Privacy policy | Maatjie Arena

This policy explains what Maatjie Arena keeps about the people who play it, why we keep it, who can see it, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do. It covers the game in the Android app and in a web browser, the game server it talks to, the game's Save to Google page and our website, maatjiearena.com. It is written for parents and carers, with a short version for kids first. Last updated: 13 October 2026.

The short version, for kids

We keep your pet, its clothes, its moves and your scores, so the game remembers them.
You choose a nickname: one word, like Comet. Please don't use your real name. Your friends and the ranks show your nickname.
We never ask for your real name, where you live, your school, your photo or your voice.
There is no chat. Nobody can send you messages in the game.
Only give your friend code to people you know in real life.
Your friends can't see when you are playing, unless a grown-up switches that on.
If you see a rude or unkind nickname or pet name, you can report it. You can hide a player too, so you don't see their nickname any more.
A grown-up can switch off friends and the leaderboards for you.
There are no ads in the game, and we never sell anything about you.
Buying things is a job for a grown-up.
A grown-up can delete your account at any time.
If anything in a game or online ever worries you, stop and tell a grown-up you trust.

Who we are

Maatjie Arena is made and published by Tiny Twigs Studio, in South Africa ("we" and "us" in this policy). We decide what the game keeps and why. Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) that makes us the "responsible party", and under the GDPR and the UK GDPR the "controller". Our Information Officer under POPIA is Tiny Twigs Studio, who you can reach at the address under contact.

