Privacy Policy for Mechanica
Last updated: 12 October 2026
This policy explains what Mechanica collects, why, and what you can do about it. It covers the Mechanica mobile game on iOS and Android.
The rules for playing the game are a separate document, our terms of service.
1. Who we are
Mechanica is made by Cito Studio, registered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Chamber of Commerce (KvK) number 42136766. We are the data controller for the information described here.
You can reach us about anything in this policy at contact@citostudio.nl.
2. The short version
You pick a username and start playing, with no sign-in. If you choose to link an Apple or Google account, we also hold the identifier and email address that provider gives us. We store your game progress under an account number, not under your name. We measure how the game is played so we can improve it, we show ads, and we sell optional purchases. We do not sell your data, and we never see your payment details.
The rest of this page is the detail.
3. What we collect, and why
Your account
When you start playing we create an account for you with no sign-in, identified only by a random account number. Until you link it, that is all the account record holds.
If you link an Apple account or a Google account, from your profile or when the game offers it, that gives us an account identifier from that provider, and, depending on the provider and the choices you make when you link, an email address. We add these to your account record, which is how we recognise you when you come back and on another device. Linking keeps the same account number and the same game progress.
Your game progress itself is stored under an account number. The only name in it is the username you choose, which you pick yourself and which does not have to be your real one.
When you start playing we also record the minimum age you confirmed and when you confirmed it, which is also when you accepted our terms. We do not ask for your date of birth. Section 11 explains the age.
Your game progress
Everything you do in the game: your workshop, your crew, your jobs, your cash and coins, your skills and safeguards, and a ledger of every change to your balances. This is the game. Without it there is nothing to come back to.
Your device, and technical information
Stored alongside your game record:
- which platform you are on, iOS or Android
- your device model and operating system version
- the app version you are running
- your language
- the country your connection appears to be in, as a two-letter country code
The country code is worked out on our servers from the network address your device connects with, and only the country is kept. Your network address itself is not stored with your game record. It appears in our server logs, as it does with any internet service, and those logs expire.
A device identifier, for referral abuse only
When you enter a friend's invitation code, your device supplies an identifier: identifierForVendor on iOS, the App Set ID on Android. We send it once, and our server stores only a SHA-256 hash of it. The identifier itself is never stored.
It exists for one purpose: stopping one person claiming referral rewards over and over from the same device. It is deliberately not your advertising identifier, it is never used for advertising, it is never linked to an ad profile, and it is never sent to our analytics.
How the game is used
We collect usage analytics through Google Analytics for Firebase: which screens you open, which steps you finish, where you stop. These records carry your Firebase account number, so they are linked to your account.
They also carry a set of descriptions of your progress, and every one of those is a band rather than an exact figure. Your coin balance is recorded as a range such as "10 to 24", never the number. The same is true of your cash, your job count, and the rest.
Your advertising identifier, your App Set ID and the device hash above are never sent to analytics.
Crash reports
If the game crashes we receive a diagnostic report through Firebase Crashlytics: what went wrong, the device, the operating system version, and your Firebase account number, so we can tell whether one player hit a problem twenty times or twenty players hit it once.
Notifications
If you allow notifications, your device gives us a push token so we can tell you a timer has finished or a job is waiting. Turning notifications off in your system settings stops this.
Advertising
The game shows ads between some actions, and offers ads you can choose to watch for a reward. Ads are served by Google AdMob, which also mediates Unity Ads. Ad networks are separate companies and use your information for their own purposes, including measuring and targeting ads. Their handling of your data is governed by their own policies:
- Google: https://policies.google.com/privacy
- Unity: https://unity.com/legal/game-player-and-app-user-privacy-policy
On iOS we ask whether you allow tracking, using Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt. If you say no, we do not use the advertising identifier (IDFA) and you will still see ads, they are just less relevant. You can change your answer at any time in iOS Settings.
On Android, ads may use the advertising ID, which you can reset or delete in your Android settings.
Purchases
Coin packs, the starter pack and subscriptions are sold through the App Store and Google Play. Those stores take your payment. We never see your card details. We use RevenueCat to check that a purchase is real and to keep track of what it entitles you to, identified by the same Firebase account number.
We record that a purchase happened, what it was, and its value, so we can grant what you bought and show it in your history.
If you ask Apple or Google to refund a purchase, the store may ask us how it was used before deciding. We answer through RevenueCat with facts about the purchase only: whether it was delivered, how much of it was used, how long you have been playing, and what you have bought and been refunded before. It is used only to decide your refund request, and we send no recommendation with it.
Achievements
If you are signed in to Game Center or Play Games, the game reports your achievement progress to that service so your badges appear where you expect them. If you are not signed in, nothing is reported and nothing breaks. This is Apple's or Google's service, under their policies.
4. What we do not collect
- Your payment details. The stores handle those.
- Your precise location. We derive a country from your connection, and nothing finer.
- Your contacts, your photos, your microphone, or your files.
- Anything you have not given us by playing the game.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with data brokers.
