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Privacy Policy

airvirtua.ru

Version of 27 October 2026

1. General

1.1. This Policy explains how personal data of the users of the Site is processed and how it is protected.

1.2. Data controller (the “Operator”): Artem Andreevich Solovev, a private individual, Moscow, Russian Federation. Contact address for any privacy request: privacy@airvirtua.ru.

1.3. The Operator runs an amateur, non-commercial project — a virtual airline (flight simulation). The Site provides no real aviation services and no paid services of any kind; the in-game “balance” and statistics are purely part of the game.

1.4. The Operator is located in the Russian Federation and processes data under Russian law, primarily Federal Law No. 152-FZ “On Personal Data”. Please read section 6 carefully: it states where your data is physically stored.

1.5. By using the Site and creating an account you confirm that you accept this Policy. If you do not agree with it, please do not use the Site.

2. Definitions

Personal data — any information relating to a directly or indirectly identified individual (the data subject).

Processing — any operation performed on personal data (collection, recording, storage, use, erasure and so on).

Data subject — a user registered on the Site.

3. What personal data is processed

The Operator follows the principle of minimisation and collects only what the Platform actually needs to work.

3.1. Personal data (data that identifies you directly or indirectly):

  • email address;
  • first name;
  • last name.

3.2. Technical data:

  • IP address and information about your device and browser (User-Agent). It is processed by the web server to route requests and is recorded in the security event log (sign-ins and sign-in attempts) to protect your account from unauthorised access. It is kept for no more than 90 days and then deleted automatically; it is never shown in your profile and is available only to the Platform administrator.

3-A. Other data held by the Platform

Besides personal data, your account holds the items listed below. On their own they do not identify an individual, so they are not personal data in the meaning of the applicable Russian law; they are listed here for transparency:

  • your password — stored only as an irreversible cryptographic hash (the Operator cannot read it);
  • preferred interface language;
  • optional, if you choose to provide them: in-game callsign, SimBrief username, avatar colour;
  • the numeric identifier of your VATSIM account (VATSIM CID) and the date it was linked — only if you linked it yourself through VATSIM Connect. Linking is voluntary and can be undone in your profile with one click; your VATSIM password is never sent to or stored by the Operator, and VATSIM access tokens are not stored. Your name, email address and country are not requested from VATSIM;
  • public VATSIM member statistics that VATSIM publishes without authorisation: by CID the Operator requests the pilot rating, hours online as a pilot and as a controller, and the VATSIM registration date. These statistics are shown to signed-in users only: on the map (when a flight or ATC station is clicked), on the page of an Air Virtua pilot who linked VATSIM (pilot rating and pilot hours), and to you in your own profile (also your registration date). Only numbers and dates are stored, never names; data for CIDs not linked to Air Virtua users is deleted after one day, your data — when you unlink VATSIM or delete your account. Controller (ATC) ratings are neither stored nor shown;
  • the “Show me on the VATSIM map” marker — opt-in only: if you have linked your VATSIM account and turned this setting on in your profile, your VATSIM flights outside a Platform flight are marked on the live map as an Air Virtua player. All visitors see only the marker itself; signed-in users also see your first and last name, your callsign, your virtual airline and a link to your pilot profile (the same data as under 7.1). This lets other users match your VATSIM account to your profile on the Platform. The setting is off by default, can be turned off in your profile with one click, and is cleared automatically when you unlink your VATSIM account or link a different one. Turning it on or off is recorded in the activity log;
  • game statistics (number of virtual flights, flight hours, landings, experience points) and the in-game virtual balance;
  • virtual flight telemetry: coordinates, altitude, speed, heading and landing parameters of the simulated aircraft inside the flight simulator (this does not reflect your real-world location);
  • service records: registration and activity dates, email confirmation status, action log (audit trail);
  • referral source at sign-up: the domain name you first arrived from (referrer) and/or campaign tags (UTM). Stored in a generalised form (for example “search engine”, “social network” or a domain name) to analyse acquisition channels. It contains no page content and does not identify an individual on its own.

The Operator does NOT collect: identity document details, date of birth, phone number, postal address, citizenship, payment or banking details, biometric data or any special categories of personal data.

4. Purposes of processing

Personal data is processed in order to:

  • register, identify and authenticate you on the Platform;
  • create and maintain your account (pilot profile);
  • record virtual flights and maintain game statistics and rankings;
  • run the community and virtual airlines: showing your first and last name, callsign, statistics, rank and awards to other registered users in the pilot profile, airline roster, message authorship and rankings (see section 7);
  • display the public live map of active flights (see section 7);
  • send service messages (email confirmation, account security notifications);
  • keep the Platform secure and prevent abuse;
  • respond to your requests.