What we keep, and why

What	Why we need it
A device code. When the game first starts on a device it makes a random code and keeps it there. It is not the device's serial number, or any hardware or advertising ID. The device sends it when it signs in; our server keeps only a scrambled form of it that cannot be turned back into the code.	It is how the game knows which account is yours, with no password and no email address.
A player number. Our server gives every account its own number.	To keep everything that belongs to the account together.
Your nickname. One word that the player types or picks from our suggestions: 3 to 12 letters, A to Z only. Our server checks it against a list of rude, unkind and unsafe words before anyone sees it. We ask players not to use their real name. A player who has not picked a nickname yet is given one of our suggestions.	So friends and other players can tell who is who without real names (see who can see what).
Nickname reports. When a player reports a nickname, we keep which nickname was reported, when, a scrambled tag for the player who reported it (never their nickname), and whether the report counts: a report counts once the reporting account is two days old and has hatched a pet. The reporting player's own account also notes which players they reported. When three different players' reports count against the same nickname, it is hidden at once and swapped for one of our suggestions, and that player cannot pick it again. The word is blocked for everyone once it has been hidden on two different players, or when we block it ourselves; we then keep the word with a scrambled tag for each of those players. A friend can report a pet's name the same way: when three different players' reports count against the same pet name, friends see the kind of pet instead until the player picks a new name, and that pet's reported name stays hidden from friends. We keep the pet names reports hid, with the reports. No word is blocked for anyone else because of a pet's name.	To count each player's report only once, to stop a few new accounts from hiding someone's nickname or pet name, to take unkind names away quickly, to look into reports, and to remove a player's reports when their account is deleted. We never tell a player who reported them.
A grown-up's agreement: when a grown-up agreed to these terms and this policy in the game, and which version.	The game asks a parent or guardian to agree before a child picks a nickname other players can see, and keeps a record that they did.
Friends and leaderboards: whether a grown-up has switched them off (they are on unless a grown-up switches them off, on the page where they agree to these terms or later in Settings), and when.	While it is off, the child cannot add or accept friends, have friendly battles or swap, their friend code works like a wrong one, and no other player sees them in a friends list or on a leaderboard. Their friendships and rating are kept for when it is switched on again.
Hidden players: the players your child chose to hide (by player number, up to 200), and when.	To show "Hidden player" instead of their nickname on your child's screens, and to stop their friend requests reaching your child. The hidden player is never told, and nothing changes for anyone else. A grown-up can show them again in Settings.
Your pets' names, typed when each pet hatches or when it is given a new name (up to 16 letters; we note when each new name was given, for the limit of 3 a day), including the pets kept in your Pet Album.	To show them to you, and to your friends only when the name passes our filter (letters only, one or two words, and no rude, unkind or contact words) and reports have not hidden it; otherwise your friends see the kind of pet instead, such as "Tide". Other players never see them.
Game progress: your pet and how you cared for it, your Pet Album (each past pet's name, look, dates, care and battle record), battles and ratings, moves, badges, the room and arena you chose, and your items, outfits and crates.	This is the game itself. Our server works out every result, so it has to keep them.
Friends and swaps: your private friend code, friend requests, your friends and anyone you blocked (by player number), friendly battle challenges and results, how many friend requests and codes you tried recently, swap offers, and a record of finished swaps (player numbers and item numbers only).	To run friends, friendly battles, the friends board and swaps, to stop people guessing friend codes, and to trace an item if one is ever taken unfairly.
Online status: whether a grown-up has switched on "Show friends when I'm playing" (it is off unless a grown-up switches it on), and, only while it is on, the time of your last game action (noted at most once a minute). Switching it off deletes that time.	Only to show your friends a "Playing now" dot. While it is off, we keep no time of play for it, and friends see nothing at all about when you play.
The day the game was last played: the date only, never a time of day, noted the first time the game talks to our server each day.	Only so we can delete an account nobody has played for 24 months (see how long we keep it). Nobody else can see it, and it is not the online status.
Holiday mode: whether a grown-up has switched it on, and when.	To pause your pet while you are away, so nothing changes until you are back.
The swap safety code secret, only if a grown-up sets up the safety code for swaps. Our server makes it and sends it to the device once, during setup, where it is shown as a QR code and as text to add to the grown-up's authenticator app. After that the game never shows it again.	To check the safety code before a swap.
Purchases (in the Android app only): which look or pack was bought and when, Google Play's order number and purchase token, and Google's answer when it checked the purchase. That answer includes the country the purchase was billed in and an account code: a one-way code made from the player number, which the game gives Google with each purchase so that a purchase stays with the account that made it. Google Play takes the payment; we never see card details, or the buyer's name or address.	To give the account what was bought, to bring it back on a new device, to take it back if the purchase is refunded, and to make sure one purchase is never given twice.
A Google account number, only if a grown-up saves the pet to Google on our Save to Google page (see saving to Google): Google's own number for that Google account. Never its email address, name or picture.	To bring the pet back on a new or reset device, when the grown-up signs in with the same Google account.
Save to Google codes: the short code the app shows while a grown-up saves to Google or brings a pet back. We keep it in a scrambled form, and it works once, for 10 minutes. We also count tries for one hour, using a form of the visitor's IP address and of the Google account scrambled with a secret key of ours, so it cannot be turned back into the address, and then delete the count.	So a code works only for the device that asked for it, and cannot be guessed.
Devices on the account, only once a pet has been brought back on another device: when each device was added, when a grown-up last signed out the other devices, and which devices have seen the note about a new device (each device by the scrambled form of its device code).	So a grown-up can see how many devices open the pet and sign out the others, and so the family's other devices are told when the pet is opened on a new one.
Messages you send us: your email address, your name if you give it, and what you write, including any details you send so we can check a request.	To answer you, to act on a request, and to keep a record of what was asked and what we did.
Sign-in tokens, kept on the device.	To keep you signed in.
Pet alert settings, kept on the device: whether pet alerts are on, the quiet hours, and when alerts were planned and shown.	Pet alerts are notifications the game plans on the device itself. Nothing about them is sent to us or anyone else, and there is no push service. They can be switched off in Settings.
Technical data that any internet service sees, such as the IP address a request comes from, and our server's logs, which record a player number and what was asked for (for example "a battle started"), and errors. If saving to Google hits a rare server error, our server's error log can record the Google sign-in message, which includes the Google account's email address and name, until the log is overwritten (see how long we keep it).	To run the server, keep it safe and fix problems. We do not use IP addresses to work out where anyone is.

