Privacy Policy

Effective [DATE]

Who we are

Airspace Ascent is run by [LEGAL NAME] ("we", "us"), [MAILING ADDRESS]. Contact us about privacy at [SUPPORT EMAIL].

Study practice, not flight instruction

Airspace Ascent is an educational game. It is not flight instruction or a substitute for an FAA-certificated instructor or official FAA sources.

Children and age

The game is for people 13 and older; players under 18 need a parent's or guardian's permission. When you first play we ask your birth year without suggesting an answer. We use it once to decide whether you can make an account and which features fit your age, and we keep only the result (13 to 17, or 18 and over), never your birth date. If you are under 13 the game does not create an account. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

What we collect

When you play

• Account: a guest account is made for you. If you add an email, we keep it; sign-in uses one-time email codes or a password stored hashed by our login provider.
• Profile: the display name you choose (shown to other players), your age group, and your plane, pet and badges as shown in the game.
• Progress: lessons, XP, streaks, quiz and practice-test results, items, Wings and Sky Gems, and settings you save.
• Game records kept on our servers to keep the game fair: a history of saves and their totals, wild battles (which monster appeared and whether you won), pets you befriended, daily spin results, and flags when something looks like cheating.
• Chat and community: messages you send in community chat, raids and squadrons, and question suggestions, votes and bug reports.
• Classes: if you join an instructor's class, that instructor can see your display name and your progress in the class (lessons, practice-test readiness and activity).
• Invites: if you join through a friend's link, we record who invited you so both of you get in-game rewards.
• Location (optional, only if you allow it): the "Near me" button in Real FAA charts asks your device for your approximate location to show nearby airports, charts and a local airspace quiz. Your location is used on your device only. It is not sent to our servers or shared with anyone. To remember your area for next time, the game keeps a rounded position (about 10 km) in your device's local storage, which you can clear in Settings or by turning location off. You can say no and search for airports instead.
• Technical data: IP address, device and browser type and error logs that our hosting and login providers record to run and secure the service.

When you pay

• Website: Stripe processes payments. We receive your email, a Stripe customer number, what you bought and your subscription status. We never see or store your full card number.
• Apps: Apple or Google process the payment; RevenueCat tells us whether your Cleared Direct subscription is active.

Pilot verification (optional)

• Certificate photo: read on your own device to fill in the form, then discarded. It is never uploaded to us or stored. The text-reading code is downloaded from jsDelivr, a public code library, which can see your IP address but not your photo.
• What we keep: a keyed hash (a scrambled code that cannot be turned back into your name) of your name and the matched public FAA airmen record, the certificates that matched, the date, and short-lived attempt counts to stop abuse. Other players see only your badge, never your real name.
• ID check (18+, optional): done by Stripe Identity on Stripe's own page under Stripe's privacy policy. Stripe tells us the name and date of birth on your ID so we can compare them with the FAA match and confirm you are 18 or older; we then discard them and keep only the result, and ask Stripe to delete the verification. [Confirm whether Stripe's selfie check is on; if so, add biometric consent and retention wording.]
• Remove your verification any time from the Verify page.

Voice practice

If you use the spoken mock oral, your browser's speech features turn your voice into text. In some browsers (such as Chrome and Edge) the audio is sent to the browser maker's speech service under their terms. We do not record or store audio. You can type instead.

Private beta testers

If you apply to test the game, we keep your name, email, whether you are under 18, a parent's or guardian's name, email and agreement if you are under 18, the version and a fingerprint of the agreement you signed, when you signed, a scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address, and your browser type. We use these to approve testers and as the record of the signed agreement.

Emails

We send only emails about something you did or asked for (sign-in codes, tester approval, receipts, account notices) using Resend. We do not send marketing emails. If we ever do, they will have an unsubscribe link and we will ask first where the law requires.

How we use it

• To run the game, save your progress on every device, and show leaderboards, chat and classes.
• To process purchases and Cleared Direct.
• To keep the game fair and secure, spot cheating, and fix problems.
• To review question suggestions: suggestion text may be sent to Anthropic's AI service for an automated first review. We do not send your name or email with it, and it is not used to train AI models under our agreement. [Confirm this matches your Anthropic API terms.]
• To answer your messages and send the emails described above.

We do not sell or share your personal information for advertising, do not use advertising or analytics trackers, and do not use your information to train AI models.

Who we share it with

Only the service providers that run parts of the game for us, and only what they need:

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect players' safety, or as part of a sale or merger of the game (the new owner would have to follow this policy). Other players can see your display name, rank, XP, plane, pet, badges and chat messages.

How long we keep it

• Account and game data: until you delete your account. We remove it from our systems within 30 days after that, except backups that expire on their normal schedule.
• Kept after deletion: signed beta tester agreements, for as long as the agreement lasts; and payment records that tax and accounting laws require us to keep, no longer linked to your game account.
• Verification attempt counts: 2 days.

Your choices and rights

• Delete your account in the game's settings. It removes your progress, pets, verification, chat and class membership.
• See, correct or get a copy of your data: email [SUPPORT EMAIL].
• Residents of California and other US states, and people in the EU and UK, have rights such as access, deletion, correction and objection. Contact us to use them; we will not treat you worse for doing so. We do not sell or share personal information as those laws define it.
• Parents and guardians can ask us to review or delete a teen's information.

[Lawyer: confirm which state and international laws apply, and whether GDPR legal bases and transfer wording are needed if you serve the EU or UK.]

Cookies and local storage

The game uses your browser's or device's local storage, and the sign-in session our login provider needs, to save your progress and keep you signed in. These are needed for the game to work. We do not use advertising cookies, analytics trackers, or tracking pixels, so there is no cookie banner. The website serves its fonts from our own site.

Security

We use encrypted connections, server-side checks and reputable providers. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you we will tell you as the law requires.

Changes

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top and, for significant changes, tell account holders before they apply.