Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2 November 2026

This policy applies to the game POI Hunter (app for Android and iOS) and to this website. “GDPR” refers to the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

1. Controller

2. In short

• No account with email or password. On first launch the app creates an anonymous game account – a random account ID without a name, email address or phone number.
• No ads, no analytics, no tracking, no crash reports. We do not use an advertising ID and do not share data for advertising.
• Your location is used on your device. It is sent to our server only at the moment you check in at a place, and it is not stored there. No background location.
• Other players never see your location or when you were where.
• You can delete your account in the app at any time. Accounts that are not used for 12 months are deleted automatically.

3. Location and check-ins

On your device: With your permission the app uses your precise location while it is open – for the map and to show which places are in reach. The app only asks for location access “while using the app”, never in the background. Without permission you can look at the map but cannot check in.

When you check in, the app sends to our server once: your position (latitude and longitude), its accuracy, a flag from the operating system indicating whether the location is simulated, and the OpenStreetMap ID of the place where you check in. The server uses this to verify that you are actually nearby. Your position is not stored. If the server does not know the place yet, it loads the public map data of the area from OpenFreeMap or the place data from an Overpass server (see section 6) – this request comes from our server, without your IP address or account ID.

Stored (in Cloud Firestore, see section 7):

• the check-in itself: account ID, your world, the visited place (OpenStreetMap ID), the hex (an H3 cell of about 0.1 km², computed from the coordinates of the place, not from your position) and the time. It is counted no earlier than 2 hours later and deleted at that point, usually after 2 to 5 hours;
• in your player document, your recent check-ins (place, its coordinates, time) for the waiting time until the same place counts again – they expire after 4 hours and are deleted after about 7 hours at the latest;
• today’s influence per hex (for the daily limit) – cleared after the day ends;
• counters for requests and limits (e.g. place lookups per hour) and the time of your last activity (see section 12).

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the game you use) and, for checks against simulated locations and impossible movement, Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our legitimate interest in fair play and in preventing abuse).

4. Privacy zone

You can set a privacy zone around your home. It is stored only on your device, with a randomly shifted centre, never with your real location. Check-ins inside the privacy zone are not sent to the server. The “refuge gift” you can collect there is requested without any location.

5. What other players see

• your player name (please do not use your real name) – other players can look it up;
• your world (name, world book, colours, crest) and its hexes on the map. New hexes appear only hours later, without a time and without the player who was there;
• the members of your alliance see the member list with player names and, in the world treasury history, which member spent something.

Never visible are your location, your check-ins, their times and your privacy zone. The app does not show your account ID to other players (unless you share your player ID yourself). Technically, the apps of your alliance’s members process the members’ account IDs in order to show their player names. Please note: if you play alone in a world, its hexes roughly show where it was played in recent days – that is why the privacy zone exists.

6. Map data from third parties

To display the map, the app loads data directly from these services:

• OpenFreeMap (openfreemap.org): map tiles, fonts and map style based on OpenStreetMap;
• Amazon Web Services (Amazon S3, USA, “Terrain Tiles” dataset): elevation data for the terrain;
• only as a fallback, when place data is not available from the map tiles: Overpass servers for OpenStreetMap data (overpass-api.de, overpass.private.coffee, overpass.kumi.systems).

For technical reasons these providers receive your IP address, the usual device or app identifier in the request (user agent) and the visible map area. We do not send them any account ID. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a working map without running our own map server). The providers are responsible for how they store these requests; Amazon S3 is located in the USA.

7. Server: Firebase (Google)

To run the game we use services from Firebase / Google Cloud. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

• Firebase Authentication: the anonymous game account – a random account ID and the times of creation and last sign-in.
• Cloud Firestore (location EU, region “eur3”): the game state – player document, public profile (player name), worlds, hexes, alliances, world treasury, invitations, reports.
• Cloud Functions (region europe-west1, Belgium): the game logic, e.g. check-ins, sieges, creating worlds.
• Firebase App Check with Google Play Integrity (Android) or Apple App Attest (iOS): checks that requests come from the genuine, unmodified app on a real device. For this, your device exchanges attestation data with Google or Apple; our server only receives the result. Legal basis Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (protection against abuse and against costs caused by automated requests).
• Cloud Logging: technical server logs (e.g. time, function called, errors, technical request data such as the IP address). We deliberately do not write locations or player texts into the logs. They are deleted after 30 days.

Google processes this data as our processor under Art. 28 GDPR. A transfer to the USA cannot be ruled out; Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses also apply. The legal basis for running the game is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

8. Creating and translating worlds with AI (Anthropic)

When you create your own world, you choose themes and write a sentence (up to 120 characters). Our server sends the themes and your sentence to Anthropic PBC (USA), whose AI model Claude writes a world book from them. Your player name, your account ID and your location are not sent. Please do not put personal information into the sentence.

