Privacy policy

Who is responsible for your data?

Two parties are involved, and the roles are simple. The venue is the data controller for its own customers and staff: it decides what its waiver asks, which families receive a birthday message, who works which shift and what goes into payroll. PlayArea OS is the processor, holding and handling that data on the venue's instructions and using it for nothing else.

PlayArea OS is itself the controller for a small set of data about the venue as a customer: the account holder's name and email, the subscription record, and anything you send to info@playareaos.com.

What does PlayArea OS hold for a venue?

Only what the venue's tiles need in order to work. Category by category:

• Staff logins. A name, an email, a role and a personal PIN used to unlock shared devices. Every sale and waiver records which staff member took it.
• Family records and waivers. The details a parent or guardian enters on the venue's waiver and booking forms, typically the adult's name and contact details and the children's names, plus the signed, versioned waiver itself. Where the venue asks for it, this includes health information about a child — a venue can add its own questions to its waiver, and an allergies-or-conditions question is one of the ones PlayArea OS provides ready to use. Whatever a parent answers is stored with that child's record and shown to the staff on the floor, because that is what it is for. A venue can also flag a customer record as needing medical awareness. There is one record per family, and it is the same record across waivers, parties, passes and messages.
• Parties, passes, loyalty and vouchers. Bookings with their package, date, deposit and balance, the birthday child's age where the venue records it, and a photograph of the birthday child where one is uploaded; multi-visit passes and their remaining visits; loyalty stamps; single-use vouchers and whether each has been redeemed.
• Sales. What was sold, when, at which branch, by whom, and how it was paid, recorded as cash, card or another tender.
• Play sessions. Which child is on the floor, on which wristband colour, when the session started and when it is due to end.
• Staff, rota and payroll. Shifts, leave, and clock-in events, which record the device's location at the moment of clocking in. Where the payroll tile is used: salary, deductions, the bank and identity details the WPS bank file and the MOHRE SIF require, gratuity and air-ticket accruals, and the payslips staff can view for themselves.
• Finance, stock and suppliers. Photographs of supplier bills, the figures read from them, profit and loss, the venue's VAT setting, supplier details, purchase orders and stock levels. This is business data, though a supplier contact is a person.
• Messages. Conversations in the WhatsApp inbox, the history of email and WhatsApp campaigns and reminders sent to each family, and each family's messaging preferences.
• Lost-child alerts and lost property. An open lost-child alert holds the details staff enter for the duration of the alert, including a photograph if one is attached; lost-and-found items hold a description and, if given, an owner's contact.
• Feedback. What a family writes on the venue's feedback page.

Where does the data live, and how is it protected?

Each organisation's records are kept apart from every other organisation's at the platform's foundations. The app and this site are served only over HTTPS with Strict Transport Security. Shared devices lock between staff and are unlocked by personal PIN, and what each role can refund, export or edit is set by the venue. A copy of the venue's records is made automatically, once a day at midnight venue time on Front Desk (kept 7 days), every 6 hours on Venue Manager (kept 14 days) and every hour on Business Suite (kept 28 days), and stored off-site, travelling over an encrypted connection to a storage provider that encrypts what it keeps. A venue can ask for its own copy at any time. The trust and security page describes each of these controls.

PlayArea OS runs on hosted infrastructure, and its providers cover the database, authentication, edge functions and file storage that hold each venue's records; hosting, content delivery and DNS for the app and this site; outbound email; subscription billing; and the AI behind PlayArea OS's AI features, described below. Outbound WhatsApp is delivered through Meta on the venue's own WhatsApp business account, and the automatic backups are held in an encrypted off-site object store. Where a venue connects an external point-of-sale, sales data is shared with that provider on the venue's instruction. These providers process data in their own facilities; PlayArea OS itself is operated from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Messaging and consent

Messaging is under the venue's own control. Welcome, birthday and feedback messages and broadcasts go by email or WhatsApp to the families on the venue's list, and a family's request to stop receiving them is honoured. Timer and party reminders relate to a visit or booking the family has already made.

Each venue owns its own WhatsApp business profile and its own message templates. Where a venue switches on PAi: WhatsApp (the WhatsApp auto-reply), incoming messages are answered automatically, without a person checking first, from the knowledge the venue wrote.

AI features

All AI in PlayArea OS runs on PlayArea OS's own AI account; a venue never supplies an AI key. Each feature sees only what it needs:

• PAi: Help and PAi: Owner answer from the venue's own records, and PAi: Owner runs the daily check. The app chat is kept 30 days and can be cleared at any time. With Telegram connected, answers and chosen alerts travel through Telegram.
• PAi: WhatsApp, the WhatsApp auto-reply.
• PAi: Invoices, which reads bills and invoices in Finance and in PAi: VAT; figures are reviewed before saving.
• PAi: VAT, which explains the venue's own VAT return from its figures and the published rules.
• PAi: VAT's tax-rule monitor, which reads public UAE tax-authority documents only and uses no venue data.
• PAi: Migration, which matches an imported file's columns from a privacy-filtered summary of the file.

Imported data

A venue may bring in an existing customer or product list from a spreadsheet or a supported export. The import shows a check report before anything is written and does not create duplicates when re-run. The venue is responsible for having the right to hold the data it imports. Waivers are always signed fresh in PlayArea OS; they are never imported.

How long is data kept?

For as long as the venue's subscription is active. If a payment is missed there is a three-day grace period, and if the account pauses after that, nothing is deleted. If the venue cancels, it keeps access until the end of the paid period and its data is then kept for a year in case it returns, and is deleted after that unless the law requires otherwise or the venue asks for it sooner. Backup copies are kept for 7 days on Front Desk, 14 days on Venue Manager and 28 days on Business Suite, and are then deleted automatically, including from the off-site copy.

Your rights, and how to use them

If you are a parent, a staff member or a supplier of a venue that uses PlayArea OS, your request to see, correct or remove your details goes to the venue, because the venue is the controller. Venues can view and edit their own records inside the app and can email info@playareaos.com for help with a deletion or export request. If you are the venue, the same address handles requests about your own account.

Children

Children's details are entered by a parent or guardian on the waiver or booking form, and every message goes to the adult's contact details. PlayArea OS never contacts a child.

Contact

Questions about this policy: info@playareaos.com. The terms of service cover the subscription itself.

PlayArea OS is operated by Minimania Kids Amusement Arcade FZCO, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and this policy is governed by the laws of the Emirate of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. To raise a question or a complaint about how your data is handled, write to info@playareaos.com.