BaoLife Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

BaoLife is a life-simulation game for iPhone, made by Galien Games LLC ("we", "us"). This policy covers the BaoLife app and the BaoLife server at api.baolife.app that the app talks to.

2. What we collect and why

Your account

The first time you open BaoLife, the app asks our server for an account. The server creates a random account ID and a random device ID. It also records:

• the platform (iOS) and the app version;
• the device name iOS gives apps, which on current iOS versions is the model name (for example "iPhone"), not the name you gave your phone;
• when the device last refreshed its sign-in.

We use these to keep you signed in and to tell you which of your devices is playing a life. Sign-in tokens on your phone are kept in the iOS Keychain for that device only. The server also gives your account a recovery key, which the app keeps in the iOS Keychain in a way that is included in your encrypted iPhone backups, so a phone restored from your backup can rejoin your account. Each recovery key works once and is replaced when used. On our server we store only a one-way hash of each long-term sign-in token and of the recovery key, and the recovery key is deleted with your account.

Your game

BaoLife's server keeps your character's life going in real time while the app is closed. To do that we store, for each life:

• the full game state: your character's name (the one name you type in BaoLife), looks, family and other characters, stats, and life history;
• how the life is drawn: the pixel-art look the app gave each person in it (such as skin tone, hair, eyes, face and build), and your customization (appearance and style choices, the outfits you own and wear, and your home decor and room layouts), so the same faces, outfits and rooms appear on another phone or after a recovery;
• backup copies of that state (the newest five, and the newest one from each of the last seven days), so a life can be restored or moved to another phone;
• the record of what you did while playing on your phone (choices and time moving forward), which the server replays to check the result before accepting it;
• your phone's time zone (for example "America/Chicago"), so your character's day follows your clock;
• "while you were away" events and your character's evening diary entries;
• your diamond balance, every diamond earned or spent, and the items you own.

We use this to run the game, sync it between your devices, and stop edited saves from being accepted. All of it is game data about fictional characters. We do not ask for, and the game does not need, any real-world information about you. If you give your character your own name, it is stored like any other character name.

Notifications and the Live Activity

For each life in the cloud, the app tells our server your character's first name, your time zone, and your character's upcoming schedule and Moments. If you allow notifications or use the Live Activity, it also sends the push tokens Apple issues for your device and for the Live Activity. We use these only to send your character's updates and Moments to your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. We keep a short record of each push sent (its type and result, not its text) for 48 hours to stay within Apple's limits.

Your character's name, activity and Moments appear on your Lock Screen, where anyone who can see your phone can read them. You can turn notifications and Live Activities off at any time in iOS Settings.

Purchases

When you buy diamonds or BaoLife Plus, Apple processes the payment. The app sends our server the signed transaction Apple gives it, and we check Apple's signature before granting the purchase. We store the transaction details Apple includes: transaction IDs, the product, the date, the quantity, the subscription expiry date, the App Store country or region, the price and currency when Apple includes them, and whether it was refunded. The app also gives Apple your BaoLife account ID with each purchase, so the purchase can be matched to your account. We use this to give you what you bought, restore it, handle refunds, and stop the same purchase from being redeemed twice.

Chat with characters

You can text the people in your character's life. Their replies are written by an AI model, not by a person. Before your first chat, the app asks for your permission and shows what is sent and to whom. Nothing is sent until you agree. We keep a record that you agreed (which version of the permission screen, which services it named, and when); if those services change, the app asks you again. Turning chat off in Settings withdraws your permission. If you never use chat, none of this happens.

When you send a message, our server sends it through OpenRouter to DeepInfra, which runs the AI model that writes the reply (both in section 5). It sends:

• our fixed rules for the conversation;
• the person's first name, age, pronouns and personality traits, their relationship to your character, and whether they live far away;
• your character's first name, age and pronouns;
• how close the two are, as the game's affinity and trust numbers;
• up to 30 things that person remembers about your character, and the places they could suggest going;
• a short note from your phone about what your character is doing;
• the last 20 messages of that conversation, with the message you just typed.

