Privacy Policy
Last updated 3 November 2026
The short version. The website does not track you. The game needs a name, a password and your date of birth, and keeps your character and what you build. Its server logs record your IP address and what you say in chat. If you buy land or coins or use a market stall, your wallet addresses are linked to your account, and the payment stays on a public blockchain forever. We do not sell data, show ads or use analytics. The game's connection is not encrypted at the moment, so please use a password you use nowhere else.
1. Who is responsible
Toni Lukkaroinen, Finland, runs Hiili as a private individual and is the controller of your personal data. Contact us about privacy at toni.lukkaroinen@gmail.com. We have not appointed a data protection officer.
2. What we collect
| When | Data |
|---|---|
| Visiting this website | The web server that hosts this site processes your IP address, browser details, the pages you ask for and the time, as any web server does. We set no cookies and run no analytics. See the Cookie Policy. |
| Creating an account | Your player name, your date of birth and the time the account was made. Your password is never stored: the server keeps only a random salt and a hash made from it. Whether an account is an admin or banned is also stored. |
| Playing | Your character's appearance, position, inventory, skills, pets and progress; what you build, dig and place, tagged with your player name; notes you post on boards; trades; names you give to things. |
| Chat | What you type is sent to players within 300 m of you and written to the server log with your player name. |
| Connecting | The server log records your IP address and port with connections, disconnections, new accounts, failed logins and refused logins, and when a player name joins and leaves. |
| Buying land or coins, or using a market stall | The wallet addresses you link to your account, proof that you control them (signatures), payment transaction IDs, invoices, your parcels and where they are, what you put up for sale, and what you bought and sold, from whom and for how much. The server log records these too. We never receive your recovery phrase, wallet password or private keys. |
| Contacting us | Your email address and whatever you send us, such as reports, appeals and privacy requests. |
We do not ask for your real name, email address (unless you write to us), precise location or contacts, and we do not seek out special categories of personal data. Please do not share such details in chat or on boards.
3. What stays on your computer
The game creates these files next to itself and does not send them to us. You can delete them, though deleting a wallet file without your recovery phrase means losing access to your funds:
hiili-login.txt: the last server address and player name (never the password);hiili-crash.txt: technical details if the game crashes, which reach us only if you choose to send them;hiili-wallet.json: your wallet, encrypted with your wallet password;recordings/: videos you record yourself.
When you use the wallet, the game asks a public Hoosat service (proxy.hoosat.net) for balances and sends
transactions through it. That service sees your IP address and wallet addresses.
4. Why, and our legal bases
If the GDPR or UK GDPR applies to you, these are the purposes we use your data for, and the legal basis for each:
| Purpose | Data | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Running your account and the game world | Account and gameplay data, IP address | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Checking age limits, including the 18+ wallet | Date of birth | Contract and legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(b), (c)) |
| Selling land and coins, running market stalls and verifying payments | Wallet addresses, transactions, parcels, sales | Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Keeping accounting records | Payment records | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) |
| Security, stopping cheating and abuse, moderation, fixing faults | Server logs, chat logs, gameplay data | Our legitimate interest in a safe, fair and working game (Art. 6(1)(f)) |
| Answering you, handling reports and appeals | What you send us | Legitimate interests, and legal obligations where they apply (Art. 6(1)(c), (f)) |
| Showing the itch.io widget | Data your browser sends to itch.io | Your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time |
You need to give a name, a password and a date of birth to create an account; without them we cannot provide one.
Automated decisions. The server works out your age from your date of birth, and refuses the wallet if you are under 18. If you think your date is wrong, contact us and a person will look at it. We make no other automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects, and do no profiling.
5. Who sees it
- Other players see your player name, character, chat when nearby, notes on boards, what you build, and who owns a parcel.
- Admins we appoint can see players and moderate them. People who run the server can read its logs.
- Service providers. We run the website and the game server ourselves, and the game server is in Finland. If we start using a hosting provider, we will name it here.
- Buyers at your market stall see your player name and the wallet address they would pay. This links your name in the game to that address, and they can then look up that address's payments on the blockchain. Keep a separate wallet for selling if that matters to you.
- The public, via the blockchain. Payments for land and coins and at market stalls are public and permanent on the Hoosat network. Anyone can see the addresses and amounts. Other than at market stalls, we do not publish a link between an address and your player name, but anyone able to connect your address to you can see your payments.
- itch.io, independently, when you download from it or turn on its widget. See its privacy policy.
