Privacy Policy

Navisphere Studios ("we", "us", or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect through this website, our player accounts and our support forms, how we use it, and the choices you have. It covers navispherestudios.com, including the pages for our Cities: Skylines II mods, our Tower! Simulator 3 airport add-ons, and ATC Relay by Navisphere Studios.

We do not sell your personal information.

Information We Collect

You can browse the site without giving us any personal information. We collect it only in the ways below.

Player accounts

If you create an account, we store:

• Your email address and the display name you choose
• The time the account was created and whether your email address has been verified
• A one-way hash of your password. We never store your password in readable form, and we cannot see it
• Short-lived password-reset and email-verification codes, stored only as hashes with their expiry times, and cleared once used or replaced
• Your controller preferences (positions you like to work and a colour palette), if you set them
• Flight schedules and gate files you choose to save to your account. You build these yourself. If you choose to share one, other signed-in players can see and copy it together with your display name, but never your email address
• Recent failed sign-in attempts, kept under a one-way key derived from your network address and email address rather than the address itself, and removed after 15 minutes

Accounts are free. If you buy a pass, Stripe processes the payment: your card details go to Stripe and never reach us. We keep a record of the purchase (which pass, the date, the amount, Stripe's payment reference and its status) so we can give you your pass, show your purchase history and handle refunds and disputes. Stripe's own privacy policy applies to the payment.

Contact form and support email

If you use the contact form or email support@navispherestudios.com, we receive your name, your email address and your message.

Bug reports and log submissions

If you send a bug report or a log file through our report and log-submission pages, we receive the description you write, the files you attach, and any contact detail you choose to add (such as a Discord username or an email address). To limit abuse, we also keep a one-way hash of your network address, not the address itself.

Live sessions (ATC Relay)

When you join or host a live ATC Relay session from this site, the site can give the session's relay server a short-lived signed pass (it expires in about a minute and works once). The pass contains your display name and an internal account identifier, never your email address or password. The relay uses it to show your display name to the session's host and to the other controllers in that session. The relay checks your pass before it lets you into a session. If you join a session without signing in, the name you type is used instead. If you are a host and choose to list your session, its airport, your host name and which positions are taken appear in the public session list.

Controller results and leaderboards

When you control a position in a session while signed in, we record what you did (the position, the action, the airport, the time and whether it was a simulator or web session) against your account, to work out your controller record. Your record is private to you. If you turn on "Show me on leaderboards" (off by default), your display name and your results are visible to other signed-in players, and you can turn it off at any time. Controller-error penalties are reported by controllers themselves.

Friends (ATC Relay)

If you use the Friends tab, we store your friend code, whether you chose to be found by display name (off by default), your friends, the friend requests you sent or received (with the time), and the players you blocked. Other players see your display name only, never your email address. If you report a player, we keep the report (the reason, an optional note of up to 300 characters, both display names and the time) for 90 days after staff finish reviewing it; the reported player is not told. You can remove friends, unblock players, or get a new friend code at any time; ask us to delete your account to remove the rest.

Web sessions (ATC Relay)

When you start or continue a web session (a session our server runs for you, without the flight simulator), we keep a record of it: its code, the airport, when it started and ended, how long it was played, why it ended, and whether one of your free web sessions was used. The record is tied to your account so that you and our support staff can find which session it was. A free demo session is recorded without an account until you sign in and continue it. Your free web sessions (5 every 7 days, up to 10 saved, and at most 20 used in any 30 days) are stored with your account.

Automatically collected information

Our web host keeps standard server logs, and our public pages use Google Analytics (see Cookies and Analytics below). Some pages also load fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to Google to fetch them.

How We Use Your Information

• To create and maintain your account, sign you in, and keep your session secure
• To send account messages you ask for, such as email verification and password-reset links
• To show your display name on your account page and on ATC Relay features you use, including next to any schedule or gate file you choose to share
• To respond to messages, bug reports and support requests, and to find and fix problems
• To prevent and investigate automated sign-in abuse and spam
• To understand, in aggregate, how the site is used

We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell, rent or trade it. We share it only with the service providers that run the site for us, such as our web hosting and email provider, and Google for analytics and fonts, or when the law requires it.

Cookies and Analytics

Sign-in cookie. When you sign in to an account, the site sets a session cookie so you stay signed in. It is HttpOnly, uses SameSite=Lax, and is marked Secure over HTTPS. A session ends when you sign out or after up to 30 days of inactivity. It is set only when you use the sign-in, sign-up and account pages, not when you read the rest of the site.

Analytics. Our public pages use Google Analytics 4 to understand how many people visit and which pages they read. Google Analytics sets its own cookies and receives standard request information such as your browser type, approximate location derived from your network address, and the pages you view; Google processes that information on our behalf under its own terms. We use the results only in aggregate. We do not send your account email, display name or password to Google Analytics. The account pages, the ATC Relay page and the staff area do not load the analytics tag. You can block these cookies in your browser or use Google's opt-out browser add-on without losing access to any part of the site.

Hosting. Our web host's delivery network may also set a technical cookie so pages are served efficiently. We do not use it to track you or to build a profile.

How Long We Keep Information

• Account information: for as long as your account exists. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete it within 30 days, and copies in our backups are overwritten within 30 days after that
• Sessions: until you sign out, the session expires, or the host clears it
• Live session data: the relay keeps a session only while it is running and keeps no session history. The relay's server logs may contain your account identifier and the session code until the server's normal log rotation removes them
• Web session records: for 90 days after the session ends. A demo session that is never continued is kept without an account and removed on the same schedule
• Friends, friend requests and blocks: until you remove them or ask us to delete your account
• Reports about a player: for 90 days after staff finish reviewing the report
• Saved schedules and gate files: until you delete them or ask us to delete them; unsharing or deleting removes them from the shared library straight away
• Failed sign-in records: about 15 minutes
• Reset and verification codes: until used, replaced or expired (60 minutes for password resets, 48 hours for email verification)
• Messages, bug reports and log files: only as long as we need them to respond and fix the problem, and we delete them if you ask

Your Choices and Requests

You can ask us to give you a copy of, correct, or delete the information we hold about you, including your account. There is not yet a self-service delete or export screen, so please email support@navispherestudios.com or use the Contact page. We will check that the account is yours before we change or remove anything. We will never ask for your password by email or chat.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:

• The right to know what personal data we collect and how we use it.
• The right to request deletion of your personal information.
• The right to opt out of the sale of your personal data (note: we do not sell data).

Data Security

We protect accounts with one-way password hashing, form protection against forged requests, a limit on repeated failed sign-ins, and encrypted connections (HTTPS). Account data is stored outside the publicly reachable part of the website. However, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Links to Other Sites

The site links to services we do not run, such as Paradox Mods and its forums, Discord, and Buy Me a Coffee. Their own privacy policies apply once you leave our site.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our accounts, products or practices change, and we will change the "Last Updated" date above when we do. Continued use of the site signifies your acceptance of any changes.

Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: