WaitDuck Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 31, 2026
Operator: (주)알파카랩스 (Alphaca Labs)
Privacy contact and requests: contact@alphaca.kr

This policy covers waitduck.com and the WaitDuck (잠깐오리) iOS and Android apps that display the service. Our hosting provider may also process connection information when you visit this support and policy website.

Information and purposes

When you enter the pond, we issue a random guest identifier. The server stores a hash of your access cookie rather than the original token, together with a guest ID, nickname, duck appearance, selected activity, and creation and expiry times. These support guest recognition, your profile, and connections. You can start without signing up or entering your real name or email.

Your virtual location, actions, presence, and play relationships are transmitted to other participants in the same room over a real-time connection. Your nickname, duck appearance, and speech bubbles are also visible to them. Speech in the current 3D pond is transmitted to connected participants; it is not saved as general chat history or replayed to later arrivals. Short text or names previously received through in-app reports remain subject to the report-retention rules below. The app does not offer a way to send new reports. Other participants may capture their screens, so do not disclose information you want to keep private.

Where a legacy chat route is used, message text, nickname, and mentions are encrypted on the server and processed with a 30-minute validity period. This route is separate from speech bubbles in the current 3D pond.

Creating new feather notes is currently disabled on the website. The feather storage route includes a writer's guest identifier, nickname, duck appearance, text, virtual coordinates, creation/expiry times, and report information. Notes follow a 24-hour expiry rule and may be removed earlier by their author, accumulated reports, or capacity limits. To reduce abuse and duplicate reports, a daily changing hashed key is derived from an IP address or part of an IPv6 network and used with the guest identifier for quotas and report checks. Network addresses are processed when generating this key.

Where reporting-response or usage-restriction features are used, we process guest identifiers, restriction status and start/end times, and nickname-change locks. On connection, a separate hashed key derived from an IP address or part of an IPv6 network is used to check restrictions. When a restriction is applied, guest records may be linked to a stored network rule. Unlike the daily feather key, this restriction key does not change each day. An operator may adjust a nickname or other profile details or lock nickname changes; adjusted profiles may be transmitted to participants in the same pond.

Existing in-app report records contain a report number, random reporter and target guest identifiers, a retry-deduplication identifier, the source category, reason, selected short message or name, server receipt and expiry times, status and review time, which we use to assess reports and prevent abuse. A message excerpt is limited to 60 characters and a name to 32. A report is a user's allegation; it does not mean that we retained an entire past conversation or independently verified it. Reports do not automatically attach whole conversations, files, free-form explanations, raw cookies, invitation codes, diagnostics or the current page address. An existing report record may include an address or personal information that a user entered in the selected message or name.

The existing report-processing route uses daily guest counts to limit reporting frequency and retries and, where trusted hosting connection information is available, a separate daily changing hashed key derived from the IP address or part of an IPv6 network. This report-quota key is different from the restriction key described above. The report records do not store the original network address. Hosting and network providers' connection processing is separate.

Cookies and local device storage keep guest access, duck selection, language, sounds and volume, name-label choices, and other preferences. The app and external browsers keep separate storage. The accepted rule version and time and your list of blocked guest identifiers stay on the device and are not sent to our servers. App rest-reminder choices, time and permissions are also processed on the device; they do not create a server-push recipient or push token. Scene capture creates an image on the device that you can choose to save or share. If you include name labels, they are included in that shared image. The current capture route does not upload the image to the service's servers.

Hosting and network providers may process IP addresses, request times and details, browser/device information, and errors to deliver the service and investigate failures or abuse. We use Vercel Web Analytics for aggregated page visits, referral sources, approximate geography, and device/OS/browser information. Invitation codes in invitation paths are masked before analytics transmission. Vercel describes this analytics service as not using cookies for cross-site tracking.

If you email us, we use your address, message, and voluntarily provided attachments to handle your inquiry, report, or privacy request. The service does not require a national identification number, contact details, or precise device location as a condition of using the pond. Information you choose to put in text or email may be processed.

Retention and deletion

The access cookie and guest authentication expire 90 days after issue. An expired access value no longer authenticates that guest. This does not mean the server's guest-profile row is automatically deleted at the same time. An automatic deletion schedule for guest profiles and room-membership records is not currently defined. You can email a deletion request.

Restriction records remain for the selected restriction period; an indefinite guest restriction may remain until it is lifted. A linked network rule is valid for up to 24 hours from each action and may be renewed by another action. Expired rules are deleted by cleanup jobs, which may be delayed. Nickname-change lock records have no automatic expiry and may remain after the cookie's 90-day validity ends. Contact us to ask about restrictions or profile changes or request correction or deletion.

Existing in-app report content and review status are retained for 30 days from server receipt. On expiry they are excluded from the review queue and deleted by cleanup jobs. Reviewing a report or restricting a guest does not restart that period. Daily quota keys and counts expire at the end of that UTC date; server-to-server replay identifiers expire 60 seconds after receipt. Cleanup delays may delay physical deletion. This does not promise simultaneous deletion from every provider backup. This 30-day rule applies to reports and does not change retention of guest profiles, restriction records or inquiry email.

Device preferences may remain until you clear browser or app data. Clearing device data does not also delete server records. Current speech bubbles do not leave a general server history. Excerpts previously received in reports remain subject to the separate report-retention rules. Legacy chat is deleted by cleanup jobs after its 30-minute expiry. Feather text and report records are cleaned up on expiry or removal. Job delays or failures may delay physical deletion from storage.

Inquiry emails are kept while needed to handle the request and follow-up. A uniform automatic deletion period for inquiry mail, infrastructure logs, and backups has not currently been established. Vercel states that its daily visitor-session identifier is discarded after 24 hours; that is different from the retention of all aggregated statistics. We can investigate deletion scope and remaining retained records when you contact us.

Service providers and processing outside Korea

We use Vercel Inc. for web/API hosting, this support website, and aggregated visits; Cloudflare, Inc. for real-time connections, storage, and delivery of public images, models, and sounds; and Amazon Web Services database infrastructure for server-side guest/profile and legacy chat data. Inquiries go to the company's email system.

Information may be processed outside the Republic of Korea through these providers' networks, support, or security operations. A Korean web-server region does not mean every item of data stays in Korea. Actual processing countries, contractual details, and log/backup retention by provider are being verified. We do not represent them as a particular country or fixed period; questions can be sent to our contact above.

Vercel privacy notice · Vercel analytics privacy · Cloudflare privacy policy · AWS privacy notice

Choices and requests

You can block or clear cookies and site data in your browser or device settings. This may affect guest recognition and saved settings. Avoid posting your own or another person's contact details or sensitive information. You can request access, correction, deletion, or restriction by email. We will explain the information we can verify and any limitations. Additional verification may be needed where random guest identifiers do not establish the requester's identity.

The operator, (주)알파카랩스 (Alphaca Labs), handles privacy inquiries at the contact above. You can also contact Korea's Privacy Infringement Report Center or Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee.

We use HTTPS and secure connections in transit and restrict server and feature access. We do not guarantee end-to-end encryption of every record or that incidents can never happen. We will update this page and its effective date when this policy changes.