What we never collect or do

No real names, email addresses, phone numbers or home addresses from players.
No location, contacts, photos, videos, microphone or camera.
No chat or messages: players cannot send each other text, pictures or voice.
No ads in the game, no advertising ID and no ad networks.
No analytics, tracking or crash-reporting tools from other companies.
We never sell, rent or trade anyone's information, and we never use it for advertising or to build profiles of players.

Saving to Google

Saving to Google is optional and is a grown-up's job. It lets a pet come back on a new or reset device. It happens on our Save to Google page, on the game's website (play.maatjiearena.com), never inside the app:

How it works: the app shows a short code. On any device, a grown-up opens our Save to Google page, signs in with Google and types the code. To bring a pet back, the new device shows a code in the same way.
What Google sends us: a signed sign-in message made for our game only. Our server checks that Google made it for us and that it has not run out.
What we keep: only Google's number for the Google account, so the pet can come back later. We do not keep the Google account's email address, name or picture. If saving to Google hits a rare server error, our server's error log can record the Google sign-in message, which includes the Google account's email address and name, until the log is overwritten. If clearing an email address our server copied ever fails, we remove it by hand.
Google's part: the sign-in window and button are Google's own, loaded from accounts.google.com on that page, so Google receives the visitor's IP address, the page's address and details of the browser, and can read its own cookies. Google's privacy policy covers the Google account. No other page of the game loads anything from Google.
Other devices: bringing a pet back adds the new device to the account, and the old one keeps working. The account's other devices show a note the next time the game opens there, and in Settings, under Grown-ups, a grown-up can see how many devices open the pet and sign out the others.
We never change the Google account. Deleting the game account removes the link to it.

Who can see what

Everyone playing can see the season's top 100 board: nicknames, the player numbers the game uses for them, ratings, ranks, the chosen title and the number of badges. A child whose grown-up switched off friends and leaderboards is left off the board for everyone else, and sees only their own place.
Your friends (players who both said yes) can see your nickname, your place, title and badges on the friends board, your current pet (its kind, looks and outfit, level, stats, moves, battle record, age, the room you picked, and its name if it passes our filter), every item in your bag that can be swapped right now, whether swaps are switched on for you, and the items in any swap offer between you. They see whether you are playing right now only if a grown-up switched that on. They can ask you for a friendly battle, which you can say no to. They never see your bag's other items, your pet's care or your Pet Album. While a grown-up has switched off friends and leaderboards, your friends see nothing of you at all.
Someone with your friend code sees only your nickname, in the request, until you say yes. A nickname alone is never enough to send a friend request.
In an Arena match, the other player sees your pet's kind, its look and outfit and its level, with a made-up label such as "Rival Spark". They never see your nickname or your pet's name, and there is no chat.
No other player can see your pets' names, your pet, when you are playing, or who your friends are.
Companies that help us: DigitalOcean, LLC runs our game server and its database for us, and Cloudflare delivers our website and the web game and passes the game's traffic on to our server. Google Play takes payments in the Android app, and Google runs the sign-in on our Save to Google page. Our email provider runs the mailbox our contact address uses. They may use what they receive only to do that work for us, or under their own privacy policies for their own sign-in and payment services.
Nobody else. We would only hand information to the police or a court if the law required it, or to protect a child (see children).

Where it is kept and how it is protected

Our game server and its database are in the European Union. When information about players in South Africa is kept outside the country, we keep it only with a provider that must protect it as carefully as POPIA requires.

The game only talks to our server over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
Every result is worked out on our server, and only we can reach its database.
The swap safety code secret is sent to the device only once, while a grown-up sets up the code.
Android backups of the game's data are switched off, so the device code and sign-in tokens are not copied to cloud backups.
If something ever went wrong that put players' information at risk, we would tell the Information Regulator and the people affected, as POPIA requires.