A separate safety service (Groq, also reached through OpenRouter) checks your message and the reply against our rules (for example, no sexual content involving anyone under 18) and looks for signs that you may be in danger. It receives our safety rules, both characters' ages, whether they are family or partners, whether romance is allowed in that conversation, your message, and the reply. Our server makes these requests, so none of these services receives your account ID, device information, or IP address.

Please don't type personal information, such as your real name, address, or phone number: whatever you type is sent to these services.

We store each conversation with its life: the newest 200 messages with each person, up to 30 things each person remembers about your character, and a record of each small change a conversation makes to the game (for example, how close you are to someone), so that it is applied once. If the safety check replaces a reply, we keep only which rule it broke, not the replaced text. We also count how many messages you send each day, for the daily allowance.

If you report a reply, we store a copy of it with your reason, the six messages before it (which can include what you typed), and both characters' names, ages and relationship, with the life. We read reports to review them and improve our rules.

If a message suggests you may be in danger (for example, thinking about suicide or hurting yourself, or being abused or threatened by someone), the app shows ways to reach a crisis line or emergency services. The reply is marked in your conversation so the app can show those resources with it, nothing from that message is kept as something the person remembers, and we add one to a daily count that has no message or account attached, because California law requires us to report that number each year.

Server logs

Like most online services, our server keeps logs to run it, fix problems, and stop abuse. For each request they record the time, the address requested, the result, and your device's IP address. Some log lines also include your account ID, for example when a purchase is granted or diamonds are spent. The logs do not include your sign-in tokens. We use your IP address to limit how many requests one address can make and to investigate problems and abuse. We do not use it to work out your location.

3. What stays on your phone

Your phone keeps its own copy of your current life, a short album of finished lives, your settings, and your characters' pixel-art looks and your customization, in the app's own storage. For a life in the cloud, the app also saves those looks and your customization on our server with the life (see section 2): they are deleted with that life or your account, and they are included when you export your data. The app also shares the current life and server address with the Live Activity through storage on your phone that only BaoLife can read.

A life stays only on your phone, and never reaches our server, if it was created while offline, if it continues a life that was only on your phone, or if your account has reached its limit of lives in the cloud. After you delete your account, your current life stays on your phone only.

Anything on your phone stays there until you delete the app. Your phone's own backups (iCloud or computer backups, which you control) may include these files.

4. What we do not do

• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
• We do not show ads.
• We do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and we do not use Apple's advertising identifier.
• The app contains no third-party analytics, crash-reporting, advertising, or attribution software.
• We do not collect your contacts, photos, location, health data, or browsing history.

5. Companies that process data for us

We use a small number of service providers. They process data only to provide their service to us.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the safety of our players or the public, or as part of a sale or merger of BaoLife, in which case this policy continues to apply to your data.

6. How long we keep data

7. Deleting your data

In the app: Settings > Account > Delete account. This permanently deletes, right away, your account, your devices' records, your lives in the cloud with their looks and customization, their backups, diary entries, chat messages, what characters remember, your chat reports and your agreement to chat, Live Activity registrations, your diamond balance and history, your items, and your BaoLife Plus purchase records.

What remains afterwards:

• Diamond purchases: for each diamond pack you bought, we keep its Apple transaction ID, product, date and amount, with no BaoLife account attached and the rest of Apple's transaction details removed. This stops the same purchase from being redeemed again. Diamonds you bought or earned cannot be recovered after deletion. BaoLife Plus can be restored to a new account from your Apple ID.
• Backups: deleted data stays in our server backups for up to about 21 days, until they expire. If we ever have to restore our database from a backup, we delete again every account that was deleted after that backup was made.
• Logs: log lines that include your account ID or IP address remain until the logs expire (see section 6).
• Your phone: your current life stays on your phone until you delete the app.

