Privacy policy
Last updated 5 September 2026.
Who is responsible
Airside is sold through Paddle.com Market Ltd as merchant of record. For the purchase itself, the payment, the billing address, the tax calculation and the invoice, Paddle is the data controller and its privacy policy applies.
For your licence, your activations and anything you send us, the controller is Airside, reachable at the e-mail address below.
What we hold
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your e-mail address | It is your identity here. There are no passwords: signing in sends a six-digit code to this address |
| The Paddle customer and transaction references, the amount, the currency, the product, and the record Paddle sends us of the sale | To match a payment to a licence and to answer a payment dispute. Depending on Paddle, that record may include your billing country and the name on the order |
| Your licence key and edition | The licence you bought |
| A device identifier for each activated computer, derived on your own computer from its hardware. The underlying values are not sent to us | So a licence runs on your computers rather than on everyone's |
| The name Windows gives that computer | To tell two activations apart in support |
| Activation, download and licence-check times, and the network address each request came from | Support, and detecting one licence in use on many computers |
| Sign-in codes, stored hashed, with the network address that requested them | To check a code without holding it, and to limit how many can be requested |
| Actions taken in our support console | To establish what happened to an account and when |
We process this data to perform the contract with you, and, for the licence check and the detection of abuse, on our legitimate interest in protecting the licence.
Diagnostic bundles
If something goes wrong you can send us a diagnostic bundle. Airside asks first and sends nothing unless you agree. A bundle contains the application log including any crash information, the recording of that session, and the layout of the airport as the simulator supplied it. We also record the file name, size, checksum, source address and the result of the virus scan every upload is put through. Bundles are deleted after 60 days and are used only to answer the problem reported.
The licence check
Airside verifies your licence with our server when it starts, sending the licence key and the device identifier. The time and the network address are recorded. No usage data and no session content is sent.
What we do not do
- There is no telemetry in the application, and no third party analytics on this site.
- We do not sell, rent or share your data for anyone else's purposes.
- We do not profile you, and no decision about you is made automatically.
- We do not use your data to train models.
- We do not send marketing e-mail. Our e-mail is your licence, your sign-in codes, and replies to you.
Recipients
| Who | What they receive |
|---|---|
| Paddle | The payment. They are the merchant of record and their own privacy policy applies |
| Resend | E-mail delivery: your address and the message |
| netcup | Hosting, in the European Union |
| YouTube (Google) | Only if you press play on the trailer: your network address and the request for the video. Nothing reaches them if you do not |
Downloads and diagnostic bundles are served from our own server.
Cookies
The licence portal sets two cookies: one to keep you signed in, and one to prevent request forgery. Both are strictly necessary. No page on this site sets an advertising cookie, and no page loads a third party script on its own.
There is one thing you can choose to load. The trailer on the home page is hosted on YouTube, and what the page shows you until you press play is our own picture, served from our own server. Nothing is requested from YouTube unless you press it. If you do, YouTube receives your network address and whatever their player stores, and Google's privacy policy applies to that. Closing the player removes it from the page again.
Visiting this site
Our web server keeps a record of each page request: the page, the time, the result, the link you arrived from and what your browser says it is. The network address is shortened before it is written, so it points at a region rather than at a household. We keep these for about a month, to count visits and to see abuse, on our legitimate interest in running the site. Nothing is stored on your computer and no third party receives any of it.
Where it is held, and for how long
The server is in the European Union.
| What | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Sign-in codes | Minutes. They expire and are consumed |
| Diagnostic bundles | 60 days, then deleted automatically |
| Site visit records | About a month |
| Account, licence, activations and download records | While the licence exists |
| Order records | As long as tax and accounting law requires |
Your rights
Wherever you live, you may ask us for a copy of the data we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, ask us to restrict what we do with it, or object to it. Write to the e-mail address under Contact. We reply within 30 days and there is no charge.
On a deletion request we anonymise the account rather than erase the record that a sale took place, which tax law requires us to keep. Your e-mail address, computer names, network addresses and any diagnostic bundles are removed, and the licence stops working, as there is no longer an account for it to belong to.
You may also complain to the data protection authority for the country you live in.
Changes
Changes are published on this page with a new date above.
Contact
For anything on this page, including a request about your data, write to support@airsideatc.com.
Airside is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.