How long we keep it

While the account is in use. Everything about an account is kept until the account is deleted, so the pet is still there when the player comes back. That includes the Pet Album with the names of past pets; starting fresh with a new egg does not remove it.
An account nobody plays is deleted 24 months after the last day it was played, exactly as if a grown-up had deleted it (see deleting an account), even if it was saved to Google or holiday mode is on. If the game is removed from a device and the pet was not saved to Google, the game can no longer reach that account; write to us and we will delete it straight away.
Nickname and pet name reports are deleted 12 months after each report was made, together with the reporting player's note of whom they reported. The reporter's name is never shown. While an account exists we keep a note of any nickname or pet name that reports hid on it, so that name stays hidden. Deleting an account deletes at once its nickname, the reports about it and its pet, the reports it made and its tag in the record of hidden words. A word that was blocked after reports stays blocked, but it is not linked to anyone.
Save to Google codes stop working after 10 minutes, or once they are used. The count of tries is deleted an hour after the last try.
Swap records are kept for 6 years after the swap, to check for fraud and for tax records, and then deleted: the record of which items changed hands, when and the player numbers, and the swap offer itself. If an account is deleted sooner, its swap records stay for the rest of the 6 years with no nickname or name in them, so a taken item can still be traced.
Purchase records are kept while the account exists, because they are what gives the account what was bought. When the account is deleted, our record of each Google Play purchase (described above, with its player number cleared) stays until 6 years after the purchase, to check for fraud and for tax records and so the same purchase can never be given twice, and is then deleted. The account code in a purchase record is made from the old player number, so it could be matched to a swap record, but neither leads to any account any more. Google keeps its own order records.
Messages you send us are deleted 12 months after we last answer, unless we need one longer for a request that is still open or because the law requires it.
Server logs are rotated: older entries are overwritten as new ones are written, and we do not copy them anywhere else.
Backups of our database are encrypted and kept away from the server, and each one is deleted after 30 days, so anything deleted from the game is gone from the backups within 30 days.

Our server deletes what is due once a month, so something can stay up to a month past the times above.

Deleting an account

A grown-up can delete the account and all of its pet's data at any time:

In the game: Me, then Settings, then Delete my account. A grown-up check comes first.
Without the game: follow the steps on our account deletion page, or write to us. Nicknames can be seen by other players, so a nickname alone does not show that an account is yours; see how we check a request.

Deleting removes the pet, the Pet Album, progress, items, outfits, crates, badges, ranks, the nickname and its reports, the grown-up's agreement to the terms, friends, the friend code, friend requests and blocks, the friends and leaderboards setting, hidden players, the online setting and last-played time, the day the game was last played, holiday mode, the Google link, the devices on the account, notifications and the safety code. It calls off open swap offers and friendly battle challenges, takes the nickname and the pet's name off friends' copies of friendly battles, and then removes the account. It cannot be undone. Things bought for the account go with it and cannot be moved to a new account; for a refund, see the Terms of Use. The swap and purchase records described above are kept, with no nickname or name in them, until their 6 years are up.

Our website

Our website, maatjiearena.com, has guides to the game and pages for grown-ups. It has no ads, sets no cookies, uses no analytics and loads nothing from any other website. It is delivered by Cloudflare, which receives each visitor's IP address to deliver the pages and keeps short security logs; if it ever has to check that a visitor is a person and not an automated attack, it sets a security cookie for that alone. The website is kept apart from the game, which runs at its own address (play.maatjiearena.com).

Children

Maatjie Arena is made for children, so we treat every player as a child. We keep only what the game needs to work. The safest choices are already made: there is no chat, friends are added only with a private code, nicknames and pet names are filtered and can be reported, any player can be hidden, pet names are shown only to friends, and online status is off unless a grown-up switches it on. A grown-up chooses whether the child uses friends and leaderboards at all, before the child picks a nickname. Buying, saving to Google, online status, friends and leaderboards, holiday mode and deleting the account are all grown-up steps.

