Privacy and cookie policy
1. Who is responsible
Project Terraform is operated by Cornelius Frylinck, an individual based in South Africa, who is the responsible party (POPIA) and data controller (GDPR) for your information. Postal address: [POSTAL ADDRESS]. Email: [email protected]. This address also serves as the information officer contact.
2. What we collect
- Account: email address, username, a hashed password, email-verification and terms-acceptance records, and your confirmation that you are 18 or older.
- Security and sessions: sign-in times, session tokens, failed sign-in counts, and your IP address, which is used briefly for rate limiting and abuse prevention.
- Gameplay: players, bases, resources, units, alliances, leaderboard scores, Gold balances, and rewarded-ad claim records.
- Support: the messages you send to support and staff replies.
- Advertising: your consent choices, and the identifiers and device data that advertising partners collect when an ad is shown (see section 5).
We do not collect payment card details. Nothing in the game can be bought with money.
3. Why we use it, and our legal basis
- To run your account and the game you asked to play: performance of our agreement with you.
- To keep the service secure and prevent cheating and fraud: our legitimate interests.
- To send verification, password, security, and support emails: performance of the agreement. We do not send marketing email.
- To show advertising and award Gold for rewarded ads: your consent where the law requires it, otherwise our legitimate interest in funding the game.
- To keep records the law requires, or that we need for disputes: legal obligation and legitimate interests.
4. Who receives it
- Hosting and database providers that run the game servers (Microsoft Azure).
- Our email delivery provider, for account and support emails.
- Google (AdSense, Ad Manager, AdMob, and its consent tool) and Adsterra, when ads are shown.
- Authorities, where the law requires it.
Other players see your username, player names, base positions, and leaderboard scores. We do not sell your personal information for money. Allowing advertising partners to collect data for personalised ads can count as "selling" or "sharing" under some US state laws. Section 5 explains how to refuse.
5. Cookies, local storage, and advertising
Strictly necessary (no consent needed): the game stores your sign-in session, selected server, theme, and panel layout in your browser's local storage. Without these the game cannot keep you signed in.
Advertising (consent where required): Google and Adsterra may set cookies or read device identifiers to deliver, limit, measure, and (if you allow it) personalise ads. Visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland see Google's consent message first. No ad network script loads until consent is recorded, and if you refuse, the game still works without ads or rewarded Gold. You can change your choice at any time from the Daily Gold panel ("Review consent options").
US residents can opt out of personalised advertising through the same consent options, at Google's ad settings, or by turning on Global Privacy Control in a supported browser. Read how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
6. International transfers
Our providers may process data outside South Africa and the EEA, including in the United States. We rely on the providers' standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards (POPIA section 72, GDPR chapter V).
7. How long we keep it
- Account and gameplay data: while your account exists. Deleting your account removes it, except for records we must keep.
- Security logs and rate-limit data: no longer than needed to detect abuse, normally under 90 days.
- Support messages: up to two years after the ticket closes.
- Records needed for legal duties or disputes: as long as those duties or disputes last.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live (POPIA, GDPR/UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and other US state laws), you can ask to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your information, object to or restrict its use, and withdraw consent at any time. Email [email protected] from your account email address. We reply within 30 days, or 45 days where US law allows it. We will not treat you differently for using these rights.
You can complain to South Africa's Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za), to your local EU or UK data protection authority, or to your state attorney general.
9. Age
Project Terraform is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has an account, email us and we will delete it.
10. Security
Passwords are hashed, traffic is encrypted in transit, and staff access is limited. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we will notify you and the regulators as the law requires.
11. Changes
We will post changes here and update the date above. Significant changes will also be announced in the game.