Privacy

1. Controller

Tobias Bak
Im Oberdorf 13a
36399 Freiensteinau
Germany
E-mail: info@tikiranch.de

2. The essentials

• Tiki Ranch asks for no personal details: no name, no e-mail address, no date of birth, no location, no contacts.
• No ads, no trackers: neither the game nor this website contains ads or analytics and tracking tools; the game uses no advertising ID.
• Your island lives on our own server in Germany.
• We store the game’s error reports without a player number.
• Chat only within a protected circle: you can only write to friends and in your own island club, with a filter on the server, reporting and blocking. The game builds player names from fixed word blocks (section 6, community rules).
• This website sets no cookies and loads nothing from third parties.

3. Where the data is kept

The game server, the website and the backups run at Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany, in data centres in Germany. Hetzner processes the data on our behalf (Art. 28 GDPR). The game talks to the server only over an encrypted connection (HTTPS).

4. The website

When you open a page, your browser necessarily transmits data such as your IP address, the requested address, date and time and the browser type. We process it only to deliver the page; the legal basis is our legitimate interest in a working and secure website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We do not keep access logs. The website contains no forms and no scripts.

5. The game

5.1 Signing in without personal details

On first launch the app creates a random identifier and stores it on your device. The app uses it to sign in to our server; it is not a manufacturer’s device number. The server then creates an account with a player number. We store the player number, the random identifier and the time the account was created. With every connection your device necessarily transmits its IP address.

5.2 Your game progress

Everything that happens on your island is calculated and stored by our server: fields, animals, buildings, supplies, coins, experience and level, orders, the times of your actions by the server’s clock, and the looks you have earned or bought. Your progress is linked to your player number.

Purpose: to provide the game to you and to prevent cheating with the device clock. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the game you use). We keep your progress until you delete your account.

5.3 Error reports

If an error occurs in the game, the app sends a report to our server: the kind and text of the error, the place in the program, the game version, the platform and the device model. The app does not put identifiers or names into it. The server stores reports without a player number and without an identifier and counts identical reports together. So that nobody can flood the server, it counts per account and day how many reports arrived; this counter is linked to your player number and disappears with the account.

Purpose: finding and fixing bugs. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a working game (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). How long we keep reports: [to be added].

5.4 Game server logs

The game server writes technical logs to find faults and fend off abuse. They may contain your IP address, the time and kind of a request, and your player number. The logs are limited in size: the oldest entries disappear as new ones arrive. There is no fixed period in days; entries remain after an account is deleted until they are overwritten. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

5.5 Backups

We back up the game’s database every day, on the server and on backup storage at Hetzner in Germany. We keep 14 daily and 8 weekly copies, so deleted data, including a deleted account, remains in these backups for up to eight weeks. In addition, Hetzner backs up the whole server; these images are continuously replaced by newer ones. We restore a backup only after a failure. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

5.6 What the game does not do

• no ads and no advertising, analytics or tracking libraries,
• no advertising ID, no location, no access to contacts, camera or microphone,
• no open chat with strangers and no freely typed names.

5.7 Updates

At start, when you return to the game and then every 30 minutes, the game asks our update server, which is also hosted by Hetzner in Germany, whether there is an update for the installed version, and downloads it if so. It only sends the platform (Android or iOS) and the identifier of the installed version, not your player number. Your IP address is processed for technical reasons; the update server writes no access logs. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our interest in fixing faults quickly).

6. Playing together

In the game you can make friends, join an island club, chat, visit islands and play mini-games with others. Taking part is not a must: you can also play your island entirely on your own. For these features our server processes the data below. The purpose is to provide playing together to you; the legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the game you use), and for the filter, reports and muting additionally (f) (protecting other players).

The data is kept on our game server and in its backups (sections 3 and 5.5). We do not pass it on to third parties and do not use it for advertising. What other players can see of it is stated in each case.

6.1 Your profile

The server creates a profile for you: a player name that the game builds from fixed word blocks and a number (such as “Giggling Coconut #4821”), a picture from a fixed selection and a friend code of eight characters. It also stores your level and experience, when you last opened the game, your island club, your “Hide chat” setting and, if applicable, until when your chat is muted (6.5). Nobody can type in a name freely.

All players can see your player name, picture and level, for example in leaderboards and mini-games; their game technically also receives your player number. Whether you are online right now can be seen by your friends and by anyone who looks at your island club; your friends also see when you were last around. Whoever knows your friend code can send you a friend request. The code is also your user name on the server, so the game of your chat and mini-game partners technically receives it as well.

6.2 Friends and blocks

The server stores friend requests, friendships and blocks with your account. A block ends the friendship and keeps the blocked player away from you (community rules).

6.3 Island club

If you found or join an island club, the server stores the club with its name made of word blocks, its crest, its leader, the time it was founded and its last activity, the members with the time they joined, and open requests to join. For the club ship it stores who filled which crate. Any player can view a club’s name, crest, members (with player name, picture, level and whether they are online right now) and club ship; only the leader sees the requests. When the last member leaves, the club is dissolved.

