PRIVACY POLICY
Here at Bunny & Gnome, we care about creating games that make the world a better place. To do that, we need to understand how efficient our games are at what they do: being fun and educating people. At the same time, we make a point to ensure kids and families can enjoy our games without concerns for their privacy and safety.
This short document explains what kind of data is collected by the game “Trash Monsters”, what happens to it, what it is used for, and what control you have over it.
WE DON’T COLLECT PERSONAL DATA
This is important for us. The game never shares any personal data with anyone. By personal data, we mean information that can be used to identify a particular person.
In particular, the game does not access or have access to: player name, player demographics (age, gender), device location, device owner account, device unique identifiers, phone contacts, text messages, or other apps’ contents.
Sometimes, however, the game may find itself handling information that could be considered personal data under certain jurisdictions or circumstances. These fall into two categories:
- Information that may or may not contain personal data: for example, text typed freely by the player in a search box may contain names;
- Information that may be personal data in context with other information: for example, a city name is not enough on its own to identify a player, but along with a name (which the game does not collect), it may be enough.
When this happens, the game will generally forget such data as soon as possible. But there are exceptions.
For the sake of total transparency, we recap the situations in which the game handles potentially personal data in the table below, and explain why, in our understanding, each of them does not constitute personal data collection:
Where in the game? | What data? | What happens to the data? |
Adventure mode > | Free text input A player may type freely in the search bar, to search for particular cities. This could lead to location details or inadvertently even names being typed in this field. | Not stored, not collected |
Adventure mode > | Chosen name of profile A player can choose up to 4 symbols to name a saved game profile. The selected name may likely (but not necessarily) reflect the name or nickname of the player. | Stored on the device The selection is attached to the saved game and stored on the device, so that a player may recognize and load the profile they want. Not collected This information is not transmitted outside of the device. |
Adventure mode > | Chosen city and country A player may select a city planet before beginning the game. The selected one may likely (but not necessarily) reflect the actual city in which the player lives. | Stored on the device The selection is attached to the saved game and stored on the device so that a player does not have to choose again when loading a game. Collected The chosen city is collected as part of gameplay data. In the context of the other data we collect, it is not enough to identify a player. |
Options > Language | Display language A player may change the language in which the game is displayed. This may likely (but not necessarily) reflect the player’s primary language. | Stored on the device The selection is stored on the device so that the game can be displayed in a language the player understands. Collected The chosen language is collected as part of gameplay data. In the context of the other data we collect, it is not enough to identify a player. |
Various situations where gameplay data is collected | IP address When your device contacts our data collection server (or any server, for that matter) on the Internet, your device’s IP address is transmitted. | Not collected, not stored Our data collection servers forget IP addresses as soon as technically possible. In particular, we do not attempt to geolocate devices through their IP addresses. |
The game collects other types of data as well, but these are definitely not personal data. Let’s take a look at them now.
WE COLLECT GAMEPLAY DATA TO IMPROVE THE GAME
The game relies on first-party technology to monitor and collect non-personal data about player activities within the game.
As an example, the data we collect includes but is not limited to, the following game-related indicators: screens the player visits, trash waves the player has completed (including score), trash items the player has sorted, mini-games the player has completed (including score) and progression in the story.
The data also includes limited technical information about the device used by the player: mainly, the operating system and version.
The collected data is only processed internally by ourselves (Bunny & Gnome GbR), to understand the players’ experience in the game, and ultimately improve it. We do not share it with anybody else. Still, we may create aggregated statistics (for example, “X% of players sort organic trash correctly in the game”) and share these with our waste management institutional partners.
All collected data is pseudonymized: it is linked together by an application identifier generated on the game’s first startup after installation. Unlike more sensitive and personal identifiers - such as device identifiers, cookie identifiers, or hardware identifiers - our identifier is specific to the game and cannot be used to track players in other apps or websites.
NO THIRD-PARTY COLLECTS DATA
The game is built using Unity, a game engine that requires access to some technical information about the player’s device to work properly: device manufacturer, hardware components, device and network identifiers, user language, etc. To the best of our knowledge and abilities, we disabled all data collection by Unity that could potentially occur. From our testing, Unity or other third parties do not send over the Internet any data at all from our game, including the aforementioned technical information.
You can read Unity’s privacy policy (section “I play a game that was built with or uses certain Unity software, what should I know?”) for more details.
YOU HAVE CONTROL OVER YOUR DATA
We truly believe privacy is a fundamental right. That’s why we make a point to go beyond current regulations to give players and their families control over data collection, even if we don’t collect any personal data.
At any point during the game, you may turn off data collection or even request deletion of all the data we ever collected from your device.
To do this, simply start the game, then go to the Options menu and tap on the Privacy button in the top right-hand corner.
On this screen, you can tap on the “Data Collection” button in the bottom-left-hand corner to turn off data collection: when turned off, the button shows a red cross instead of a green checkmark.
You can also request deletion of your data by tapping on the trash bin “Delete my data” in the bottom-right-hand corner and then following the instructions. Your device must be connected to the Internet. Once the request is made, it can take up to several weeks before the data is effectively deleted. You can come back to the same screen to follow the progress of the request.
It is only possible to request deletion of your data as long as the game is installed on your device. Since we don’t collect any personal data, we cannot match the data we collect to a device or a person. The game on your device however remembers what data it sent and can therefore automatically ask for its deletion, but that information is lost when the game is uninstalled.
SUMMARY
Data controller and processor & Impressum
Bunny & Gnome GbR
Greta Hoffmann, Keupstr. 11, D-51063 Köln
+49 176 43878634
dpo@bunnyandgnome.com, support@muell-ag.de
Data collection
No personal data is collected. The following table recaps all collected non-personal data.
What data? | Who collects it? | What is it used for? |
Gameplay usage | Bunny & Gnome GbR | Analytics & UX analysis to improve the game’s didactic effect. Anonymous aggregations to report usage to our partners. |
Device operating system & version | Bunny & Gnome GbR | Analytics & UX analysis to improve the game’s didactic effect. Anonymous aggregations to report usage to our partners. |
Selected city and language | Bunny & Gnome GbR | Analytics & UX analysis to improve the game’s didactic effect. Anonymous aggregations to report usage to our partners. |
Opt-out of data collection
Go to Options > Privacy and click on Data Collection so that it shows a red cross.
Delete collected data
Go to Options > Privacy and click on Delete my data and follow the instructions.