Zoo Star privacy policy
Last updated 23 September 2026.
Zoo Star is an audio game you play outdoors. This policy describes what data the app and the game server process, why, how long they are kept, and what you can do about it. It describes the app as it works today. It also covers the website partyvaibz.com and the PartyvAIbz mailing list; see The website and the mailing list.
Who processes your data
Zoo Star is made and run by Stefan van Loenen, an individual developer in the Netherlands, under the name PartyvAIbz. For privacy questions, or to see or delete your data, write to support@partyvaibz.com.
In short
- Zoo Star contains no advertising, no advertising ID and no third-party analytics. Nothing about you is sold or shared for marketing.
- Your position stays on your phone. The app uses GPS to work out where the animals around you are, but no coordinate is ever sent to the server.
- What does go to the server is your zoo and everything you do with other players: your saved game, your username, messages, marketplace listings and your results.
- Everything is stored on a single server in Germany, inside the European Union. No other companies are involved, apart from Apple on iPhone and Google on Android, for signing in and for push notifications.
- You can have your data deleted. See Deleting your data.
What the app asks permission for
Location
Zoo Star needs your location to know where you are in relation to the animals appearing in the world around you, and to count the metres you walk. If you allow background access, animals keep appearing while your phone is in your pocket.
Your position does not leave your device. The app does the maths on your phone and only sends the game result, such as the number of kilometres you walked. Nowhere on the server is there a record of where you have been.
On Android, the app determines your position with the Google Play services location service, which runs on your phone itself. The app does not pass your position on to Google. What Google services on your device do with location themselves depends on your phone's location settings and is covered by Google's privacy terms.
There is one exception, and it is deliberate: during an expedition with the voice line open, you and your team mates send each other two numbers every two seconds. These are the compass direction you are walking in, and how many metres you are still from the shared expedition area. Once you are in that area, that is zero. This lets the app place each other's voices in the right direction. No latitude or longitude is sent, and a walking direction plus a distance to an area the whole team is heading for does not reveal where you are.
If you switch on the visual map in the app, your phone fetches map tiles from Apple, which means Apple sees which part of the map you request. With the map switched off, this does not happen.
Motion
The step counter measures how far you walk, including indoors and with the phone in your pocket. The motion sensor in your AirPods lets you catch an animal by nodding your head. Those measurements stay on your device.
Health
With your permission, Zoo Star reads your walking, running and wheelchair distance from the Health app, so that metres you covered while the app was closed still count. The app writes nothing to Health. Only the total number of kilometres travels with your saved game; no health data goes to the server.
Microphone
The microphone is used when you record a voice message for another player, and on expeditions for the open line with your team. On the open line, nobody hears you until you switch on Talk yourself.
Notifications
If you allow notifications, the server keeps a push token for your device, so it can tell you about an auction or incoming mail, for example. You can choose which kinds of notifications you want. On iPhone, notifications are delivered by Apple; on Android, by Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging.
Camera
Zoo Star does not use the camera and never switches it on. The permission is listed because the voice connection used for the open line includes a component that could use the camera.
What is stored on the server
Your account
You sign in by pressing the Sign in with Apple button. The server stores your username, the name Apple passes on at your very first sign-in if you share it, and the fixed user code Apple gives us for you. That code is unique to Zoo Star and reveals nothing about your Apple ID. Your e-mail address is neither requested nor stored.
On Android you can also sign in with your Google account. The server then stores your username and the fixed user code Google passes on for you. If you have not chosen a name in the game yet, the app uses the name of your Google account as your username. Google also sends your e-mail address when you sign in; the server does not use it and does not store it. In Zoo Star, a Google account and an Apple account are two separate accounts.
Your zoo
Your saved game is kept on the server, so you can get it back on a new device or after reinstalling. It holds everything the game knows about you: your animals, your buildings, your money, the kilometres you walked, your milestones and the name of your zoo.
What you do with other players
If you play with others, the server stores what belongs to that: your marketplace listings and sales, the text of wanted ads, bids at auctions, your friends list and friend requests, who you have blocked, abuse reports, your expedition teams including their chat messages, leaderboards and the hall of fame, and your in-game diary. Most of that carries your username and the name of your zoo, because other players see those too.
