Packlings privacy policy

This privacy policy covers the app Packlings, listed on Google Play as "Packlings: Creature Card Packs" (package com.packlings.game), and its game server. Packlings is a card-collecting game. We collect as little as possible and never sell your data.

Last updated: 13 October 2026.

Who is responsible

Lukas Merz, Seetalstrasse 49, 5706 Boniswil, Switzerland. E-mail: lukas@mrz.email

What we collect and why

• Account: you sign in with Google Play Games; we store a one-way hash of your Play Games player ID as your account key (details below). Used to keep your cards, coins and gems on our server so a reinstall or new phone restores everything.
• Birth year: asked once at first launch, only the year. Used to apply the right protections for kids, teens and adults, and to update them as you grow older.
• Game data: your cards, wallet, missions, pack history and a ledger of every change. Used to run the game and to answer support requests.
• Purchases: Google Play order IDs, product, price and time. Used to grant what you bought exactly once, to handle refunds, and to show your monthly spending in Settings.
• Gameplay events: anonymous events such as "pack opened", "card pulled", "ad watched", "card crafted", "purchase started/completed" and "rip skipped", with no personal data. Used to balance the game.
• Crash reports: technical crash data from Sentry (device model, OS version, stack trace). Used to fix bugs.
• Steps (optional): if you turn on "Count steps for Trail Charms", the game reads today's step total from Health Connect (permission "Steps", read only), or, on phones without Health Connect, from the phone's step counter (Android "physical activity" permission). It reads nothing else from Health Connect and writes nothing to it. Your step counts stay on your phone. We only receive, per day, how many Trail Charms you earned (0 to 3) and how many walk-buddy points (one per 500 steps, at most 20), and in a family your trail points (one per 500 steps, at most 30): rewards in the game, never the steps themselves. You can turn it off in Settings at any time, and remove the permission in Health Connect.
• Reminders (optional): the game can remind you when a free pack is ready, your team is home, a wild visitor is waiting or a Packling misses you. They are planned on your phone from your game data and sent by your phone itself; nothing extra is collected. Never at night, at most two a day. Turn them off in Settings or in your phone's notification settings. Kid profiles get reminders only if a grown-up of the family turns them on, and never at bedtime.
• Family (optional, Family Pass): when phones are linked into a family, the family's grown-ups see, for each kid profile, whether the kid reached the day's walk goal (about 4,000 steps, yes or no) for the last 7 days, never their steps or trail points per day, the minutes the game was open per day, and the play limit, bedtime and reminders they set. Every member sees each other's generated nickname, walk buddy and weekly trail points. Nothing else is shared, and the family ends for a member when they leave or are removed.
• Friends (optional): when you add a friend with their friend code, you both see each other's generated nickname, walk buddy, up to five Packlings from your habitat, the decorations you placed in your meadow (when they visit it) and, if you chose one, your collector title (a set you completed). Cheers you send are counted per day. Nothing else is shared, and removing a friend stops it.
• Sharing pictures (optional): "Share" draws a picture of a card or your habitat on your phone and opens your phone's share menu; it goes only where you send it. We receive nothing but the fact that something was shared. Kid profiles have no share button.
• Ratings: now and then, after a happy moment, the game opens Google Play's own rating sheet. Google handles it; we never learn whether or how you rated. Kid profiles are never asked.
• Home-screen widget (optional): if you add the widget, the game passes it your walk buddy's picture and name, today's steps, your Trail Charms and when your next free pack is ready. This stays on your phone.
• Community walk: the Trail Charms you earn each month are added to an anonymous total of all players for that month, with a count of how many players walked. Everyone sees only these totals, never who walked or how much.
• Hour of the day: when you open a pack or pet a Packling, the game sends the hour shown on your phone's clock (a number from 0 to 23), never your time zone or location. It decides the card's walk look and whether a night Packling is awake.
• Achievements: your achievement progress is worked out from your game data on our server. If you are signed in to Google Play Games, the game also unlocks the matching Play Games achievement, which Google shows on your Play Games profile under Google's own privacy policy.
• Ads: rewarded ads are shown only when you tap "Watch ad for a pack". Google AdMob processes advertising identifiers according to your consent choice; in the EEA, UK and Switzerland we ask for consent with Google's consent form first, and you get non-personalized ads if you decline. If you bought "No ads", the game never starts the ad SDK, so AdMob receives nothing from you.

Google user data (Google Play Games sign-in)

When you sign in with Google Play Games, Google asks you to let Packlings use your Play Games profile.

• What we access: your Google Play Games player ID. Our server receives a one-time sign-in code from the game, exchanges it with Google for a short-lived access token, and uses that token once to read your player ID from the Play Games API. We do not read your email address, contacts, Google Drive files or anything else from your Google account. Packlings does not use Play Games saved games.
• How we use it: only to identify your game account, so your cards, coins, gems and purchases are kept on our server and come back on a reinstall or a new phone, and to unlock your Play Games achievements.
• Sharing: we do not share, sell or transfer Google user data to anyone. It is never used for advertising. Friends and family members see only your generated nickname, never your Play Games ID.
• Protection: the access token is used once and never stored. We do not store your player ID either: the server turns it into a one-way hash (SHA-256), and that hash is your account key. Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS) and is stored in our Google Cloud database, which is encrypted at rest. Only the game server can read it.
• Retention and deletion: we keep the hash as long as your account exists. Settings → Delete account deletes it together with all your game data at once. You can also ask for deletion at the contact above. You can remove Packlings' access to your Google account at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Packlings' use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Where your data is stored

On Google Cloud (Firestore, Cloud Run and BigQuery) in Zurich, Switzerland (europe-west6).

How long we keep it

Until you delete your account. Anonymous gameplay events are kept for up to 24 months.

Your rights

You can delete your account and all its data at any time: Settings → Delete account. You can also ask us for a copy of your data, a correction or deletion at the contact above.

Children

At first launch we ask for the year you were born (only the year, no date). We keep it so the game treats you as a kid (under 13, or the age your country sets), a teen or an adult, and changes that by itself as you grow older. It is never shown to anyone, and deleted with your account. Kids play only as part of a family: after a kid's answer the game waits until a grown-up with the Family Pass links the phone to their family with a one-time code, and until then we store nothing but the new account the game opened at first launch (a generated id and nickname, no name or email) and the answer. A linked phone has a kid profile. Teens only see non-personalized ads. A kid profile has no name or email, only a generated nickname (and the birth year, as for everyone). On a kid profile there are no ads, no purchases, no friends outside the family, and no gameplay events are sent to us. We keep only what the game needs (cards, game data, trail points and minutes played per day for the last 7 days) and show the family's grown-ups the minutes played and whether the day's walk goal was reached. A grown-up can remove a kid profile from the family, and the account can be deleted at any time (Settings → Delete account).

Changes

We will update this page and show a notice in the game when anything important changes.