Privacy Policy
Last updated 2 November 2026
The short version. There is no account to create, so we never ask for your name or a password, and we do not know who you are. On the website you can choose to give us an email address so we can tell you when your balloon is found; it is optional, used only for that, and never shown to anyone. If you apply as a creator, we ask for one so we can send you your gift codes, and use it only for that.
Your location is used to put a balloon into the sky and to check you are close enough to catch one. The place a balloon is let go from is rounded to about a kilometre before anyone else can see it, and where you were standing when you caught one is never stored at all.
Who we are
Balloon Journeys is a game operated by ERV Teknoloji A.Ş., based in Istanbul, Türkiye. It is available as a mobile app and as the live map at balloonjourneys.com. This policy covers both.
Your account
The app signs you in anonymously the first time you open it. That gives you an account identifier and nothing else — no name, no email address, no password, no profile. We use the identifier to enforce the daily balloon limit, to show you your own balloons, and to deliver a reply to the person who sent the message.
The account lives on your device. If you delete the app you lose access to it, and with it your balloon history. We cannot restore it, because we have no way to recognise you.
The website works the same way: releasing a balloon there signs your browser in anonymously. If you add an email address afterwards, we send a one-time code to confirm it is yours, and from then on that address is attached to the account. We use it for two things only: to email you when your balloon is found or its journey ends, and to let you sign back in to your balloons from another browser. You can turn the emails off at any time from My balloons on the website, or from the link in every email.
Location
This is the part worth reading carefully, because the two cases are different.
When you release a balloon
Your coordinates are sent to us so the balloon has somewhere to start. We keep the precise point privately, and separately a version rounded to roughly 1.1 km. Only the rounded point is ever shown to anyone else — on the map, in a balloon's public journey, and in the feed of what is happening around the world.
When you catch a balloon
Your coordinates are used to check that you are within catching range, and then discarded. They are not written down. What we record is where the balloon was at that moment, which is public information already.
Place names
A journey card says a balloon was let go from, say, "Istanbul, Turkey". That name is looked up from the rounded point, never from your precise one — a town or province name is less exact than the coordinates the map already publishes, so it tells nobody anything new about where you were.
What else we store
- The message you write. It travels with the balloon and is revealed to whoever catches it. Until then nobody but you can read it.
- The balloon's journey — where it has been, how far it has gone, when it was found, and by how many people. This is public game data and carries no identity.
- A reply, if the finder writes one, so it can be shown to the sender.
- Notification settings. If you turn notifications on, we store a push token for your device and which of the two kinds you want. Turning them off removes the token.
- Your email address, only if you chose to add one on the website, and whether you want emails about your balloons.
- A scrambled form of your connection's address, when you release a balloon from the website. Free web balloons are limited per connection to stop one person taking all of them, so we keep a one-way hash of your IP address (not the address itself) for 48 hours and then delete it.
- Reports. If you report a message, we store the message you reported and the reason you gave, so we can act on it.
- A creator application, if you apply for a gifted balloon on our For creators page: your Instagram or TikTok handle, the balloon you picked, any note you add, and your email address. We use them only to review the application and to email you your codes.
- Anything you send us through the contact form — what you wrote, any reply address you chose to give, and your app version and platform, so we can make sense of a bug report.
What other people can see
Balloons are public objects. Anyone can see where a balloon is now, the rounded place it started from, how far it has travelled, how long it has been flying and whether it has been found. Nobody can see your account identifier, your exact position, or a message that is still in the air.
Who else is involved
- Supabase hosts the database, the anonymous sign-in and the server code.
- weatherapi.com provides the wind that moves the balloons, and the place names described above. It receives grid squares and rounded points — never your precise location, and never anything identifying you.
- Google Maps serves the map on the website and in the app, under Google's own privacy policy.
- Apple and Google deliver push notifications, if you have turned them on.
- Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a balloon released from the website is being released by a person rather than a script, under Cloudflare's own privacy policy.
- Brevo delivers the emails described above (the sign-in codes and the news about your balloon), if you gave us an address. It receives that address and the text of the email, nothing else.
- Slack tells our team the moment a creator application or a report of a message arrives, so it is dealt with quickly. It receives what that application or report contains, nothing else.
- Google Analytics measures visits to the website — pages viewed, roughly where from, and what device — so we can tell whether anyone is using it. It does not run in the app, and it never receives your account identifier or anything about your balloons.
We do not sell your data, and there is no advertising in the app or on the website.
How long we keep things
A balloon drifts until somebody finds it, or until it has travelled 10,000 km, at which point it pops on its own — a paid balloon can go up to 40,000 km, roughly a full trip around the world. Its journey stays on the public map for as long as it does. Messages and replies are kept as part of that journey. Reports and contact messages are kept until they have been dealt with, and for a reasonable period afterwards so that a repeated problem can be recognised.
Deleting your data
Use Contact the team in the app's settings (or the contact form on the website's Support page, from the same browser you released from) and say that you want your data deleted. That form carries your account identifier automatically, which is the only way we can tell which data is yours — a message sent any other way is one we have no means of matching to an account.
Balloons already released and caught by other people may remain on the public map as part of their journey, with the message removed.
Children
Balloon Journeys is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. Because we ask for no personal details beyond an email address, we have no way to verify age.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and say so in the app.
Contact
Use Contact the team in the app's settings. It reaches us directly, and because it carries your account identifier we can actually act on requests about your data.
This policy is governed by the law of Türkiye.