5. Legal basis

  • your consent to the processing of personal data, given during registration (Article 6(1)(1) of Federal Law No. 152-FZ);
  • Federal Law No. 152-FZ and this Policy.

6. How data is processed and stored

6.1. Processing is carried out both by automated means and without them.

6.2. Where your data is stored — please read this. Personal data is recorded and stored in a database hosted on servers physically located in the Russian Federation. This satisfies the data localisation requirement of Article 18(5) of Federal Law No. 152-FZ. If you are outside Russia, using the Site means your data will be stored in Russia and will be subject to Russian law, including any lawful requests from Russian authorities.

6.3. Disclosure to third parties. The Operator does not sell your personal data and does not share it with third parties for marketing. To deliver service emails (registration confirmation and similar) the Operator uses an external email delivery provider (SMTP provider), which receives your email address and name strictly to the extent needed to deliver the message. No other third parties receive your data. Your data is not transferred outside the Russian Federation.

6.4. Retention. Personal data is kept until the purposes of processing are met — that is, for as long as your account exists. Data is deleted (or anonymised) when you delete your account or withdraw your consent, except for audit log records and data the Operator is entitled or obliged to keep for security and dispute resolution, which is kept for one (1) year and then deleted.

6.5. Security measures. The Operator applies the legal, organisational and technical measures needed to protect data against unlawful access: passwords are stored as hashes (Argon2), access runs over secure protocols (HTTPS/TLS), database access is restricted, and tracker access keys are stored as hashes.

7. What other users and the public can see

7.1. Visible to other signed-in users. In the shared parts of the Platform other registered users (once signed in) can see: your first and last name, callsign, avatar colour, game statistics, rank and awards, and which virtual airline you belong to. In particular this appears:

  • in your public pilot profile;
  • in a virtual airline’s roster and on its page;
  • as authorship of forum posts, comments and feedback;
  • in rankings and leaderboards;
  • in private messages — to the sender and the recipient.

The first and last name given at registration are used as your display name. Providing a callsign is optional, and you may use a made-up one.

7.2. Visible without signing in (to any visitor). The public live map of active flights shows the callsign, flight number, type and registration of the simulated aircraft, and the telemetry of the current flight. Your name and email are never shown on the map.

7.2.1. VATSIM network traffic on the live map. The map may show a layer of airborne aircraft flown by VATSIM network pilots, based on public data that VATSIM openly publishes: callsign, position, altitude, speed, heading, aircraft type and flight plan. A VATSIM pilot’s name and VATSIM CID are shown to signed-in users only — exactly as VATSIM publishes them and only as they are right now: the Operator keeps them for no more than a few minutes (the snapshot is overwritten every minute), builds no history from them and does not enrich names from other sources. To show the path an aircraft has flown when it is clicked, the Platform keeps a short history of positions of airborne VATSIM aircraft: callsign, position, altitude and time — without the pilot’s name or VATSIM CID. Points are kept for no more than 12 hours, and an aircraft’s history is deleted entirely no later than 15 minutes after it is no longer airborne (it has landed or left the network). Public VATSIM statistics for a CID (pilot rating and hours on the network) are shown to signed-in users in the pilot card on the map — see section 3-A. A Platform flight flown on VATSIM with a linked account is marked on the map as a Platform flight — it already appears there under 7.2. Your VATSIM flight outside a Platform flight is marked as an Air Virtua player only with your consent — see the “Show me on the VATSIM map” marker in section 3-A.

7.3. Your email address and password are never shown to other users anywhere on the Site.

7.4. VATSIM air traffic controllers. The live flight map, airport pages and the flight briefing show information from the public VATSIM data feed about air traffic controllers currently online: the position’s callsign and frequency, when they went on position, and the controller’s name exactly as published in the VATSIM data feed. The controller’s name and VATSIM CID are shown only to registered users who are signed in, and only while the controller is on position; the CID is shown when the feed has no name. The Operator does not accumulate this information: the latest feed snapshot is overwritten once a minute, no shift history is kept, and the names are not matched against any other data except for bookings as described below. On the live map, signed-in users who tap a zone or an airport also see the controller’s hours on the network: the Platform requests them by CID from VATSIM’s public statistics (Core API) and keeps them for no more than a day — see section 3-A. For a position booked in the VATSIM booking system (ATC Bookings), signed-in registered users see the VATSIM CID of the controller who made the booking until the booking ends; the name is shown only if the controller with that CID is online at that moment, exactly as published in the VATSIM data feed. The CID is kept while the booking is active and is deleted together with it.

7-A. Cookies and web analytics

7-A.1. Strictly necessary cookies and local storage. The Site uses technical cookies and browser local storage to keep your session token (once signed in) and your chosen language, theme and display currency. The Site cannot work properly without them; they are not used for advertising and are not shared with third parties.

