Privacy Policy – Pupsan Joulu

Updated 8 November 2026

Who is responsible

Pupsa's Christmas is made by Jussi Reiss (private individual), who is the data controller. Contact: info@polarpineapps.com – privacy questions, deletion requests and reports about inappropriate content or players (in addition to the in-game Report button).

In short

• The game never asks for a real name, email, phone number or location. The year of birth is asked only for the friend village permission, and it is stored only on the device.
• There is no free chat. Friends can only send ready-made greetings and emotes.
• We run no analytics of our own and do not track players across other apps.
• On iPhone you can choose to watch a rewarded ad (Google AdMob). An ad never starts by itself.

Stored only on your device

Player profiles (name and picture), game progress (high scores, bells, cabin, outfits, stickers, missions, Christmas Pass progress and claimed rewards, Magic Snow Globes and their draws), settings (language, sound, vibration) and the friend village permission details (year of birth and date of permission). These never leave the device unless Friend Village is turned on. Christmas Pass and Magic Snow Globe progress never leaves the device at all.

Sent online (only when Friend Village is turned on)

Friend Village is optional. When it is turned on, the game uses Google Firebase (Google acts as our data processor):

• Anonymous ID: a random user ID that is not linked to any name or email.
• Village name: two words from a fixed list (e.g. "Happy Elf").
• Profile name without numbers: shown to friends above the bunny in the village. Numbers and the characters @, / and : are removed, and the name is at most 16 characters.
• Cabin and game info: cabin items, the cabin's built rooms and their look (style numbers, no text; this includes the look of a purchased cabin style), outfit (including purchased outfit sets), high score, reindeer found, earned stickers and up to three stickers chosen for display (sticker numbers, no text), and the bunny's movement and emotes in the village. Friends see how your cabin and outfit look, but not what you have bought or how much you have spent.
• Friends: the friends added with a friend code. Info is only visible to friends who have added each other. Nobody can search for or browse players.
• Friends' records (6 Nov 2026): for the records list on the Friends tab the game sends these numbers: the best jump-game distance, total Adventure stars, today's Daily Challenge score (with its date; the list shows it only on that day) and the best times and scores in the Winter Park activities. An activity result is shown to a friend only if they have unlocked that activity too. The numbers come only from the player's own game. Your nickname (the same profile name without numbers that friends see above your bunny in the village) is also included so friends can recognise you on the list; there is no other text. The data is visible only to mutual friends – shared-village residents who are not friends cannot see them. A blocked player's records are not shown to the blocker. Choosing Block and remove friend (or removing a friend) ends the friendship, so your records stop being visible to that player immediately; plain Block only hides their records from you. The results are stored in one document that is always overwritten with the latest numbers, and it is deleted when online data is deleted. When a friendship is removed, the former friend can no longer read it.
• Greetings: ready-made phrases and ornaments (no own text).
• Heart and guestbook stamp: a friend visiting the cabin can leave a heart and a ready-made stamp (e.g. "So cozy!"). Only the stamp ID and the friend's village name are sent. Only the cabin owner sees the guestbook.
• Shared village (optional): a player can found a village or join one with a village code given by a resident (up to 30 residents). Villages cannot be searched for or browsed. The village name is two words from a fixed list. In a shared village all residents, including those who are not friends, see your cabin, your live bunny and your cabin's village name (your profile name is shown only to mutual friends) and can send ready-made greetings and hearts. The founder can remove a resident, who cannot rejoin. You can leave at any time; deleting online data leaves the village automatically.
• Blocking (on the device only): a player can block another player. The blocked player's cabin, bunny and mail are hidden from the blocker. The block list (anonymous ID and village name) is stored only on the device; nothing is sent online.
• Reporting: a player can report another player (reason chosen from a fixed list: inappropriate name, bullying, inappropriate cabin, something else). A report stores the anonymous IDs of the reporter and the reported player, the reason number, the shared village ID (if in the same village) and the time – no free text. Only the game's maker can read reports in the Firebase console; the reported player does not see who reported.
• Name filter: the profile name is checked on the device for inappropriate words before it is shown to others.
• Nickname reservation (29 Oct 2026): so that no two players have the same name, only a hash of the name (SHA-256) and the anonymous ID are stored on the server. The name itself is not stored in the reservation. The reservation is removed when the name is changed or online data is deleted.

Data is stored in the EU: live connection in Belgium (europe-west1) and the Friend Village database in Finland (europe-north1). According to Google, the sign-in service that issues the anonymous ID (Firebase Authentication) runs only from data centres in the United States. This transfer is based on the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, under which Google LLC is certified, and on the Firebase data processing terms.

Game Center

If the player is signed in to Apple Game Center, high scores and achievements are sent to Apple for leaderboards. This is handled by Apple under its own terms.

