Skip to content

Privacy Policy

Jump to bottom
codingncaffeine edited this page Sep 24, 2026 · 2 revisions

Privacy Policy

Effective date: 2026-09-23 (revised to cover EmuTV themes, SteamGridDB, game manuals, the Friends refresh and the periodic cloud upload that exist as of v1.8.10; original policy 2026-06-06) Applies to: Emutastic for Linux and Emutastic for macOS (all versions)

Summary

Emutastic does not collect, store, transmit, or sell any personally identifiable information. It contains no analytics, no crash reporting, no telemetry, and no user-tracking of any kind. Emutastic operates no servers of its own. All persistent state lives on the user's local machine — with one optional, user-controlled exception: the Cloud Sync feature, which stores the user's own save data in a GitHub repository owned by the user.

The rest of this page documents the specifics in the format RetroAchievements' hardcore-compliance review expects.

What data Emutastic collects

None. Emutastic does not collect any data about its users or their usage of the application.

What data Emutastic stores locally on the user's machine

Emutastic writes the following to the user's local filesystem, under ~/.local/share/Emutastic/ (data) and ~/.config/Emutastic/ (configuration), or PortableData/ next to the binary in portable mode. None of this leaves the user's machine via Emutastic, except save data the user explicitly syncs (see Cloud Sync below).

What Where Notes
Library database (game list, play counts, save metadata) library.db SQLite. Contains only the user's ROM paths, titles, console, play history, and artwork paths. No external IDs or PII.
User credentials for third-party services config.json RetroAchievements username/token and ScreenScraper username/password are stored here when the user opts to log in; the GitHub OAuth token when the user signs into Cloud Sync. Stored locally; never sent to Emutastic-controlled servers (Emutastic operates none).
Save files and save states Saves/, Save States/ Per-game .srm / .state files, generated by the active libretro core.
Screenshots and recordings Screenshots/, Recordings/ Local image and video files.
Cover art and metadata Artwork/ Cached locally after fetching from ScreenScraper or OpenVGDB.
Logs Logs/ Diagnostic output (see [[Log Files

What outbound network traffic Emutastic generates

Emutastic makes outbound HTTPS requests to the following third-party services, either as part of explicit user actions (logging in, fetching artwork, downloading a core / DAT / theme / manual, checking for updates, syncing saves), to render content the user has opted in to display, or on a timer the user has switched on. Emutastic does not proxy these connections — requests go directly from the user's machine to the third-party service. There is no Emutastic-controlled telemetry endpoint.

Three things run on a timer, and each exists only after the user has opted in:

  • RetroAchievements play session — while a game runs with RA signed in, rcheevos reports unlocks and rich-presence pings to RetroAchievements at its own cadence. This is the RA feature working as designed.
  • Friends refresh — with the Friends feature enabled, the library window periodically re-reads the public RetroAchievements profiles of the users the account follows, to show their recent unlocks. Signing out of RA or disabling Friends stops it.
  • Periodic cloud upload — with Cloud Sync signed in and its timing set to "Every 15 minutes during play", battery saves changed during play are uploaded to the user's own repository on that interval. "Manual only" uploads nothing until the user clicks Sync.

Every other request below happens only when the user does something.

RetroAchievements

Service When What is sent What is received
RetroAchievements API (retroachievements.org/API) The user is logged into RA and is playing a game or browsing the Achievements tab The user's RA username / login token / Web API key (which the user provides), the User-Agent string Emutastic/<version> (<Linux distribution>) <core>/<version>, game hashes for identification Achievement metadata, unlock confirmations, leaderboard data, profile info
RetroAchievements media (media.retroachievements.org) The Achievements tab, detail card, and in-game toasts render achievement badges and game icons Anonymous image requests for badge / game IDs PNG badge images
RetroAchievements Web API, Friends feature (retroachievements.org/API) Friends enabled: on a timer while the library is open, and when the user adds or opens a friend The user's Web API key and the followed users' public RA usernames Those users' public profile, points and recent unlocks (all data RA already shows publicly)

Artwork and metadata

Service When What is sent What is received
ScreenScraper API (screenscraper.fr/api2/) User opted into artwork / metadata fetching and entered ScreenScraper credentials; also when the user downloads a game's manual ScreenScraper credentials, ROM filenames / hashes Cover art, screenshots, video previews, game metadata, PDF manuals
SteamGridDB (www.steamgriddb.com/api/v2/) Only when the user has entered their own SteamGridDB API key and fetches artwork That API key and the game's title Grid / cover images
Arcade Italia / progettoSNAPS (adb.arcadeitalia.net/service_scraper.php) Metadata refresh on an arcade game Arcade game short name (e.g. galaga) Title screen, marquee, flyer, screenshot URLs, metadata
Libretro thumbnails (thumbnails.libretro.com) Artwork fetch fallback Anonymous request for <system>/<category>/<title>.png PNG thumbnail image
OpenVGDB cover art (gamefaqs.gamespot.com, raw.githubusercontent.com, art.gametdb.com) Box-art fallback when libretro thumbnails has no image Anonymous image request for the cover-art URL stored in OpenVGDB Cover-art image (JPG / PNG)

OpenVGDB itself is not a network service — the application ships an embedded copy of the OpenVGDB SQLite database and queries it locally, so game matching and text metadata generate no network traffic.