6.4 Chat

You can only write to your friends and in your island club’s chat; there is no open chat with strangers. A message is a text of at most 200 characters, a sticker or a quick message. The server stores every message with its content, sender, time and chat, so that the history is there the next time it is opened. Everyone who belongs to that chat can read it: your friend or the members of the club, including those who join later.

Before the server stores and delivers a message, a filter replaces swear words, links, e-mail addresses and strings of seven or more digits (such as phone numbers) with ***. The filter runs only on our server and does not catch everything; so never share personal data in the chat.

How long: every time a chat history is loaded, the server deletes the messages in it that are older than 90 days. If you delete your account, the server immediately deletes your messages in your island club’s chat and in the chats with your friends, including former friends and players who blocked you. For this it keeps a list with your account of whom you have written to, and deletes that list as well. Messages in the chat of a club you left earlier and older messages in very long histories are only deleted by the server when such a history is loaded again and they are older than 90 days.

6.5 Reports and muting

If you report a message or a player, the server stores who reports, who is reported, the reason, the chat and the reported message with its text and time as it appears in the history, plus the time of the report. It also counts, for each reported player, who reported them and when: if three different players report the same player within 24 hours, that player cannot send chat messages for 24 hours. No other player sees reports; the reported player does not find out who reported them.

Purpose: protecting other players and fending off abuse. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. Reports remain when one of the accounts involved is deleted. How long we keep them: [to be added].

6.6 Visits and stickers

Your friends and the members of your island club can visit your island. They see fields, animals, buildings, your level and your looks, but not your supplies, coins, experience or mail. A visit changes nothing on your island, and the server does not store it, except in its logs (5.4). If a visitor leaves a sticker, the server stores with you who left which sticker and when, at most the last 30.

6.7 News

The server stores at most your last 50 news items, such as friend requests, challenges, events in your island club and stickers, each with the player name, picture and level of whoever they come from.

6.8 Mini-games and leaderboards

In a mini-game your fellow players see your player name, picture, level and points; instead of a chat there are fixed emotes. The server keeps the course of a game only while it is running; afterwards your reward and the number of your games remain in your progress, along with your leaderboard entries.

In the leaderboards the server keeps entries with your player number and your points: victory points from the week’s mini-games, your best Coconut Puzzle of the week and your island’s experience; for your island club, the filled crates of the club ship. All players see the leaderboards with player name, picture and level.

6.9 Changing devices

If you create a transfer code in the settings, the server stores a checksum of the code, not the code itself, with your player number, the expiry time and whether it has been redeemed. The code is valid for 24 hours and can be redeemed once. If you redeem it on another device, that device’s random identifier (5.1) then belongs to your account; an account that already existed on that device and then has no device left is deleted by the server. How long expired and redeemed codes stay stored: [to be added].

6.10 How long

We keep your profile, your friendships and requests, your island club membership, the stickers and news with you and your leaderboard entries at most until you delete your account; then the server deletes them immediately. For messages, reports and transfer codes, what is stated above applies. What remains after deletion is described on the page Delete account.

7. Purchases in the boutique

Once the boutique opens, it will only sell items for looks. You pay through the App Store or Google Play; payment details never reach us. After a purchase the app sends the store’s receipt to our server, which checks it with the store and gives you the item.

We store the item on your progress and a purchase marker: a checksum of the transaction number, the purchased items, the player numbers the purchase grants them to, the platform, and the time of the purchase and of any refund. The marker prevents the same receipt from being redeemed twice and allows purchases to be restored on a new account. That is why it stays when you delete your account. For how long: [to be added]. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (fulfilling the purchase) and (f) (protection against double redemption).

8. App Store and Google Play

When you download Tiki Ranch from the App Store or Google Play or buy something there, Apple or Google process data under their own responsibility, for example your store account and your payment. We have no influence on this; the store’s own privacy notices apply.

9. Contact by e-mail

If you write to us, we process your address and the content of your message to answer your request (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR for requests about a contract, otherwise (f)). We keep business correspondence for as long as commercial and tax law requires (§ 257 HGB, § 147 AO); otherwise we delete it once the matter is settled.

We process our e-mail on our own mail server, also at Hetzner Online GmbH.

10. Children

Tiki Ranch is a friendly game for players aged 13 and over, as stated in the stores; it is not meant for children under 13. It asks for no personal details, and it builds player names from fixed word blocks. You can only write to friends and in your own island club; a filter on the server replaces swear words, links, e-mail addresses and long strings of digits such as phone numbers, and everyone can report messages, block players and hide the chat. The community rules say what applies. Purchases only go through the store’s purchase dialog, so that parental purchase locks and approvals apply.

11. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the game under Settings, or ask us to delete it by e-mail. What disappears and what remains is described on the page Delete account. Because we store neither real names nor e-mail addresses, we need your player number (in the game under Settings) for any request about your data; without it we cannot link anything to an account (Art. 11 GDPR).

12. Your rights

You have the right to

• access the data we hold about you (Art. 15 GDPR),
• rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17) and restriction of processing (Art. 18),
• data portability (Art. 20),
• object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21),
• lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77).

An informal e-mail to info@tikiranch.de with your player number is enough.

Last updated: October 2026