NoobTrader Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

When you sign in with Google or Microsoft, we collect your name, email address and, if your account has one, profile photo. We ask for your birth year and your country once, when you first sign in: your birth year lets us apply the right protections for your age, and your country sets your home stock exchange and which competitions you can join. We also store your in-app activity including trades, portfolio holdings, CFD Hub positions, lesson progress, badges, competition entries, community feed posts, and a record of which days you used the app. All trading data uses virtual currency (NT) only — no real financial data is collected.

If you create or join a competition, we store its name and rules, who organises it, who has joined, and every trade made in it. We never ask for a school, a class, a teacher's details or anyone's contact details to do this.

If you write a reflection or a debrief in the CFD Hub, the founder of NoobTrader reads it to make the CFD Hub safer. The words are deleted after 180 days. The numbers are kept.

2. How We Use Your Information

Your data is used to: provide and personalise the app experience, track your learning progress and achievements, display leaderboards and community features, and improve our service. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

Sharing a picture of a trade. You can make a picture of a practice share trade, of a closed CFD from the CFD Hub, or of a CFD's chart, and share it with apps like WhatsApp or X. The picture is made on your phone and is not uploaded to us. It never shows your name, photo, school or balance. It can show your result as a percentage, marked as practice on a share trade and as virtual money on a CFD. A picture of a share trade can also show that trade's prices and NT amounts. A chart picture, of an open CFD or one you have just closed, shows that market's chart, the trade's prices and its NT result. If you switch on “Add my invite code”, the picture also shows a code. Anyone who sees that code can use it to join NoobTrader and become your friend straight away, and you can block anyone. Your code stops working after 30 days, and you can replace it or stop it at any time in Privacy. When someone joins with your code we record that they joined through it, so we can count how many people found us this way. We do not track who you share pictures with. Picture codes do not earn rewards.

3. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored securely on Supabase (hosted on AWS) with row-level security policies. Sign-in is handled by Google or Microsoft, using OAuth 2.0. We use industry-standard encryption for data in transit and at rest.

4. Third-Party Services

Google or Microsoft handles sign-in: when you sign in, the one you choose confirms who you are and passes us your name, email address and, if your account has one, profile photo. Supabase stores your account and your in-app data, as described in section 3.

Market data — prices, charts, and any analyst ratings shown in the app — comes from third-party financial data providers. Your device does not contact those providers: the app asks our own servers, and our servers fetch the data. Nothing that identifies you is sent to them.

5. Notifications

NoobTrader can send you notifications about your own account: an order that went through, your CFD Hub, your NOOB Coins, invites and friends, rankings, competition results, and your daily or weekly report. What a notification tells you can also be found inside the app, most of it in your Notifications list. We never put ads or marketing in a notification. The text on your lock screen never shows a person's name, an amount of money or a number of shares.

Nothing is sent to your phone or computer until you tap "Turn on" and your device allows it. You choose which kinds of notification you get, and you can change that or switch them off at any time in Settings, or in your phone's or browser's own settings. Notifications wait during your quiet hours at night and during school hours. If you are under 18, or have not told us your age, they always wait between 22:00 and 06:00. If we know an account belongs to someone under 13, friend requests, friend nudges and reminders to start earning NOOB cannot be switched on.

To deliver a notification we use the push service built into your device or browser: Google (Android phones, the Android app and Chrome), Apple (iPhone, iPad and Safari), Mozilla (Firefox) and Microsoft (Edge and Windows). These services run outside South Africa. We send them only the notification's short text and the delivery address of your device, never your name, your email address or anything else about your account. In the Android app this is Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging; we switch off Firebase's analytics and do not use your device's advertising ID.

For each device where you turn notifications on we store: its delivery address; the kind of device and browser (for example "Android Chrome"); your language and time zone, so that a notification arrives in your language and outside your quiet hours; the app version; whether notifications are allowed; and simple delivery counts, such as how many in a row went unopened, so we can send fewer. We also keep the choices you made and when you agreed to receive notifications. We do not store your device's model, advertising ID or IP address for this. We use these details only to deliver your notifications and to check that delivery works. We never sell them or share them with anyone else. We count things like how many notifications were sent, opened or turned off only as totals that do not identify anyone.

