Privacy Policy

What data we collect

• Your e-mail address and your password (stored encrypted, never in plain text) at sign-up.
• The IP address used at sign-up, then those from which you log in and play (including when your connection changes during a session, for example from wifi to the mobile network), as well as the type of browser used. Refused login or sign-up attempts (wrong password, suspended account, account limit reached) are also recorded with their address — without the e-mail address entered.
• Your character’s data and your progression in the game.
• An avatar, if you choose to upload one.
• Your in-game notifications (attack suffered, message received, bounty, craft or quest finished, gang event…) and your notification settings. If you enable system notifications on a device, we also record, for that device: the delivery address provided by your browser’s notification service (an identifier specific to the device), the encryption keys that allow us to write to it, the type of browser used and some operating information (creation date and date of the last successful delivery, number of failures).
• The payment information of any shop purchase: when the Stripe payment module is enabled and configured on the production environment — which this document cannot confirm with certainty at this stage — it is processed directly by that provider, never stored by us. Full details of the payment conditions: see the Terms.

Why we collect it

This data is used exclusively to run the game: authenticate you, keep your progression alive, prevent abuse (multi-accounts, cheating) and process any purchases you make.

IP addresses and connection logs are only used for security and to fight abuse (multiple accounts, attacks on accounts). They can only be viewed by authorized administration staff, each sensitive access is logged, and they never trigger an automatic sanction: an IP address identifies a connection, not a person, and every decision is made by a human after verification.

Notifications are only used to warn you of game events that concern you: they are not used for advertising or solicitation. System notifications are optional: they only turn on with your agreement, you can remove them at any time, and their content deliberately stays generic (never the content of your private messages, nor a username, amount or place).

To analyze an address, an administrator may query public registries (DNS, IP address registries) and an IP intelligence provider; only the analyzed address is transmitted, never your identity, and no precise location is kept.

How long we keep IP addresses

• IP addresses tied to an account and browser type: 180 days after last use.
• Refused login or sign-up attempts: 90 days.
• Administration investigation cases: kept while they are open, then 2 years after they are closed.
• This data is erased together with your identity when your account is deleted.

Notifications: what we keep, and for how long

• Notification center (the bell): 90 days if you have not read them, 14 days after they are read, and 200 at most per account (beyond that, the oldest are erased first). Cleanup runs every hour. These durations keep a useful record of what happened while you were away without keeping an indefinite history.
• Device subscribed to system notifications: as long as you do not remove it. It is removed when you disable system notifications, when you log out of this account on this device, when your session is revoked (by you, or by the administration — for example after a password change), when the browser’s notification service says it no longer exists, after five consecutive delivery failures, after 180 days without login or activity on your account (same duration as IP addresses), and when the account is deleted. You can have 10 devices at most. On a shared device, use “Log out”: simply closing the tab does not remove the device.
• Settings: as long as your account exists.
• When your account is deleted or anonymized, your notifications, your settings and your subscribed devices are erased.

Only your account sees its in-game notifications. Technically, they are stored in the game database and are therefore accessible, like the rest of the database, only to the people who administer the server; no game administration screen displays them. System notifications write nothing to your browser outside the game’s program (“service worker”) and the subscription that your browser manages itself; you can remove them in your browser’s site settings.

Who sees a system notification go by. To deliver it, the message — encrypted — goes through your browser’s notification service: Google for Chrome and Android, Microsoft for Edge, Mozilla for Firefox, Apple for Safari. This service cannot read the content; it sees your device’s address, the time and the size of the delivery. It is chosen by your browser, not by us, and may process this information outside the European Union (point to be confirmed below).

Your choices. In the bell, then “settings”, you can turn off each notification category, in-game alerts and system notifications, separately. Turning off system notifications does not delete the center’s history.

If you linked your character to your forum account, some forum notifications (reply, mention, private message, announcement, gang space, moderation decision) also appear in the game’s notification center, without showing their content: only the event type, your character and the link to the relevant page are passed from the forum to the game.

Signing in with Google or Facebook

You can create your account and sign in with your Google account or your Facebook account, or keep your e-mail address and password: it is a choice, never an obligation.

• What we receive: an identifier specific to that service (stable, and it reveals neither your name nor your profile) and, if the service provides it, your e-mail address. For Google, the address is confirmed by Google. For Facebook, the address may be missing and is never treated as confirmed: we send you a confirmation link, as for a regular sign-up, before you can enter the game.
• What we do not receive and do not keep: your name, your photo, your friends, your posts, or the access token issued by Google or Facebook. We only keep the service identifier, linked to your Black Empire account, with the date it was linked and of the last sign-in.
• What it is used for: recognising your account when you sign in with that service. Nothing is posted on your Google or Facebook account, and no Black Empire account is ever merged with another on the mere similarity of an e-mail address.
• What the service sees: Google or Facebook knows that you sign in to Black Empire and processes this information under its own privacy policy. We do not control that processing.

Removing or deleting this data. In the game, open your profile, “Security” section: you can unlink Google or Facebook (a password must then be set, so that you always keep a way to sign in). Deleting your account also erases the linked identifier. You can also remove Black Empire from the authorised apps in your Google or Facebook account settings; this does not delete your game account, you then simply sign in with your e-mail and password.

Your rights over your data

You can delete your account at any time from the game (see the Rules page for the exact process): a seven-day grace period applies, cancellable by logging back in, before a final and irreversible erasure.

When an account is deleted, the username, e-mail address and key dates (sign-up, last login, deletion request and execution) it had are kept for six months in a register accessible only to the game’s owner, in order to be able to respond to a dispute, a payment dispute or an abuse. No IP address is kept there, and this information is then erased automatically.

Cookies and session

Your login relies on a session token, necessary for the game to work — not on advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

Notifications use neither cookies nor local storage. If you enable system notifications, your browser registers a small game program (“service worker”) and your subscription, which you can delete in your browser’s site settings.

Audience measurement

We count visits to the site to know how many people view it and which pages are read. This measurement is internal to Black Empire: no third-party analytics service, no cookie and no storage in your browser.

What we record: the page viewed, the date and time, the site you come from (its domain name only, never the full address) and, if there is one, the name of a campaign. Your IP address is never kept as it is: it is turned into a secret one-way fingerprint (pseudonymisation) that is used only to avoid counting the same connection several times. A fingerprint remains personal data: only the Super Admin can see it, and only as totals.

For how long: thirteen months after your last visit, the fingerprint and the page views attached to it are deleted. Recognised robots are counted separately, without a fingerprint. Visits by the administration team are not counted.

Your choice: if your browser sends the “Do Not Track” or “Global Privacy Control” signal, measurement is switched off for you. A dedicated contact address, to object to this measurement or exercise your rights, still has to be set up (see “Points awaiting validation” below).