Privacy policy

Who we are

Neighborly is made and published by Humbold Tech OÜ, Sepapaja tn 6, 15551 Tallinn, Estonia (VAT EE102610071). We are responsible for the personal data described here. Write to us at [email protected].

The short version

Playing solo or on the same Wi-Fi needs no account, and your families stay on your device.
Signing in is optional. Your game profile uses a pseudonymous alias, not your name, photo or email.
No ads, no tracking, no selling of data. This website uses no cookies and no analytics.

When you visit this website

Cloudflare delivers the pages and images and processes technical connection data, such as your IP address, to serve and protect each request. The site has no cookies, no analytics, no tracking pixels and no third-party scripts; fonts and images come from our own domain. If you close the language hint, your browser remembers it on your own device.

On your device

Your families, towns and settings are saved on your device and stay there until you delete them.
Age check. The birthday you enter is used once to work out an age band (under 13, or 13 and over). Only the band is kept; the birthday is never stored or sent.
Guest play online. If you play online as a guest, the game uses a random identifier kept on that device.

Player name and password

This account is run by Talo, our game backend. It holds your player name, your password (stored securely by Talo; we can never read it) and, if you add one, an email for verification and recovery.

Sign in with Google

In the mobile app, Google's identity service on your device verifies the account you pick. Its SDK may receive basic profile data such as your name or email. The app sends Neighborly's sign-in service an identity token signed by Google, which may contain that data. The service uses the account's stable identifier to derive a pseudonymous alias, and Talo receives that alias to recognise your game account. Neighborly does not use your Google name, photo or email to build your game profile. A one-time random value checks that the token belongs to the request from your device, and your IP address may be used to limit repeated attempts. We never ask for your Google password or for access to your contacts, files or messages. You can remove the connection at any time in your Google account (manage your Google connections); your game account and saved data stay as they are.

Sign in with Apple

On iOS you approve the sign-in on your device. Neighborly does not ask Apple for your name or email. The game sends the sign-in service a token signed by Apple and checks that it belongs to this app and to a current sign-in attempt. An Apple identifier is used to derive the pseudonymous alias Talo uses for your game account. You can manage the connection in your Apple account settings under Sign in with Apple.

A code by email

If you sign in by email, Neighborly sends your address to Cloudflare Email Sending to deliver a six-digit code. The code works once, expires after ten minutes and allows up to five tries. To limit attempts, the service keeps an identifier derived from your address with a private key for 24 hours (plus up to ten minutes if a code is still pending). Talo receives only a pseudonymous alias and a derived credential, never your address or the code, and the sign-in service does not write the address, the code or the message to its logs.

Cloud saves

If you back up a family, Talo stores that save with your account so you can get it back later or on another device. Local saves and cloud copies are separate: deleting one does not delete the other.

Social features use your alias, friend requests, invitations and session data to bring players together in a world. Anyone visiting a world can see its characters and what they are doing.
If you turn on activity sharing, short descriptions such as “studying” or “cooking” can be shown to friends.
If you publish a design to the gallery, other players can find and download it.
In Privacy choices you can host invite-only worlds and turn off browsing of public worlds, and you can block another player on your device.
When you report a player, the relevant identifiers, the reason and your description are sent to Talo so our team can review it.

Children

The game keeps only the age band on the device, never the birthday. Profiles under 13 start in solo play, and social features for children require verified parental authorization, which is not available yet. No data about younger players is collected online.

Services we use

Talo (trytalo.com): accounts, cloud saves, friends, presence, online worlds and player reports.
Cloudflare: this website, our domain and the delivery of sign-in codes by email.
Google and Apple: only if you choose to sign in with them, under their own privacy policies.

We use this data only to provide these features (to perform our agreement with you) and to keep players and the service safe (our legitimate interest), never for advertising or profiling. Some processing may take place outside the European Economic Area under the safeguards required by law, such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep data

Local saves stay on your device until you delete them.
Account data, cloud saves and published designs are kept while your account exists.
Email sign-in state is kept for 24 hours, as described above.
Player reports are kept as long as needed to deal with them and keep the community safe.

See or delete your data

You can ask to see, correct, download or delete your account data, or object to how we use it. Write to [email protected] with your alias or player number and what you would like us to do. We may ask you to confirm that the account is yours, and we answer within one month. Please never include passwords, sign-in codes or payment details in your message.

You can also complain to the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon, aki.ee) or to the authority where you live.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date at the top and, for important changes, tell you in the game.