How long data is kept

• On the device: until you delete it or delete the game.
• Village movement data is removed when the player leaves the village. Greetings, hearts and stamps are removed from the server after about a day. On the device the guestbook keeps at most the 40 latest stamps for this season.
• The cabin card, records document, friend list and anonymous ID are kept until the player or a parent deletes them or withdraws permission (see below). There is no automatic deletion.
• Reports are deleted once handled, at the latest after 90 days.

Deleting data

• Village → Friends → Delete online data: deletes all online data and the anonymous account.
• Settings → Start over: deletes one player's progress and their online data.
• Settings → Delete all data: deletes all players and saves on the device, plus online data.
• You can also ask us by email: info@polarpineapps.com.

Children and parents

The game is made for ages 9 and up. When the friend village is opened for the first time, the game asks for the player's year of birth. The year of birth is saved only on the device in the profile's own save and is never sent online. Players aged 13 or older give permission themselves. If the player is under 13, the friend village opens only after a parent has given permission on the same device: the adult confirms they are an adult, reads which data goes online and taps I give permission. The date of the permission is saved on the device. A parent can withdraw permission at any time in Settings → Withdraw permission, or ask for deletion by email, and the child's online data is then deleted. We recommend sharing the friend code only with people you know.

Legal basis

• Friend village and shared village (all data listed under "Sent online"): consent. The game asks for permission before the friend village is turned on. Consent can be withdrawn at any time in Settings → Withdraw permission, which deletes the online data.
• Purchases: delivering the purchased item (contract).
• Reports: player safety and removal of inappropriate content (legitimate interest).
• Ads (iPhone): showing a rewarded ad that the player has asked for, non-personalized and with child-appropriate settings (legitimate interest). An ad is shown only when the player taps the ad button.

Purchases and the Christmas Pass

You can buy things with real money: bell packs (consumable, 1,000–35,000 bells), the Christmas Pass (a one-time purchase for one season, 1 Dec 2026 – 28 Feb 2027), cabin styles and outfit sets. The paid Christmas Pass track, cabin styles and outfit sets are cosmetic only. Bell packs give bells that can be spent in the game's shops and on Ukko the helper reindeer's sleigh rescue. The Magic Snow Globe is earned only by playing and cannot be bought.

• Apple processes the payments. Purchases are made through Apple's App Store. The developer never receives or stores payment, card or name details. No purchase data is sent to Firebase or to any other server of the developer: the game has no purchase server of its own.
• What is passed to Apple about a purchase: the ID of the product and a random purchase ID created by the game (the App Store appAccountToken). It only tells which player profile a bell pack was bought for, so the bells go to the right profile even if the profile is switched during the purchase. It contains the profile's sequence number and random digits – no name, email or other identifying data.
• What the device stores about purchases: which products are owned (product IDs) and, for bell packs, the numbers of the Apple purchase transactions already delivered (the latest 5,000 at most, plus in the profile's own save). The numbers are used only to make sure the same purchase is never credited twice and that a purchase is not lost if the game is closed in the middle of buying. They are removed when the profile or all data is deleted.
• Family Sharing: one-time purchases (Christmas Pass, cabins, outfit sets) can be shared through Apple Family Sharing. Bell packs are not shared, and the bells go to the player profile that was selected when buying.
• Restoring: one-time purchases can be restored with the shop's Restore purchases button using the same Apple ID. Bell packs are consumable and are not restored with the button. When Apple refunds a purchase it tells the game, and bells already given stay with the player.
• Christmas Pass: progress (points, claimed rewards) is stored only on the device in the profile's own file. Rewards unlocked stay yours after the season ends.

Magic Snow Globe

The Magic Snow Globe is a random gift (an outfit) earned by playing. The draw happens entirely on the device; its state is saved in the profile's own save so that an interrupted opening repeats the same gift. Nothing about the snow globe is sent online, and it cannot be bought with bells or money.

Ads

On iPhone, the player can choose to watch a rewarded ad: to continue a jumping-game run after a fall (once per run) and for five extra lives in Adventure. An ad is shown only when the player taps the ad button. The Mac version has no ads.

Ads come from Google AdMob. We request ads with child-appropriate settings: child-directed treatment (COPPA), under-the-age-of-consent treatment (GDPR) and content rating G. This means ads are not personalized and the advertising identifier (IDFA) is not used. We do not ask for tracking permission (ATT).

To show an ad, AdMob processes device data: the IP address (coarse location, country or region), an app-specific device identifier, which ads were shown and how they were used, and crash and performance data. This data is not combined with player profiles or Friend Village data. More information: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads

Ads can be removed by buying Ad-free Elf or Santa's Supporter. Purchases are optional, and the whole game can be played without them.

Your rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete your data. You can also complain to your local data protection authority (in Finland: tietosuoja.fi).

Changes

If this policy changes, we update the date at the top of this page.