Your sentence stays with the draft in your player document until you confirm the world (it is then deleted; the finished world does not contain it) or your account is deleted. According to Anthropic, it deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days; content that Anthropic’s automated systems flag as violating its usage policy may be kept for up to 2 years. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use API inputs and outputs to train its models. The transfer to the USA is based on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (you request the world).

If moderation replaces a world book (see section 9), the world’s themes and a description written by the moderator are sent to Anthropic in the same way.

Background translation: So that every world can also be read in English, our server has world books translated by Claude – after a world is confirmed, after moderation rewrites it and, if you use the app in English, already for your draft. For this it sends the themes and the German texts of the world book (names, motto, story, street and place names) to Anthropic – not your sentence, not your account ID and not your location. For a draft, the server creates a translation job containing your account ID so that the translation finds its way to your draft. The job is deleted after the translation; if it is left over, we delete it in the daily clean-up once it is older than 24 hours. The same periods and conditions as above apply at Anthropic. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (the game in German and English).

9. Reports and moderation

You can report player names and world content. A report contains: what was reported (player or world, field), the reason, optionally a text (up to 300 characters), a copy of the reported content, the time and your account ID (as the reporter, to prevent abuse of the report function). Only the moderator (the developer) reads reports. Resolved reports are deleted 90 days after they were resolved.

Moderation can change player names, have world books rewritten and ban accounts. For a ban we store the player name, the time and the related report. Every moderation action is logged (only account IDs or world ID, action, time). Worlds you block are stored in your player document and are visible only to you.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (protecting players from illegal and objectionable content) and Art. 6(1)(b) (enforcing the Terms of Use).

10. Music, sounds and data on your device

Music and sounds are included in the app and played only on your device; no data is sent for this. On your device the app also stores settings (sound, graphics), your privacy zone, your onboarding progress, your recent check-ins and a copy of your game state; the Firebase SDK also stores the App Check token there (section 7). The legal basis for storing data on your device and accessing it is Section 25(2) no. 2 of the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG): it is strictly necessary for the app to work as you use it (local settings, privacy zone, App Check). If you uninstall the app, this data is removed from the device – your account on the server remains (see sections 11 and 12).

11. Retention and deleting your account

We keep your game state as long as you have your account. Some data is deleted earlier (see sections 3, 7, 8 and 9).

Delete your account: in the app under Settings → Account → “Delete account and game data”. If you no longer have the app, email poihunter@anzalichi.de with your player ID (Settings → About → Player ID). See also the page Delete your account.

Deleted:

• your player document with block list, world draft, recent check-ins, daily values and counters;
• your public profile (player name), any ban and admin rights;
• your check-ins that have not been counted yet and your invitations;
• reports about you;
• your sign-in (Firebase Authentication);
• on the device: your privacy zone, your onboarding progress, your recent check-ins and your stored player name.

You leave your world as if you left it yourself: if you are the founder, the longest-standing member takes over; if you are alone, your world fades.

Kept without any link to you:

• your reports about others – without you as the reporter, until 90 days after they were resolved;
• the world treasury history – your spending appears as “former member”;
• the moderation log – without your account ID;
• worlds, hexes, influence and world books – they belong to the world, not to a player.

Server logs expire after 30 days (section 7). A pending translation job for your draft and the periods at Anthropic are governed by section 8.

12. Inactive accounts

If you neither open the app nor check in for 12 months, we delete your account automatically – to the same extent as deleting it in the app (section 11). For this we store the time of your last activity (updated at most once a day). Moderator accounts are excluded. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR (storage limitation under Art. 5(1)(e) GDPR).

13. Your rights

You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and to object to processing (Art. 21). Just write to poihunter@anzalichi.de and include your player ID – without it we cannot find your anonymous account.

Right to object: Where we process data on the basis of Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, you may object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21(1) GDPR).

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR), for example the one responsible for us: the Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Der Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit).

There is no automated decision-making within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR. Providing data is voluntary; however, you cannot check in without location access, and you cannot play without a game account.

14. Age

POI Hunter is intended for people aged 16 and over.

15. This website

This website is delivered via Firebase Hosting (Google Ireland Limited, see section 7). When you visit it, Google processes technically necessary data such as IP address, time, page requested and browser in order to deliver and secure the site (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). The website sets no cookies, uses no analytics or tracking services and loads no content from other servers.

16. Contact by email

If you write to us, we use your email address and the information you provide only to handle your request (Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR) and delete it when it is no longer needed for that purpose and no statutory retention obligations apply.

17. Changes

We update this policy when the game or the law changes. The version published here applies; the date is shown at the top.