash-reporting services.
- We do not use your data to train machine-learning models.
Services that process data for us
The app relies on these providers. Each processes data only to provide its service to us.
- Google Firebase (Authentication and Cloud Firestore): stores your account and bowling data on Google's servers in the United States.
- Google Firebase Storage: holds the drill sheet files (PDFs and photos) that pro shops upload for their customers, on Google's servers in the United States.
- Google Sign-In and Sign in with Apple: verify your identity when you choose those sign-in options.
- Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com): receives your approximate latitude and longitude to return current humidity. No account identifier is sent with the request.
- Firebase Trigger Email extension, sending through Google's Gmail servers from smartbowlingapp@gmail.com: delivers account notices to pro shop owners and manufacturer representatives, such as a staff member joining a shop or a catalog decision. We send no marketing email, and we never text anyone.
- Helcim (helcim.com): processes pro shop subscription payments. It receives the shop's business name, a contact name, and the card or bank details the shop enters on Helcim's own form, which we never see. Bowler accounts send nothing to Helcim.
- Like any internet request, calls to these services reveal your device's IP address to the service. We do not store IP addresses.
Where data is stored and transferred
Your data is stored on Google Firebase servers in the United States. If you use the app from outside the United States, your data is transferred to and processed there. For users in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, Google provides these transfers under its Standard Contractual Clauses and Data Privacy Framework certification.
Reminders you set or turn on, and the quiet hours you choose for them, are scheduled and stored on your device. Nothing about them is sent to a server, and we cannot see them.
The app also keeps a copy of your sign-in session and some cached data on your device so it can open quickly and pick up where you left off, which includes a session you have open. If you log a session with no connection, that session, its shots, its scores, and the ball credits waiting to be counted stay on the device until they upload, and are deleted from it once they have. This happens for bowler accounts only. Signing out removes both the cached copy and anything still waiting on that device straight away, and so does deleting your account there; uninstalling the app or clearing your browser's data for the site removes them too, and you can remove a single waiting item in the app. Anything left on a device you do not go back to is discarded the next time the app opens on it, once it is more than 30 days old or if it does not belong to the account signing in. Nothing we can do reaches it before then, which is why on a computer you share with other people you should sign out when you finish.
Sharing your arsenal
If you tap Share bag, the app shows a QR code containing your arsenal (ball names and layouts). Anyone who scans that code sees that information. Nothing is shared unless you show the code.
We show ball manufacturers how many arsenals contain their balls, as totals per brand, per ball, per month, and per arsenal slot compared with all balls in that slot. Nothing that identifies you, your account, or your pro shop is included in those totals. No total is shown from fewer than five arsenals.
We also show a manufacturer how its balls are typically drilled and how often their surfaces are changed at drilling, as counts of layouts and finishes across many pro shop drill sheets. We show nothing for a ball until five or more sheets record it, and never a name, shop, or account.
Sharing with your pro shop
You can link your account to a pro shop, and you decide what that shop sees. Each linked shop has five switches, and you can change them at any time.
Your numbers: your profile figures, your fit specifications, and your home centre with its lane pattern. On unless you turn it off.
Your arsenal: the balls in your bag, their weights, layouts and surfaces, any nickname you gave them, when you added each one, when their surface or layout last changed, and the work each ball has had with the date of each. The game counts on each ball: how many games you have thrown with it, and how many since it was last cleaned, resurfaced, or had oil extracted. And your ball preferences, your saved drilling choices, and which ball you have marked as your spare.
This shop can see which pro shop last worked on each ball. Earlier work in a ball's history says only that another shop did it.
The shop uses these to see what you already throw, to use your choices when it builds a layout for you, to tell you when a ball is due for work, and to suggest what would fill a gap. On unless you turn it off.
Your sessions: your live sessions and the shots in them, including which lane of the pair each shot was on and any shot you marked as a miss, with which side it missed and the reason you gave. While it is on, the shop can follow a session as it happens. Off unless you turn it on.
Your shopping: which of that shop's in-stock balls you have tapped on, and whether a ball you tapped later appears in your bag. Off unless you turn it on.
Your check-ins: what you tell us about how a ball is working after a shop drilled or redrilled it, which only that shop can see. Off unless you turn it on.
With your numbers, the shop also sees who entered each of these and when: your PAP, ball speed, rev rate, axis tilt and rotation.
