Privacy policy

1. Who handles your data

Francisco Cubel Martínez (self-employed professional, trading as Atenea Systems), address at Plaça Clara Campoamor, 10, 46530 Puçol (València), Spain.

Contact for anything to do with your data: [email protected]

There is no Data Protection Officer: given the kind and the volume of data this game handles, one isn't required.

2. What data we handle

From your account

• A user identifier.
• Your player name (the one you pick — it doesn't have to be your real one).
• Your email address, if you sign in with a Google or Apple account.

From your physical activity

• The steps you take, read from your phone's health app with your permission. It's what moves your character: without it there's no game.

From what you write

• The text of the radio messages and of the notes you leave on the map.
• When you wrote it, from what point on the map and who it reached.

From the game

• Where your character is on the game map, what they're carrying and what has happened to them.

Technical

• App version, device type and IP address.

About your real location: this game doesn't use GPS and doesn't know where you physically are. It only counts steps. The position you see on the map is your character's inside the game, not yours.

3. What we use it for, and on what grounds

Why we ask you instead of taking it for granted: a message is a communication between two people, and checking it needs both sides to agree. That's why nobody can write in this game without having accepted first that their messages get checked: whoever writes accepted it, and whoever receives did too. If you don't accept, you can still play — you just can't use the radio or leave notes.

And put plainly: in a game where anyone can write to you, checking nothing means the first person who feels like insulting you is going to manage it. Checking the text automatically —without any person reading your conversations unless somebody reports one— is the least it takes.

4. How moderation works

This is what we get asked about most, so here it is in detail:

• Every message and every note goes through an automatic system before it's sent. The text is sent to OpenAI, L.L.C. (United States), which classifies it and returns a set of scores. OpenAI doesn't use it to train its models and doesn't keep it for anything else.
• If the scores go over our thresholds, the message isn't sent and we tell you so.
• If they land somewhere in between, the message is sent but it's flagged in case it ever needs reviewing.
• No person reads your messages as a matter of routine. They're only read if somebody reports a specific one.
• No account is closed automatically. Blocking a message is done by the system; throwing somebody out is always decided by a person, after looking at it.
• If you think we've got it wrong with you, write to [email protected] and we'll review it.
• If you want none of this, don't accept: you'll be able to play just the same, and the communication tab will tell you why it's switched off and how to switch it on if you change your mind.

We store the result of that check alongside the message, so we can deal with a report without having to analyze everything all over again.

5. Who else sees your data

• The other players, which is obvious but worth saying: your radio messages are received by the players who are close by, and your notes are read by anyone who passes through where you left them.
• OpenAI, L.L.C. (United States), only the text of the messages and only to moderate it. It goes by full name because your data leaves the European Union and you have the right to know exactly who to.
• Our hosting provider, with servers in Spain.
• Our network protection and content delivery provider.
• Authorities and courts, where there's a legal obligation.

Why some are named and others aren't. Whoever is outside Europe we name, because there you do need to be able to weigh up where your data ends up. Whoever only hosts the service inside Europe we describe by what they do, which is what the law asks for —it talks about “categories of recipients”— and what everybody does: saying which machine and which company a server lives on protects you no more, and does make life easier for anyone who wants to attack it. If you need the detail, to exercise a right or to make a complaint for example, write to us and we'll give it to you.

We don't sell your data to anyone and we don't use it for advertising.

6. Data that leaves Europe

The text of your messages is sent to OpenAI, L.L.C., in the United States, to be moderated.

That transfer is covered by the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, and by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework insofar as it applies. You can ask us for a copy of those safeguards by writing to us.

If this worries you, the way to avoid it is simple: don't write messages. The rest of the game —walking, moving, picking things up— works without leaving Europe.

7. How long we keep things

Deleting a game deletes its messages and its notes for everybody who was playing, not just for you, and there's no going back.

8. Minors

The minimum age to play is 14.

In Spain, a minor can consent to their data being handled from the age of 14 (art. 7 of the LOPDGDD). Below that, the consent of their parents or guardians is required.

If you're a parent or guardian and you believe your underage child is using the game without your permission, write to us at [email protected] and we'll close the account and delete their data.

9. What you can demand from us

You have the right to access your data, correct it, delete it, restrict its use, take it somewhere else and object to us handling it on legitimate interest grounds.

For any of those, write to [email protected]. We answer within one month.

If we don't answer, or you're not convinced by what we answer, you can file a complaint with the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, the Spanish data protection authority (www.aepd.es).

To delete your account you don't need to write to us: it can be done from the app itself.

10. How we protect all this

• Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS).
• The database isn't exposed to the internet.
• Access to the server is restricted to a single person.
• If there were ever a breach that could affect you, we'd notify you and the AEPD as the GDPR requires.

11. Permissions the app asks you for

We don't ask for location, camera, microphone or access to your contacts.

12. Required data

The account data and the steps are essential: without them there's no game. Messages are optional — you can play without writing to anyone.

13. If we change this policy

We'll tell you inside the app if anything important changes, rather than changing the text and saying nothing. The date of the latest version is always right at the top.