Privacy Policy

Effective 5 October 2026 · Last updated 13 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data FLAIR SIM processes when you visit this site, sign up for updates, buy a product or use our aircraft, why, and what your rights are under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In short: we collect only what we need to sell you a licence and protect it from piracy. There are no user accounts and no advertising tracking, analytics cookies are set only if you accept them, and the aircraft collects no flight or usage data.

1. Who we are

FLAIR SIM is an independent project. The data controller is the person who runs it, reachable at hello@flair-sim.com. For any privacy request, write to that address.

2. What we process and why

Mailing list ("Notify me")

• Data: your email address; the date, time and IP address of your signup request and of your confirmation; the version of this policy in force at that moment.
• Purpose: sending you news about FLAIR SIM products (development updates, betas, release announcements). The timestamps and IP address are kept only as proof of your consent.
• Legal basis: your consent (art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), given by confirming the link we email you (double opt-in). You can withdraw it at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing.
• Retention: until you unsubscribe, at which point the record is deleted. Signups that are not confirmed are deleted after 30 days.

Purchases

• Email address: you enter it on our purchase page before paying. It becomes your FLAIR SIM account, and each email address can hold one licence: we check that it does not already have one, then pass it to Stripe, where it cannot be changed.
• Data: name, email address, billing country/address and tax details you enter at checkout; order number, amount, currency, date; the licence key issued to you; the version of the End User License Agreement you accepted and when.
• Payment details: payments are handled entirely by Stripe on its own secure pages. We never see or store your full card number or other payment credentials.
• Purpose: concluding and performing the sale, delivering your licence key by email, customer support, calculating and paying taxes, keeping accounting records.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (art. 6(1)(b)) and compliance with tax and accounting obligations (art. 6(1)(c)).
• Retention: accounting and tax records are kept for the period required by tax and accounting law (up to 10 years); other order data for as long as your licence is in use and for the limitation period for related claims.

Licence activation and anti-piracy

• What the aircraft sends: each time it is loaded, the aircraft contacts our licence server over an encrypted connection and sends only: your licence key, a hardware identifier, a one-time random number used for the cryptographic handshake, and the public part of a device key with a signature made with it. The hardware identifier is the unique installation ID that your operating system assigns to your computer (on Windows, the MachineGuid); it does not contain your name, files or any other information about you. Once the aircraft has finished loading, its copy-protection component also sends one short protection report: how many times and when the simulator opened each of our protected model files, whether any of them was accessed in a way the simulator never uses, and the version of the component. A further report is sent only if our model files are accessed after loading in a way the simulator never does. These reports name only our own files; they contain no flight data, no personal data and nothing about other software on your computer.
• Device key: the first time you activate, the aircraft creates a new cryptographic key on your computer, inside its security chip (TPM) or, if your computer has no active TPM, in the protected key storage of Windows. The private part never leaves your computer and is never sent to us; we receive only the public part, which lets our server check that each launch comes from the computer registered to your licence. The key is generated by the aircraft for this purpose only: it is not a serial number of your hardware and reveals nothing about you or your computer. Reinstalling Windows, clearing the TPM or changing computer creates a new key; you can then move your licence to the new computer in FLAIR SIM Manager, or ask us to reset your devices.
• What the aircraft does not collect: no flight data, routes, settings, usage analytics or crash reports, and nothing about how you fly. The only technical data sent is the licence handshake and the protection report described above.
• What we record: the devices registered to your licence (their hardware identifier, the public part of their device key and whether that key is held in a TPM) and any unauthorised devices that tried to use it; activation and download events with their date and time; the protection reports described above (we keep the most recent 30 per licence); and, in our web server logs, the IP address of each request.
• Watermarking: the aircraft files delivered to you carry an invisible marker unique to your purchase, so that a leaked copy can be traced back to the licence it came from.
• Purpose: making the product work under the licence you bought, limiting it to the permitted number of devices, preventing and pursuing piracy and licence sharing.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (art. 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in protecting our software from piracy (art. 6(1)(f)). You can object to processing based on legitimate interest (see section 7).
• Automated decisions: an activation is refused automatically when the device limit of a licence is reached. Revoking a licence is always decided by a person, and you can contact us to contest it or to reset your devices (e.g. when you change computer).
• Retention: for as long as the licence exists. Activation logs are kept for up to 12 months; data relating to a suspected infringement may be kept for as long as needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

FLAIR SIM Manager sign-in

• How it works: FLAIR SIM Manager, the app that installs and updates the aircraft, lets you sign in with the email address you bought with. There is no password: we email you a 6-digit code, and entering it signs you in. You can skip signing in and type your licence key instead.
• Data: your email address (already part of your purchase); the sign-in codes, which we keep only as a one-way hash, in memory, for at most 10 minutes; the times codes were requested for an email address during the last hour, to block abuse (this applies to any address typed in, and is kept in memory only); for each signed-in session, a one-way hash of its random session token with its creation and expiry dates; and the dates on which you moved a licence to a new computer.
• On your computer: the Manager keeps your email address and session token in a file encrypted by Windows for your user account, and the version and date of the End User License Agreement you accepted. When you install, it sends that version and date to our server together with your licence key, so we can record your acceptance on the licence.
• Purpose: letting you sign in without a password, showing the licences bought with your email address, and letting you move a licence to a new computer yourself.
• Legal basis: performance of the contract (art. 6(1)(b)); the limits on codes and attempts are based on our legitimate interest in keeping accounts secure (art. 6(1)(f)).
• Automated decisions: a licence can be moved from the Manager at most twice every 30 days, and too many wrong codes or code requests are blocked for a while. Contact us if you need more moves.
• Retention: a session ends when you sign out, after 90 days, or when you have more than 10 sessions (the oldest is removed). Licence moves are kept for as long as the licence exists.