Cloud Sync (optional, off until the user signs in)

Service When What is sent What is received
GitHub OAuth device flow (github.com/login/device, github.com/login/oauth) The user clicks Sign In on the Cloud Sync panel The application's OAuth client id; the user authorizes on github.com directly A scoped access token, stored locally
GitHub API (api.github.com) Before a game launches (pull), after it closes and on the periodic timer if enabled (push), and when the user clicks Sync The user's battery saves and memory cards, a snapshot of the library database (titles, play history, per-game notes) and a sync manifest, optionally AES-256-GCM-encrypted with a passphrase only the user knows, written to a repository owned by the user's own GitHub account (one per machine). Save states, BIOS files, screenshots, logs, caches and texture packs are never uploaded The same data back on other machines

Nothing about Cloud Sync flows to the application author. The data lives in the user's own GitHub account, under GitHub's privacy policy, and the user can delete the repository at any time.

Downloadable assets (Preferences → Extras / Cores)

Contacted only when the user explicitly clicks Install / Update / Download on the corresponding asset.

Service What is sent What is received
Libretro core buildbot (buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/x86_64/latest/) Anonymous request for a core .so filename The core's .so binary
Libretro cheats database (buildbot.libretro.com/assets/frontend/cheats.zip) Anonymous request cheats.zip (community cheat collection)
Libretro shader pack (buildbot.libretro.com/assets/frontend/shaders_glsl.zip) Anonymous request The community GLSL shader pack
Libretro DAT repositories (raw.githubusercontent.com/libretro/...) Anonymous request for specific DAT / XML DAT / XML file used for ROM identification
Libretro overlay-borders (api.github.com/repos/libretro/overlay-borders/...) Anonymous request Vectrex overlay PNGs
The Bezel Project (raw.githubusercontent.com/thebezelproject/..., api.github.com/repos/thebezelproject/...) Anonymous request for a bezel PNG by game short-name Bezel artwork
Redump (redump.org/datfile/<slug>/) Anonymous request Redump DAT file for disc-based systems
ES-DE theme catalogue (gitlab.com/es-de/themes/themes-list/) and the theme repositories it points to (gitlab.com / github.com archive downloads) Anonymous request when the user opens EmuTV's theme picker, and when they install a theme The theme list, then the chosen theme's archive

(Unlike the Windows app, no SDL3 or FFmpeg binaries are downloaded — on Linux those are system packages.)

Update check

Service When What is sent What is received
GitHub Releases API (api.github.com/repos/codingncaffeine/Emutastic-For-Linux/releases/latest) The user opens Preferences → About Anonymous request for the latest release tag The latest version number, and the release artifact if the user chooses to update

Server locations and countries

Emutastic operates no servers. There is no Emutastic backend, database, log aggregation, or analytics. Server-side privacy policies for the third-party services above are governed by those services individually:

Data retention

Emutastic itself retains no user data (because it collects none). Local files persist until the user deletes them. Cloud Sync data persists in the user's own GitHub repository until the user deletes it. There are no automatic expiration or retention schedules — the data is the user's own.

GDPR / privacy regulation compliance

Emutastic does not act as a data controller or data processor under the GDPR, CCPA, or any analogous regulation, because it does not collect, store, transmit, or process personal data on anyone's behalf. Users in any jurisdiction have the same posture: their data stays on their own machine (or their own GitHub account, if they opt into Cloud Sync), under their own control.

For data held by the third-party services Emutastic talks to on behalf of the user, the user is the data subject and the third-party service is the controller. See those services' privacy policies linked above.

Children's data

Emutastic does not knowingly collect any data from any user, including children under 13. It collects no data from any user, of any age, regardless of jurisdiction.

Changes to this policy

Updates to this policy will be published on this page, with the effective date updated at the top. The git history of this page in the wiki repository is the authoritative changelog.

Contact

For questions about this policy, open an issue at the Emutastic-For-Linux GitHub repository.

Console Notes

Features

Technical

Platforms

Legal

Clone this wiki locally