If we learn of anything that suggests a child is being harmed or put at risk, we will report it to the South African Police Service, as South African law requires, and share what they need to protect the child. The grown-ups page has our safety message for children and how to report a nickname or a pet's name.

Your rights and the law

You, or a parent or guardian for a child, can ask us at any time to show you what we keep, to correct it, to delete it, or to stop using it. Write to us (see contact); we will answer within 30 days. Deleting the account in the game deletes everything at once.

South Africa (POPIA)

Under POPIA, a child is anyone under 18. Maatjie Arena is meant to be played with a parent's or guardian's permission, and we rely on that permission (POPIA calls a parent or guardian a "competent person") to keep the information described here, and only what the game needs. A grown-up gives it in the game when it first starts: before a child picks a nickname, a grown-up step shows these terms and this policy and asks the grown-up to agree, and we keep a record that they did. A parent or guardian can take that permission back at any time by deleting the account. Server logs, swap records and purchase records are also kept because they are needed to keep the game safe and to stop theft and fraud, and purchase records because tax law asks for records of sales. You can complain to the Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za), though we would like the chance to put things right first.

Our PAIA manual describes the records we hold and how to ask for them under South Africa's Promotion of Access to Information Act, and how we handle personal information under POPIA. To see or delete your own information, you can simply write to us.

We use game information because it is needed to provide the game that a player and their parent or guardian chose to use (performance of a contract), and we keep server logs, swap records, purchase records and nickname reports for our legitimate interest in keeping the game safe and fair and stopping theft and fraud, and purchase records also because tax law asks for records of sales (a legal obligation). We do not rely on a child's consent, do no profiling and make no automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. You have the right to access, correct and delete your information, to restrict or object to how it is used, and to receive it in a form you can take elsewhere. You can complain to the data protection authority where you live (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office).

We are in South Africa, which the European Union and the United Kingdom have not found to protect personal information to their standard, so information about players in the EU or the UK reaches us from outside them. Where the law needs a ground for that, we rely on Article 49(1)(b) of the GDPR and of the UK GDPR: it is needed to provide the game that the player and their parent or guardian chose. We use it for nothing else, and protect it as this policy describes. You can also write to us directly (see contact).

United States (COPPA)

We do not ask children for their name, email address, phone number, address or any other way to contact them, and we ask them not to use their real name as a nickname. The device code and player number are used only to run the game, keep it secure and meet legal requirements (what COPPA calls "support for the internal operations" of the service), never for ads or to build profiles. Saving to Google is done by a grown-up, not a child. We keep a child's information only for as long as how long we keep it says, and then delete it. A parent can ask at any time to see their child's information, to have it deleted, or to stop us collecting any more, which deleting the account does.

How we check a request

Other players can see nicknames, so we do not show, send, change or delete anything just because an email names a nickname. If you still have the game, the quickest and safest way to delete the account is in the game itself. For an email request, we check that it comes from the player or their parent or guardian:

Tell us the nickname, and things strangers cannot see: the pet's name, what kind of pet it is, and roughly when the game was first played. Friends can see a pet's name and kind, so we may also ask for the names of past pets in the Pet Album, which nobody else sees.
If a swap safety code is set up, we may ask for a code from the authenticator app while we are in touch.
If the pet was saved to Google, the quickest way is to bring it back on a device with our Save to Google page and then delete the account in the game. We do not keep the Google account's email address, so an email from that address does not show us which account is yours.

If the details do not match, or there are not enough of them, we will not act on the request and will tell you why. We send a copy of an account's information only after this check, and only to the email address the request came from.

Changes to this policy

If we change what the game keeps or how we use it, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change reaches the game, and tell players in the game or on our website when the change matters to them.

Contact

Questions, requests or worries about privacy: write to us. We read every message.

Tiny Twigs Studio
South Africa
Email: info@tinytwigsstudio.com
Website: maatjiearena.com