Turning a switch off stops the shop seeing anything new, and does not remove what the shop already copied into its own records. While linked, the shop can add the balls it drills for you, with their layouts, to your arsenal, and update those balls' layout and surface records when it does later work on them.
A linked shop cannot see the games you log, your scores, or your conditioning logs at all, and cannot see your live sessions or the shots in them unless you turn the sessions switch on for that shop.
A shop you are linked to can send you a notice about major work on one of your own balls, or about an order you have placed for one: a ball you ordered arriving or being delayed, a ball ready to collect, or a resurface, an oil extraction, or a plug and redrill. Notices come from a fixed set of messages the shop picks from and cannot write itself, they are only ever about a ball of yours, and they are never advertising. You choose whether to receive them when you link the shop, and you can turn them off for that shop at any time. A shop can only send to its own linked customers, and the shop's name on a notice comes from its own record rather than from anything it types. If a shop gets a notice wrong it can correct it once, and the corrected notice replaces the original, which is deleted.
Only a shop's owner can change the shop's name, and we keep the names a shop has used. For a while after a change, a notice from that shop shows its new name with the former name beside it, so you can tell it is the same shop you linked.
A pro shop may also create and keep its own records for customers who have not installed the app: name, phone number, email address, measurements, layouts, and images of drill sheets. When the shop texts or emails you from a record, the message comes from the staff member's own phone or email account, not from us. Those records belong to the shop, which is responsible for them and for having the customer's permission to keep them. If a shop has a record for you, it can give you a claim code; entering it in the app copies the shop's numbers and balls into your account and links the shop. You can also create a linked record yourself at the counter by entering a shop's intake code. Those are the only ways a link is created; a shop can never link your account on its own.
If a shop finds that a record was claimed with a code meant for someone else, it can undo that link. Undoing it unlocks the record for the customer it belongs to, and takes back out of the claiming account what came across because of that claim: the fit numbers and balls it copied, any suggestion from that shop still waiting to be answered, and any numbers the account took from such a suggestion, which are put back to what they were before. Nothing you entered yourself is changed, and we tell the account holder what was removed and why.
To end a link, remove the shop from the app (Profile > Pro shops), or email us. Unlinking, or deleting your account, removes the shop's link to your account and its record stops referring to you, but the shop keeps the record of the work it did as its own business record.
How long we keep data
Your account and bowling data stay in your account until you delete them. You can remove individual balls and games in the app at any time, and ask us by email to remove anything else. Deleting your account removes all of your data from our database within a few seconds. Firebase may keep encrypted backups for up to 30 days before they expire.
Shop notices are deleted automatically about 30 days after they were sent. You can delete one yourself at any time, and unlinking a shop deletes that shop's notices straight away.
Guest accounts that are never upgraded to a full account may be deleted after 12 months without activity.
Two things are not removed by deleting your account: a pro shop's own record of the work it did for you (see Sharing with your pro shop), and ball specifications you submitted as a manufacturer representative, which stay in the catalog under the license in the Terms of Use.
Your choices and rights
You are in control of your data.
- Access and edit: everything we store is visible and editable in the app.
- Delete: use Profile > Delete account to remove your account and all data. You can also email us and we will delete it within 30 days.
- Location: deny or revoke location permission in your device settings. The app then uses a neutral humidity value.
- Camera: deny or revoke camera permission in your device settings. Scanning and tracking features will not work without it.
- Shop notices: turn them off for any shop in the app, or unlink the shop. Either stops them.
- Portability: email us and we will send your data in a machine-readable format.
Regional rights
If you live in California, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another region with privacy laws, you may have additional rights, including the right to know, correct, delete, restrict, or object to processing, and to lodge a complaint with your local authority. We apply the same rights to every user. Our legal bases under the GDPR are performance of a contract (providing the app) and, for location lookups, your consent, which you can withdraw by revoking the permission.
We do not knowingly sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by California law.
Children
When you create an account we ask your year of birth to check you are old enough to use LayoutQ. We do not store it.
The app is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email smartbowlingapp@gmail.com and we will delete it.
Security
Data travels over encrypted connections and is stored by Firebase with access rules that let only your signed-in account write your data, and only your account and a pro shop you have linked, as described above, read it. No system is perfectly secure, so use a strong password and keep your device locked.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the effective date and show a notice in the app. Continued use after the change means you accept the updated policy.
Contact
Email smartbowlingapp@gmail.com or call (205) 578-2055 with any privacy question or request. Mail: LayoutQ LLC, Hoover, Alabama, USA.