Hive Privacy Policy

Who we are

Cocoon owns and operates the Cocoon Shell application and Hive. Hive is an optional social service for Cocoon Shell. Questions, privacy requests, and deletion requests can be sent to support@cocoon-shell.com.

Information we collect

Account and authentication information

When you create or sign in to a Cocoon account, we process your email address, account identifier, authentication records, and security information needed to keep you signed in. If you use Google or Discord to sign in, we receive the identifiers and basic account details that provider makes available for authentication. Hive does not receive your Google or Discord password.

Profile and social information

We store information you choose to add, such as your username, display name, status, profile picture, banner, profile visibility, favourite games, games in rotation, widget layout, connections, friend requests, friendships, blocks, and friend-request preferences.

We also save status changes for your activity history. Clearing your status removes earlier status updates from friends' feeds, while retaining them in your personal account history until your account is deleted.

When live presence is enabled, Hive and connected Cocoon Shell devices send small activity signals to show whether you are Online, Away, or Do not disturb. We store your chosen availability setting, while live connection state is temporary. Invisible hides your online status and Now Playing from other people without stopping your activity or achievement syncing. We do not keep a separate history of presence heartbeats.

Reports, appeals, and moderation

If you submit a report or appeal, we store the category, details you provide, the account involved, relevant profile information captured when the report is made, its review state, and the outcome shown to you. We keep a restricted audit record of staff actions so that moderation decisions can be reviewed and abuse of staff access can be investigated.

Cocoon Shell activity and device sync

If you connect Cocoon Shell to Hive, Cocoon Shell can send game identifiers and titles, platform, session start and end times, active playtime, local date and time-zone offset, session revisions or deletions, device identifiers, and current game presence. We use this to sync your activity, show Now Playing, and calculate playtime and game statistics without repeatedly scanning your full session history.

Connected services

If you link Discord, we may store your Discord user ID, display name, avatar URL, profile URL, connection visibility, and verification time. For supporter access, we also store whether the linked account was observed with the Tipper or Monthly Supporter role and timestamps used to keep that access current. We do not read or store Discord messages or presence, and the supporter bot does not keep a separate persistent member database.

If you link RetroAchievements, we process your RetroAchievements username, public profile details, points and completion statistics, achievement unlocks, and refresh or verification state. Game names, artwork, platforms, and other catalogue metadata may be matched against our game catalogue, which is sourced from services such as IGDB.

Technical information

Our infrastructure providers may process IP addresses, request times, browser or device information, and limited diagnostic and security logs when you use Hive. Hive also uses browser storage needed for authentication, account recovery, security, and local interface state. We do not use third-party advertising trackers.

How we use information

• create, authenticate, secure, and support Cocoon accounts;
• provide profiles, friends, widgets, activity, playtime, and device sync;
• connect services you explicitly choose to link;
• verify supporter access from roles in the official Cocoon Discord server;
• process reports and appeals, enforce the Community Guidelines, and protect users;
• prevent abuse, enforce bounded request limits, and diagnose failures; and
• comply with legal obligations and respond to valid requests.

Where applicable under UK or European data-protection law, we rely on performing the service you request, our legitimate interests in operating and securing Hive, your consent where required, and compliance with legal obligations.

What other people can see

Your username is used to identify your Hive profile. Other profile information is shown according to the visibility and connection settings available in Hive. Information marked public may be viewed by anyone; friends-only information is limited to accepted friends; and private information is limited to you and the systems needed to operate Hive.

The home activity feed shows your own and accepted friends' first plays, achievement unlocks, and shared status updates from the past 30 days. Current profile visibility, blocks, and RetroAchievements connection visibility control what is included. Invisible temporarily hides your activity from friends' feeds; switching back can make earlier game and achievement activity visible again. The 30-day feed window does not delete your older game or achievement records.

Blocking removes an existing friendship and prevents both accounts from seeing each other's profile or sending a new friend request. Reports, appeals, Discord supporter entitlement records, authentication details, device credentials, and detailed game-session records are not exposed as public profile data. Please avoid placing sensitive personal information in public profile fields.

When we share information

We share information only as needed to operate Hive, when you direct us to connect a service, when required by law, or to protect Hive and its users. The services currently involved may include:

• Supabase for authentication, database, file storage, and server functions;
• Cloudflare for website hosting, delivery, and network protection;
• Hetzner for narrowly scoped background services, including supporter-role checks;
• Google and Discord when you choose their sign-in or connection features;
• RetroAchievements when you link and refresh that integration; and
• IGDB as a source of game catalogue metadata.

We do not sell your personal data.

Retention and deletion

We keep account, profile, social, activity, and sync information while your Cocoon account remains active or while it is needed to provide the feature. Short-lived authorization, pairing, rate-limit, and verification records expire or are replaced as the related flow completes. Limited security and diagnostic records, plus protected backups, may remain for their configured retention periods before being overwritten or deleted.

Resolved report evidence and appeal details are kept only for the period needed to review decisions, prevent repeated abuse, and meet legal or security requirements. Restricted moderation audit records may be retained for longer where they are needed for accountability. We periodically review these periods and remove or anonymize records that are no longer necessary.

Connected-service data is no longer used after you disconnect that service. Discord identity and supporter records are removed from Hive when the Discord connection or Cocoon account is deleted. Monthly Supporter access expires automatically when it is no longer verified. Some derived or cached data may take a short time to disappear from backups and delivery caches.

You can download your Hive data or delete your Cocoon account from Account settings. You can also request deletion of Discord API data or other personal data by emailing support@cocoon-shell.com from the email address associated with your account. We may need to confirm your identity before completing a request. A limited record may be retained where the law permits or requires it, including records needed to protect users, resolve disputes, or document a moderation decision.

Security and international processing

We use access controls, row-level authorization, encrypted network connections, bounded credentials, and encryption at rest for stored service data. No internet service can be guaranteed completely secure, but we work to limit the information each component can access and to respond appropriately to security incidents.

Our service providers may process information in countries other than your own. Where required, those providers use recognized legal safeguards for international transfers.

Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export, restrict, object to the processing of, or delete your personal data, and to complain to your local data-protection authority. You can change supported profile visibility and connection settings within Hive, manage blocked users, disconnect linked services, download your data, delete your account, or contact us to exercise a right that is not available in the interface.

Children

Hive is not intended for children under 13 or below the minimum age required to use the service in their country. If you believe a child has provided personal data contrary to this requirement, contact us so we can investigate and delete it where appropriate.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Hive changes. We will publish the revised version here and update the date above. If a change materially affects how we use personal data, we will provide additional notice where appropriate.