SimBrief flight-plan import

• If you use the SimBrief import in the aircraft's CDU, the aircraft sends the SimBrief username you enter directly to SimBrief to download your flight plan. We do not receive it. The username is saved only in the aircraft's configuration file on your computer, so you don't have to type it again. SimBrief's own privacy policy applies to that request.

Website analytics (only with your consent)

• Data: if you accept analytics cookies, Google Analytics 4 records the pages you visit, when, how you reached the site (e.g. a link or search engine), your approximate location (country and city, derived from your IP address, which Google Analytics does not store), your device type, browser and screen size, and how you interact with the pages. It uses the cookies _ga and _ga_WQPDYHZBVY, which last up to 2 years.
• Purpose: understanding how many people visit the site and which pages are useful, so we can improve it. Google signals and advertising features are switched off; the data is not used for advertising or to build profiles.
• Legal basis: your consent (art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and the ePrivacy rules on cookies). Google Analytics does not load at all until you click "Accept". You can withdraw consent at any time via the "Cookies" link in the site footer or the cookie settings; the analytics cookies are then deleted.
• Retention: analytics data is kept in Google Analytics for up to 14 months. Your choice (accept or reject) is stored only in your browser for 6 months, after which we ask again.

Website and support

• Our web server records technical data for every request (IP address, date and time, page requested, browser type) to keep the site secure and working — legitimate interest (art. 6(1)(f)); kept for 14 days unless needed to investigate an attack.
• If you email us, we use your message and address to answer you and keep them for as long as needed to handle your request.

3. Who receives your data

We do not sell your data or share it with anyone for their own marketing. We use these providers, which process data on our behalf under a data processing agreement (art. 28 GDPR) or, for Stripe's own regulatory obligations, as independent controllers:

• Stripe — payments, tax calculation and fraud prevention (stripe.com/privacy).
• Mailtrap — delivery of our emails (confirmation, licence key, sign-in codes, newsletters).
• Hetzner Online (Germany) — hosting of this site and of the licence server.
• Google (Google Ireland Ltd and Google LLC) — website analytics, only if you accept analytics cookies (policies.google.com/privacy).
• Where applicable, an accountant and, where required by law, tax and judicial authorities.
• In case of piracy, licence sharing or attacks on our systems: the purchase and activation records linked to the licence involved may be disclosed to lawyers, payment providers, the platforms hosting infringing copies, and law-enforcement or judicial authorities, to the extent necessary to establish, exercise or defend our rights (legitimate interest, art. 6(1)(f)).

Where a provider transfers data outside the European Economic Area, it does so on the basis of an adequacy decision (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework) or of the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

4. Cookies

This site uses no advertising cookies, session recording or cross-site tracking. The only cookies are those of Google Analytics, described in section 2, and they are set only if you click "Accept" in the cookie banner; until then Google Analytics is not loaded at all. "Reject" or closing the banner means no analytics cookies. You can change your choice at any time via the cookie settings (also linked as "Cookies" in the site footer).

To remember your choice, your browser stores a small preference (not a cookie) for 6 months. Fonts and images are served from our own server. When you go to checkout you are taken to Stripe's pages, which use their own cookies as described in Stripe's policy.

5. Security

All traffic to flair-sim.com and to the licence server is encrypted with HTTPS (TLS). Payment details never pass through our servers. Licence and customer records are stored on our own server, and access to them is restricted and password-protected. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep the data we hold to the minimum described above.

6. Data breaches

If a security incident affects your personal data, we will notify the competent supervisory authority within 72 hours where the law requires it, and inform you without undue delay if the incident is likely to put your rights at high risk, explaining what happened and what you can do (arts. 33 and 34 GDPR).

7. Your rights

You can ask us for access to your data, rectification, erasure, restriction, data portability, and you can object to processing based on legitimate interest, by writing to hello@flair-sim.com. You can withdraw consent to the mailing list at any time via the unsubscribe link in every email. We answer within one month. Some data (e.g. invoices) cannot be erased before the legal retention period ends.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the EU country where you live, work, or where you believe the infringement took place.

8. Users outside the EU

We apply this policy, and honour the rights described in section 7, for every user wherever they live. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, including within the meaning of the California Consumer Privacy Act.

9. Children

Minors can buy our products with the consent of a parent or guardian, as set out in the EULA; the purchase data described above then concerns the parent or guardian who completes the order. To join the mailing list you must be at least 16, or have a parent's or guardian's consent (or be at least the lower age set by the law of your country, which cannot be under 13). We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13; if we learn that we have, we delete it.

10. Links to other sites

This site and the aircraft may link to or connect with other services, such as Stripe or SimBrief. Their own privacy policies apply to what you do there.

11. Changes

If we change this policy we will publish the new version here with a new date, and tell mailing-list subscribers and customers about material changes by email.

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