Privacy policy
Last updated: November 13, 2026 (donations added)
Parallel States is an online civic game: two identical Americas, citizens vote on every decision. This page explains, in plain words, what the game stores about you and why. We keep as little as we can.
What we store
- Your account: the citizen name you pick, the nation you choose, and the date you joined.
- Your password, if you use one: only a salted hash of it (PBKDF2). Nobody, including us, can read your password.
- Sign in with Google, if you use it: only Google's anonymous account number for you (the "sub" identifier), so we can recognise you next time. We ask Google for the basic "openid" permission only. We do not receive your email address, your name or your photo.
- What you do in the game: your votes, endorsements, candidacies, forecasts, petitions, forum and party posts, private messages to your friends, friendships, and party membership.
- Security data: a one-way scrambled (hashed, salted) version of your internet address, used only to limit sign-up and sign-in attempts and stop abuse. Sign-in session cookies keep you signed in; they are strictly necessary and are not used for advertising.
If you donate
Donations go through Ko-fi. When you donate, Ko-fi tells us the name you typed, the amount, your message and whether you asked to stay private. We store those to show the supporters board on our donate page. Ko-fi also sends us your email address; we do not store it. If you made your donation private, your name and message are never shown, and only the amount counts towards the totals. To be taken off the board, contact us as described below.
What we do not do
- No advertising, no tracking cookies, no selling or sharing your data.
- No email collection, so we will never email you.
Who can see what
- Your citizen name, your posts and your public game actions (candidacies, party, office held) are visible to other citizens of your nation. Citizens of the other nation only see each nation's overall results.
- Your votes are secret: others see only totals.
- Private messages are visible only to you and the friend you write to. Party chat is visible only to party members.
- The game's organisers can remove posts and suspend accounts that break the rules. They do not read private messages.
Services we use
- Cloudflare hosts the site and its database, and runs Turnstile, the "are you human" check on sign-up and sign-in.
- Google, only if you choose "Continue with Google", to confirm who you are.
- Ko-fi, only if you donate. Ko-fi takes the payment; we never see your card details.
How long we keep it, and deleting your account
We keep your account while the game runs. To have your account and everything linked to it deleted, contact us through our Instagram account @parallelstates from the profile you want to be known by, and tell us your citizen name. We delete it within 30 days.
Children
Parallel States is meant for people aged 13 and over.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.