5. Who else sees it
We use these companies to run the game. They process data on our instructions, except for the ad networks, which act for themselves as well.
| Who | What for |
|---|---|
| Google (Firebase) | Sign-in, database, server logic, notifications, crash reports, analytics |
| Google (AdMob) | Serving ads and measuring them |
| Unity Technologies | Serving ads, through AdMob |
| RevenueCat | Checking purchases and tracking entitlements |
| Apple, Google | The app stores, payment, achievements, and deciding refund requests, for which we share the purchase-usage facts described under Purchases |
If we add ad networks we will name them here before they run. Two are planned: AppLovin and Mintegral.
6. Why we are allowed to (legal bases)
If you are in the EEA or the UK, the GDPR asks us to name a basis for each use:
- Performing our contract with you: your account, your game progress, your purchases. Without these there is no game to provide.
- Our legitimate interests: usage analytics, crash reports, and referral abuse prevention. We want to know which parts of the game lose people, to fix what breaks, and to stop one person farming referral rewards. We have weighed this against your interests, which is why the analytics carries bands instead of exact figures and why the device identifier is stored only as a hash.
- Your consent: personalised advertising, notifications, and sharing purchase-usage facts with a store when you ask it for a refund. You give it, and you can take it back.
7. Advertising consent, and analytics
In the EEA and the UK we show a consent form when you first start playing, asking about advertising. Your answer controls the advertising signals we pass on: whether ad data may be stored, shared with Google's ad products, and used to personalise what you see. Saying no does not remove ads, it makes them generic.
You can reopen that form at any time from the Ad Consent row in your profile and change your answer. The row appears only where the form applies, so you will see it in the EEA and the UK and not elsewhere.
Usage analytics is not governed by that form, and we want to be plain about it. The consent form is an advertising consent tool. The usage analytics described above is our own product measurement: it tells us which tutorial step loses players and which screens go unused. It is not shared with advertisers and it is not used to build an advertising audience.
If you would rather we did not collect it, write to contact@citostudio.nl and we will stop collecting it for your account, and delete what we hold.
8. How long we keep it
- Your game record for as long as your account exists. That includes an account you never linked: it stays until you delete it. If we ever start removing unlinked accounts that have not been played for a long time, we will say how long here before we do.
- Analytics for up to 14 months, then it expires automatically.
- Crash reports for up to 90 days.
- Purchase records for as long as tax and accounting rules require, which is longer than the rest and is not ours to shorten.
- Server logs for up to 30 days.
9. Your rights
If you are in the EEA or the UK you can ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict what we do with it, or hand it to someone else. You can object to anything we do on the basis of legitimate interests, including the analytics. Where we rely on your consent you can withdraw it, and that does not make what we did before it unlawful.
If you are in California you can ask what we collect, ask us to delete it, and you will not be treated differently for asking. We do not sell or share personal information as those words are used in the CCPA.
Write to contact@citostudio.nl. We will answer within one month.
You can also complain to a data protection authority. Ours is the Dutch Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, at autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl, and you may instead go to the authority where you live. If you disagree with how we handled something, we would rather hear from you first.
10. Deleting your account
Open the game, tap your profile, and choose Delete Account. If you have not linked an account, the same button is called Restart Game, because deleting the account is how a new workshop starts; it erases exactly the same things. You are asked to confirm twice, and the second step asks you to type a word, so it cannot happen by accident. Deletion runs immediately and cannot be undone.
If you cannot open the game, write to contact@citostudio.nl from the address of the account you linked, or tell us your username, and we will do it for you. There is also a page at mechanicathegame.com/delete-account explaining both routes.
Deleting removes your game record, your referral records, your sign-in account including the email address held there, and your analytics history.
Purchase records are the exception. Tax rules require us to keep them, so they are retained without your game record attached.
If you have a membership, deleting your account does not cancel it. The App Store and Google Play bill that, not us, so cancel it in your store account or it keeps charging you.
Deleting the app does not delete your account. Your progress is on our servers so that it survives a new phone, but only a linked account can reach it from one: an account you never linked cannot be signed back into.
11. Children
Mechanica is not aimed at children.
When you start playing, you confirm that you are at least the minimum age the law of your country sets for agreeing to how your information is handled. That age is 13 where the law sets none, and higher in some countries. The first screen shows you the one that applies, worked out from the country your connection appears to be in, or from your device's region setting when that cannot be worked out. We record the age you confirmed and when. We do not ask your date of birth, and we do not check the answer.
We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under that age. If you believe a child has given us their information, write to contact@citostudio.nl and we will remove it.
12. Where your data goes
We run on Google Cloud in Europe. Some of the companies in section 5 are in the United States, so your information may be transferred there. Those transfers rely on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, or on the company's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
13. Changes
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If the change matters, for example a new category of data or a new ad network, we will tell you in the game before it takes effect.
14. Contact
Write to contact@citostudio.nl.
Cito Studio, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. KvK 42136766.