Deleting the app does not delete your account. Use Delete account first if you want your cloud data removed. You can also delete a single life from the cloud without deleting your account.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, California and other US states), you may have the right to:

• get a copy of the personal data we hold about you, in a machine-readable file;
• have it corrected;
• have it deleted;
• object to or restrict some uses of it;
• not be treated differently for using these rights.

You can do two things yourself in the app. Settings > Account > Export my data saves a copy of your account's data (including your lives with their diaries, looks and customization, your chats with what characters remember and your agreement to chat, your devices, purchases and diamonds) as a JSON file you can keep or send. Settings > Account > Delete account deletes it. For anything else, contact us at craig@galiengames.com. Because BaoLife accounts have no name or email, include your Account ID, shown in Settings > Account (touch and hold it to copy). We answer requests within 30 days.

Most of what we store is your game, which you change by playing; your account holds no personal details to correct.

If you are in the EEA or the UK, you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

9. Children

BaoLife is for adults: it is rated 18+ on the App Store, and you must be at least 18 to use it. It is not directed at anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, including children under 13. BaoLife does not ask for a real name, email, age, or any contact details. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has used BaoLife, you can delete the account in the app, or contact us and we will delete it.

Where the law requires it, for example in Texas, the app asks Apple whether you are 18 or older (Apple's Declared Age Range). Apple may tell the app your age range; the app keeps only whether Apple said you are under 18, and uses it only to keep people under 18 out of BaoLife. If you are 18 or older, nothing is kept. If Apple says you are under 18, BaoLife closes on that phone, and our server notes that the account belongs to someone under 18 and refuses it everything except exporting or deleting its data. That note is removed when Apple later says you are 18 or older, or when the account is deleted. We never share it. If a parent or guardian withdraws consent through Apple, Apple stops the app from opening, and we restrict in the same way any account that made purchases from that download.

AI chat may not be suitable for some minors. In chat, characters never flirt with or about anyone under 18, or with family members.

Characters in the game have ages, including children and teenagers. Those are ages of fictional characters and say nothing about the player.

10. Where your data is stored

Our server runs in Google Cloud's Iowa region, and its backups are stored in the United States: disk snapshots in Google's US multi-region, and the off-site copy of each nightly database backup in Google Cloud's South Carolina region. If you use BaoLife from outside the US, your data is transferred to and stored in the US, where data protection laws may differ from those where you live. If you use chat, the AI services in section 5 process your messages in the places where they run their services.

11. How we protect data

• All traffic between the app and our server is encrypted (HTTPS, with HTTP Strict Transport Security).
• Short-term sign-in tokens expire after 15 minutes. Long-term tokens change every time they are used, and we store only a one-way hash of them.
• On your phone, sign-in details are kept in the iOS Keychain and are not synced to other devices.
• Purchases are accepted only after we check Apple's signature on them.
• The database accepts connections only from the server itself. The server's firewall allows only web traffic and administrator logins by key, and it installs security updates automatically.
• Google Cloud encrypts the server's disks and the off-site backup copies. Only people with administrator access to the server or our Google Cloud projects can read backups. The server can add an off-site copy but cannot read, list or delete one.
• Requests are rate-limited to slow down abuse.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will tell you as the law requires.

12. Legal bases (EEA and UK)

• To provide the game you asked for (performance of a contract): your account, your lives, sync, the Live Activity, and purchases.
• Our legitimate interests: keeping the service secure and working (logs, backups, rate limits), stopping purchases from being redeemed twice, and keeping chat safe (the safety check and reviewing reports).
• Your consent: notifications, which iOS asks you to allow, and chat, which the app asks you to agree to. You can turn either off at any time.
• Legal obligations: counting crisis screens for the yearly report California requires.

13. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page with a new effective date. If a change affects how we use data we already have, we will tell you before it takes effect, in the notes of the app update that brings the change and, where the law requires it, through Apple's update notice in the app.

14. Contact us

Galien Games LLC
20 North Wacker Drive, Suite 1000
Chicago, IL 60606
United States
Email: craig@galiengames.com