Privacy Notice

The controller responsible for processing personal data is Luca Stahl, Tannenhofstr. 20, 22848 Norderstedt, Germany. For privacy questions, contact [email protected].

A data protection officer has not been appointed unless this becomes legally required. If one is appointed, this notice will be updated.

We process the information needed to operate your account: email address, password hash, chosen display name, account role, account and session data, login-security counters and lock status, and email-verification, password-reset or account-unlock tokens.

When you use tours, we process bookings, progress, submitted tracker links, review decisions and messages, and awarded badges. Optional profile details such as VATSIM CID, IVAO ID, Volanta ID, aircraft type and visibility preferences are processed only when you provide them.

We also process limited technical data necessary for delivery and security, including IP-address-related server and network logs, the date and time of requests, browser request data and security events.

Your email address, a password, a display name and acceptance of the Terms of Use are required to create and operate an account. If you do not provide this information, we cannot create the account or provide account-based tour features. VATSIM sign-in may instead supply your name and email address through VATSIM at your request.

Optional pilot details, including VATSIM CID, IVAO ID, Volanta ID, aircraft type and profile visibility preferences, are voluntary. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect you.

We process account, tour and support data to provide the requested service and take steps connected with your account (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We process security, abuse-prevention, operational logging and service-improvement data based on our legitimate interests in running a reliable and secure community platform (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

If a future feature requires consent, for example non-essential analytics or marketing cookies, we will request it separately before processing begins. You may withdraw consent at any time with future effect.

If you choose VATSIM sign-in, the VATSIM authentication service receives the authorization request. We receive the VATSIM CID and, depending on the information released by VATSIM, your name and email address to create or connect your account. This is performed only at your request to provide that sign-in method.

Submitted tracker links may lead to third-party services such as VATSIM, Statsim, IVAO, Volanta or another tracker provider. Their privacy practices apply once you open their websites. Providing a tracker link does not give FSExplorer access to your third-party account credentials.

The application is hosted on a managed VPS and its PostgreSQL database is operated on that server. Cloudflare provides the public delivery, security and tunnel infrastructure. Brevo processes transactional account emails such as activation, email-change, password-reset and account-unlock messages. These providers process data only as necessary to provide their services and under the applicable contractual safeguards.

Provider infrastructure or support may involve processing outside the EEA. Where this occurs, the controller uses the provider's applicable transfer safeguards, such as an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses. Details can be requested using the privacy contact above.

Cloudflare may also process connection metadata and, where its security features require it, use strictly necessary security cookies or browser network-error reporting to protect and deliver the service. These measures are not used for advertising or cross-site tracking.

This site currently uses only technically necessary cookies: a HTTP-only session cookie to keep you signed in and a short-lived, HTTP-only OAuth state cookie when you start VATSIM sign-in. They are required for the login functions you request and are not used for advertising or cross-site tracking.

No analytics or marketing cookies are currently used. If this changes, we will update this notice and obtain consent where required before setting non-essential technology.

Account and tour data is retained while your account is active. You can delete your account in Profile Settings; the associated account, sessions, tour progress, submissions and email-delivery records are deleted from the active application database unless retention is required by law or necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Technical backups may retain deleted information until the relevant backup is overwritten under the operator's backup cycle. Backup data is not restored for ordinary use of a deleted account.

Subject to the legal conditions, you may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability and object to processing based on legitimate interests. You may also lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority, in particular the authority of your habitual residence, workplace or the place of the alleged infringement.

Send requests to [email protected].

We may update this notice when the service or legal requirements change. The version date at the top identifies the current document. Material changes will be communicated appropriately before they take effect where required.

See also the Terms of Use and Legal Notice.