Privacy Policy
This policy covers The Long Way Round (the game), its Discord integration, the token service at thelongwayroundgame.com/api, and this website. The game is made by Calin Leafshade, who is responsible for your information. Contact: steve@leafshade.io.
In short: the game has no accounts, no analytics and no telemetry. What it learns from Discord stays on your PC and is only used to draw the car's screens. The token service passes sign-in tokens between the game and Discord without keeping them. This website sets no cookies and runs no trackers.
The game
The game does not collect, upload or sell information about you. It saves its settings, and the Discord sign-in described below, in files on your PC under %APPDATA%\TheLongWayRound.
The car's media screen shows what is playing on your PC (title, artist, album and cover), read from Windows' own media controls. This is shown on screen only. It is never stored or sent anywhere.
Discord
The Discord integration only works when the Discord desktop app is running on the same PC. The game talks to it locally, through the connection Discord provides for games on your machine.
Rich Presence (your Discord profile)
While you play, the game tells your Discord app what you are doing, for example “Driving in The Peak District, 42 km, Rain, evening” and how long you have been driving. Discord shows this on your profile to the people who can see your activity under your Discord settings. The game does not receive anything back from this.
To stop it, turn off activity sharing in Discord (User Settings → Activity Privacy), or set presence = off in %APPDATA%\TheLongWayRound\discord.ini.
Voice channel (the car's voice screen)
This is off until you choose to allow it. When you do, Discord asks you, in the Discord app, to authorize The Long Way Round. If you agree, the game can see:
- your Discord username and display name,
- the name of the voice channel you are in and its server,
- the names of the people in that channel, and whether each of them is talking, muted or deafened,
- your own mute and deafen settings, so you can change them from the car.
The game uses this only to draw the car's screens while it runs. It is not stored, logged or sent anywhere. The game never hears, records or receives any audio. It only learns that someone is talking, not what they say.
Sign-in tokens
When you authorize the game, Discord issues an access token and a refresh token so you are not asked again each time. They are kept on your PC in %APPDATA%\TheLongWayRound\discord_token.ini. Delete that file to sign the game out, and remove The Long Way Round under Discord's User Settings → Authorized Apps to revoke its access completely.
The token service
Turning Discord's one-time authorization code into tokens requires a secret that cannot be shipped inside the game, so the game sends the code (or, later, the refresh token) to our token service at thelongwayroundgame.com/api. The service adds the secret, passes the request to Discord, and returns Discord's answer to the game.
- It does not store codes or tokens, and it does not log them.
- It does not receive your voice channel, your friends' names or anything else about your Discord account.
- It runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS Lambda and Amazon CloudFront). Like any web service, AWS processes your IP address and the time of each request to deliver it. Our function logs only errors (with no tokens), and those logs are deleted after 30 days.
This website
This is a static website. It sets no cookies, has no analytics or advertising, and loads nothing from other sites. It is served by Amazon CloudFront, which processes your IP address and request details to deliver the pages. We have not turned on CloudFront's access logging.
Who receives your information
| Recipient | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Discord | Your activity in the game (Rich Presence), and the authorization requests you approve | To show your activity and let the game follow your voice channel. Discord's own Privacy Policy applies to what Discord does with it. |
| Amazon Web Services | IP address and request details for the website and token service | Hosting. See the AWS Privacy Notice. |
We do not sell or share information with anyone else, and we do not use it for advertising.
Children
The game and this website are not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. Discord's own age requirements apply to its integration.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the UK or EU GDPR, or Californian law), you may have rights to access, correct or delete your information, or to object to its use. Because we keep no information about you, there is usually nothing for us to hand over or delete, but you are welcome to ask at steve@leafshade.io. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. If a change affects what the game does with your information, it will be noted in the game's release notes too.