A device's details are deleted when you sign out on it, when you delete your account, when the push service tells us the address no longer works, or after 60 days without use. Items in your Notifications list are deleted after 90 days (report notices after 35 days). The record of each delivery is kept for 30 days and after that only as totals.

Your personal daily and weekly report is made on your own device from your account. We do not store the picture, and "Download" saves or shares it only where you choose. The daily and weekly NoobTrader board that every learner can see shows only totals for the whole app, and a share only when at least three learners who share their trading activity traded it. It never shows a name or one learner's trade.

6. Competitions: Organisers and Players

Who can organise. Anyone can create a competition and share its code. The person who creates it is its organiser. Organisers are not verified: we do not check who they are, which school they work at, or whether they are a teacher. There is no teacher role and no teacher ID check. When an organiser is 18 or older, the join screen says “Adult organiser”, so players and parents know an adult runs it. It shows the age band only, never the age.

What other players see. Your display name, return and rank are visible to everyone in that competition. Photos are never shown in any competition screen or report, only initials.

What the organiser can see. The players in their own competition by display name, with when each joined, how many trades and different shares they have made, whether they qualify, and their value, return, rank and status. They see every player's trades and holdings only after the competition has ended, and they can download a report of the same things.

What the organiser can never see. Your email address, your age or birth year, your real name, your photo, your own NoobTrader wallet, your other competitions, or anything outside their one competition. There is no chat, so an organiser cannot message you. An organiser cannot change anyone's money, trades or results.

Players under 13. If we know an account belongs to someone under 13, competitions never show their display name. They appear as a neutral handle made of “Trader-” and six letters and numbers, everywhere in competitions, including the organiser's report.

Schools and other groups. A school, club or teacher may choose to run a competition here. If they do, they decide how to use it with their group. If they download a report and use it outside NoobTrader, they may have their own duties under POPIA for that copy. Reports ask everyone not to post them publicly, and to delete them when they are no longer needed.

Reporting. Any player can report a competition or another player. We never tell anyone who made a report. Our team can pause a competition, hide it, remove a player, or reset a display name.

The old Schools League. NoobTrader used to have a Schools League with teacher ID checks and class invitations. Those features are switched off. We no longer collect ID numbers, SACE numbers, identity documents or learners' contact details, and we hold no teacher identity documents or verification records. Old class links no longer do anything. Any school records left over from those features are not used, and will be deleted.

7. Your Rights (POPIA)

Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the right to: access your personal data, request correction of inaccurate data, request deletion of your data, object to processing, and withdraw consent. Use the "Download my data" and "Delete My Account" buttons under Profile → Your data & privacy, or contact us directly.

8. Children's Privacy

NoobTrader is intended for users aged 13 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us.

9. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, all associated data is permanently removed within 30 days.

Competitions keep their rules, entries and trades for as long as the competition exists, so that results and statements add up. When you delete your account, your entries and trades are erased with it. Competition reports then show only how many players' data was erased on request, never who they were.

CFD Hub reflections and debriefs are kept for 180 days. After that the words are deleted, and the numbers stay with your account.

10. Deleting Your Account

Account deletion lives inside the app: tap your picture at the top right to open Profile (on a computer, choose Profile in the side menu), then Your data & privacy → Delete My Account. Deletion is immediate and permanent, and all associated data is removed as described in section 9. If you can no longer access the app, email us at rubixbits@gmail.com from the address on the account and we will delete it for you. See the account deletion page for the full steps.

11. Website Cookies

The noob-trader.com website uses a Google advertising tag, which sets cookies in your browser. The app itself contains no advertising and no advertising trackers. You can manage or clear cookies in your browser settings.

12. Contact Us

For privacy-related queries, contact us at rubixbits@gmail.com.