Spoken messages
When you record a message for another player or for your expedition team, that recording is kept on the server until the recipient has listened to it, and then deleted. Mail nobody collects is deleted after thirty days. The open line during an expedition is different: it is live over an encrypted connection and is not recorded and not stored.
Error reports
If the app crashes, or you report a problem yourself, an error report is sent to the server. It contains your device model and operating system version, the error message, and a trail of your last actions in the app (which screen was open, whether location was on). That trail exists so a fault can be found. It contains no position.
Technical log entries
The server keeps one line per action describing what happened in the game, linked to an anonymous installation number of your app. This is needed to spot unfair play and to investigate faults.
What we use the data for
- To run the game: keeping your zoo, the marketplace, auctions, mail, expeditions and leaderboards.
- To let you play on more than one device.
- To find and fix faults.
- To counter abuse, cheating and unwanted behaviour, and to handle reports players make about each other.
The legal basis is the performance of the game you play with us, and our legitimate interest in keeping the game fair and working. No automated decisions with legal consequences for you are made.
Who it is shared with
- Other players see your username, the name of your zoo, your game results and the messages or listings you publish yourself.
- Apple handles signing in (Sign in with Apple) and delivers push notifications. For a push notification, the text of that notification passes through Apple to your device.
- Google handles signing in with your Google account on Android if you choose it, and delivers push notifications there through Firebase Cloud Messaging. For a push notification, the text of that notification and your device's push token pass through Google to your phone.
- Nobody else. The app contains no ad networks, no analytics (no Google Analytics either) and no third-party crash services. No data is sold.
Where it is kept, and how it is protected
The game server runs on a single rented server in Nuremberg, Germany, inside the European Union. All traffic between the app and the server uses an encrypted https connection. The expedition voice line runs over an encrypted connection (DTLS-SRTP) to that same server; no other company is involved. Only the developer has access to the server.
Deleting your data
You can ask for your account and all your data to be deleted. Send an e-mail to support@partyvaibz.com with your username or the name of your zoo. You will be told once it is done. After that your account, your saved game, your messages and your place in the leaderboards are gone and cannot be recovered.
If you only want to start over without losing your account, you can do that in the app under Settings, with Starting over.
How long is the data kept?
- Your account and saved game: as long as you use Zoo Star, or until you ask for them to be deleted.
- Mail between players and the spoken messages in it: until collected, and at most thirty days.
- Your in-game diary: ninety days.
- Error reports: only the five hundred most recent ones are kept.
- Data belonging to a temporary action, such as a sign-in attempt through the web page, is cleared within an hour.
- Website log entries: ninety days.
- Your mailing list subscription: until you unsubscribe.
The website and the mailing list
The website partyvaibz.com
The website sets no cookies of its own and loads no third-party analytics. The server does record which pages are requested, so we can count how often the site is visited. Your IP address is shortened before it is stored: the last part is set to zero, so it reveals less about you. Those log entries are deleted after ninety days. If you press the button to load the Spotify player, Spotify's own rules apply to that player.
The mailing list
If you sign up for the mailing list, we keep your e-mail address, your name if you fill it in, and the date on which you signed up. We use it to send you news about new apps and projects from PartyvAIbz, a few times a year at most, and nothing else. The legal basis is your consent, which you give by confirming your sign-up through an e-mail.
The list is kept on the same server in Germany. The e-mails are sent through Brevo (Sendinblue SAS, France), which sees your e-mail address for that purpose. Brevo counts how many e-mails are opened and clicked, but not by whom. Your address is not shared with anyone else.
You can unsubscribe at any time with the link at the bottom of every e-mail. Through that link you can also request your data or have it deleted in one go.
Children
Zoo Star is not made for children under thirteen and is not directed at them. The app does not ask your age.
Your rights
You have the right to know what data is stored about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to have processing restricted, and to object. Write to the address above. If you disagree with how we handle that, you can file a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).
Changes to this policy
If what the app collects changes, this page is updated and the date at the top changes with it. Significant changes are announced in the app.