7-A.2. Web analytics (Yandex Metrica). To measure traffic and improve the Site the Operator uses the Yandex Metrica analytics service (operated by Yandex LLC, Russia). Using cookies, it collects anonymised information about visits: pages viewed, referral source, device and browser type, and an approximate region derived from the IP address. The Operator uses this information in aggregate form only and does not use it to identify individual users. Session recording (Webvisor) is disabled.

7-A.3. Consent and withdrawal. The Yandex Metrica counter loads only after you explicitly agree by pressing “Accept” in the banner shown on your first visit. Until then the counter is not loaded and no analytics data is collected. You can decline with the “Decline” button in the same banner, or at any time through the “Cookie settings” link in the footer. After you decline or withdraw consent, the counter stops sending data immediately, without reloading the page. Yandex’s own processing of this data is governed by that service’s terms published on its website.

7-A.4. Storing your choice. The choice made in the banner or in “Cookie settings” is saved in your browser and, when you are signed in, also in your account, so it applies on all your devices. To evidence consent, the Operator keeps the history of choices: the value, the Policy version, the time and the method (banner, “Cookie settings”, transfer from the browser). You can withdraw consent at any time through “Cookie settings”; for a signed-in user the withdrawal applies on all devices. Your choice is kept in the browser’s local storage (localStorage), not in cookies. Deleting the Site’s data in the browser resets the choice only in that browser; for a signed-in user it is restored from the account at the next sign-in. When you sign out, your account’s choice is removed from that browser.

7-B. User journey analytics (OpenPanel)

7-B.1. To identify difficulties in the interface, the Operator uses OpenPanel hosted on its own server. After analytics consent, it collects screen and action names, operation outcomes, step counts and time to completion, as well as the template of the opened page address without identifiers or parameters (for example, “/airlines/[id]” instead of a specific airline’s address) and the domain of the site the visitor came from (for example, “google.com”) without the page address, and, if the link that started the visit carried the campaign tags utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, those tags. Scenarios are compared by player role category, a range of the airline's line count and device category. The IP address is used to determine the country, region, city and approximate coordinates of the locality, and browser data (User-Agent) to determine the device type, manufacturer and model, the operating system and the browser with their versions. The IP address is used only for this purpose and is not stored in the analytics system; the User-Agent string is not kept in the event database, only the listed details are. Form field contents, correspondence, names, email addresses and account identifiers are not sent. For a visitor who is not signed in, a random identifier links events in one tab and is not retained across page loads. For a signed-in user, events from different visits and devices are linked by a persistent pseudonym: it is derived from the account identifier with the Operator’s secret key, and without that key the account cannot be determined from it. Together with the pseudonym, generalised profile details are sent: the registration date and time since registration, interface language, rank, ranges of flight hours and number of flights, whether the user owns an airline and their role in an airline. If the user is a member of an airline, their events are attributed to that airline’s group, for which its pseudonym, name and ranges of fleet size and staff count are sent. After signing out, events are collected without the pseudonym, as for a visitor who is not signed in; after consent is withdrawn, the pseudonym and profile details are not sent. Events are kept for up to 90 days. Screen and page-content recording is disabled. Collection stops when consent is withdrawn through “Cookie settings”.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

  • be informed about how your data is processed;
  • request that your data be corrected, blocked or erased if it is incomplete, inaccurate, outdated or processed unlawfully;
  • withdraw your consent at any time (see section 9);
  • download a copy of your data — the “Download my data” button in your profile exports it as a JSON file;
  • delete your account — directly in your profile settings;
  • complain to the competent Russian data protection authority (Roskomnadzor) or to a court.

To exercise any of these rights, write to privacy@airvirtua.ru. The Operator replies within the period set by law.

9. Withdrawing consent

You can withdraw your consent by writing to privacy@airvirtua.ru or by deleting your account in your profile settings. After withdrawal the Operator stops processing and deletes (or anonymises) your data, except as described in clause 6.4.

10. Age restrictions

10.1. The Platform is not intended for anyone under 16. By registering you confirm that you are at least 16 years old.

10.2. If the Operator learns that an account was created by someone under 16, that account may be deleted and the personal data associated with it erased. A parent or legal guardian can report this to privacy@airvirtua.ru.

11. Changes to this Policy

The Operator may amend this Policy. The current version is always published at airvirtua.ru/privacy. The version date is shown at the top of the document.

See also: Consent to the processing of personal data.

We use Yandex Metrica to measure traffic and OpenPanel on our server to understand how players use the site. When you are signed in, OpenPanel links your visits under a pseudonym, without your name or email. Details in the Privacy Policy.