Privacy Policy

What we collect

Account: email, username, display name, avatar, bio, home country, organisation memberships.

Activity: plots and their content, likes, waves, follows, guestbook notes, quests, XP and achievements, reports.

Payments: handled by Stripe. We receive customer, subscription and payment IDs and amounts, never full card details.

Technical: IP address, device and browser information and logs, used for security, abuse prevention and rate limiting. We store your session in a secure cookie.

Location: we never ask for precise location unless you press “Find me”. To start the map near you we use your browser’s time zone, on your device only.

Why we use it

To run FlatMeta and your account (contract), take payments (contract), keep the service safe and moderate content (legitimate interests), improve FlatMeta with aggregated statistics (legitimate interests), and meet legal obligations such as tax records.

AI features

When you use the AI Designer, AI search or suggestions, the text you provide (and, for moderation, content you publish) is sent to the AI provider we use (such as Anthropic, OpenAI or Google) to generate a response. These providers process it on our behalf; we choose settings that keep your content out of model training wherever the provider offers that option. Images may be generated by these providers or by our own servers.

Cookies and analytics

We use one essential cookie to keep you signed in, and store small preferences (theme, tour done) on your device. We do not use analytics cookies. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

Who sees what

Your username, avatar, level, badges and published plots are public. Email addresses are never shown publicly. We use processors for hosting, email delivery, payments (Stripe), AI (as above), map tiles (OpenFreeMap / OpenStreetMap) and place search. We do not sell your data and do not use advertising cookies.

Retention

While your account exists; payment records as long as tax law requires (typically 6–7 years); logs up to 90 days; deleted content is removed from backups within 35 days.

Your rights

You can access, correct, export or delete your data, object to some uses, and complain to your data protection authority. Email [email protected]; we reply within 30 days.

Children

FlatMeta is not for children under 16.