- Authorities or others where the law requires it, or where needed to protect people's safety or to bring or defend legal claims.
- A successor, if Hiili is ever transferred. We would tell you first.
We do not sell personal data, share it for advertising, or show ads.
6. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Account and character | Until you ask us to delete the account. We may delete accounts that have not logged in for 3 years. |
| Server logs (IP addresses, chat) | 90 days, or longer for a specific entry needed for an open report, a security incident or a legal claim. |
| Things you built | For as long as they stay in the world. If your account is deleted, your player name is removed from them. |
| Land, coin and market records | As long as you own the parcel, and after that as long as accounting law requires (typically 6 to 10 years). |
| Blockchain transactions | Permanently. No one can delete them, including us. |
| Bans and moderation records | As long as the ban applies, and up to 2 years after a decision or appeal. |
| Messages to us | Up to 2 years after the matter is closed, unless the law requires longer. |
| Backups | Deleted data can stay in backups for up to 90 days. |
7. International transfers
Our game server is in Finland. Players connect from around the world, and other players, wherever they are, receive your name and chat as part of the game. If you turn on the itch.io widget, your browser connects to itch.io, which is based in the United States; that happens on your explicit consent (GDPR Art. 49(1)(a)). The Hoosat network is a global network of independent computers. If we use a provider outside your country that receives your data from us, we use a lawful transfer mechanism such as an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses, and you can ask us for a copy.
8. Security
Please read this. The connection between the game client and the game server is not encrypted at the moment. That includes your password when you log in, your date of birth when you register, and your chat. Anyone who can watch the network between you and the server could read them. We are telling you this so you can protect yourself: use a password you use nowhere else. We will update this section when that changes.
What we do: passwords are stored only as salted, repeatedly hashed values; repeated wrong passwords slow down login attempts; and the server checks game actions rather than trusting the client. Wallet keys are encrypted on your own computer and are never sent to us.
If a breach puts your data at risk, we will notify the authorities and affected players as the law requires. Because we do not have your email address, we would tell you in the game and on this website.
9. Children
Hiili is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly keep their data. If you are under the digital consent age where you live, up to 16 in some countries, a parent or guardian must agree for you. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it. Parents and guardians can use the rights below for their child. Young players: keep your real name, address, school and photos out of chat.
10. Your rights and how to use them
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- know what data we hold and get a copy (access);
- have wrong data corrected;
- have your data deleted, including your account;
- limit or object to how we use it, including where we rely on legitimate interests;
- receive your data in a portable format;
- withdraw consent at any time, without affecting what was done before;
- not be treated worse for using these rights; and
- complain to your data protection authority.
How to ask. Email toni.lukkaroinen@gmail.com and tell us your player name and what you want. Never send your password. To check that the account is yours, we will give you a one-time code to type into the in-game chat while logged in. If you can no longer log in, tell us and we will find another way. We answer within one month (45 days where US state law applies), and for free unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.
What deleting does. We delete your account, date of birth and character, and remove your player name from what you built. The builds themselves can stay in the shared world. Chat that other players have already seen cannot be recalled, logs expire as in section 6, payment records stay as long as accounting law requires, and blockchain transactions cannot be removed. Parcels you own would be released, so read the Wallet, Land and Market Terms first.
11. Rules for particular places
European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland
You can complain to the data protection authority where you live or work, or where you think the problem happened. You do not need to contact us first, though we would welcome the chance to help. We are based in Finland, so our lead authority is the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman.
California and other US states
In the last 12 months we collected these categories, for the purposes in section 4 and from you directly: identifiers (player name, IP address, wallet addresses), age, commercial information (land and coin purchases, market sales), internet or network activity (gameplay and logs), and account login details, which are sensitive personal information and are used only to let you log in. We do not sell or share personal information as California law defines those words, including that of anyone under 16. There is nothing to opt out of, so browser signals such as Global Privacy Control have no further effect. You or an authorised agent can use the rights in section 10, and if we refuse a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer.
Brazil
You have the rights in Article 18 of the LGPD and can complain to the ANPD. Our legal bases are those in section 4, read as their LGPD equivalents.
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere
You can use the rights in section 10 wherever you live, and complain to your national privacy regulator. If you play from outside the country our server is in, your information is sent there, where the law may differ from yours.
12. Changes
When the game starts collecting something new, or we change how we use data, we will update this page before it happens and tell you in the game if the change is significant.