What we keep, and why

For kids: the short version

• Your game stays with youThe game remembers where you are on your own phone, tablet or computer. We do not get a copy.
• Nobody sees your nameAny name you type stays on your device. There is no chat and no scoreboard in English.
• No adsNobody pays us to show you things, and we do not sell anything about you.
• Keep it privatePlease do not type your real full name, your school, your address or your phone number. Make up a name instead. If anything feels strange, tell a grown-up.

The share buttons work only when you press them. On the home page they send a link to the game. In the daily challenge they share your stars and score, never your name. Ask a grown-up before you share.

For parents: in short

• No personal detailsWe do not ask for a real name, email, phone number, address, photo, voice or exact location.
• No accounts, no game serverIn English, the game does not sign players in and does not connect to our game server. Saves live in the browser on your device.
• No ads, no tracking cookiesNo advertising, no analytics service that follows a person, and no selling of information. The web host counts visits in totals (see "The services we rely on").
• Private by defaultNothing is public, nobody can contact your child through the game, and there are no purchases for real money.

Who is responsible for the information

The game is developed and operated by Yam Shaham. For any question or request about privacy, including a request from a parent, write to [email protected].

What is kept on your device

The game keeps its information in the browser's local storage, not in cookies. It stays on your device, and the game does not send it anywhere:

• Your journey: up to three players on one device, each with their own progress, level, crystals, items and cards.
• The hero: a name the player chooses for the story (up to 24 letters, and it can be made up) and whether the hero is a boy or a girl.
• The daily challenge: the fighter you chose, the name you typed for yourself (2 to 14 letters), and your own results and records.
• Settings: sound and music, full screen, difficulty and language.

To delete the saves, use the "Players" button on the home page ("Delete player" or "Start over"), or clear this site's data in the browser settings. Clearing the site's data removes everything above.

How the game picks English or Hebrew

When you first open the game, it looks at two settings of your browser: the list of languages you prefer, and the name of your time zone (for example "Asia/Jerusalem"). It uses them only to choose between Hebrew and English. A time zone name only names a broad region of the world, like "Asia/Jerusalem". It is not your address, your GPS position or your IP address. Both settings are read on your device, they are not sent anywhere, and only the answer ("English" or "Hebrew") is saved. You can change it any time with the globe button on the pause page.

What is sent over the internet

Opening the game downloads its own files from our host: pages, pictures, sounds, music and videos. Some are fetched ahead of time so the board opens fast. Your saves and your names are not part of these requests.

• Sharing: the share buttons open your device's share sheet or WhatsApp with a link to the game, but only after you press them. On the home page the shared text is a fixed sentence and the web address. When you share a daily challenge result, the text shows the day, your stars, your rank, your points and the time for each part, and the game never adds your name. The challenge link carries the same scores in the part of the address after the "#". Browsers never send that part to a server, and it holds no name.
• Links that leave the game: a few pages, like the credits, link to other websites. Those sites have their own privacy rules.

The English edition does not send your progress, your names or your results to us or to anyone else.

What others can see

Nothing. The public leaderboards, the daily and weekly boards, the weekly vote and the online duel are switched off in the English edition. No nickname is ever shown to other players, and there is no way to chat or send messages. Your records are kept on your device only. If we ever add an English leaderboard, we will update this page first, explain how nicknames are checked, and ask a parent where the law requires it, before anything is collected.

The services we rely on

• Cloudflare Pages (a global server network) hosts the site's files. Like any website host, it sees technical data about each request, such as the IP address and the browser type, and keeps it in short-lived access logs for security and operation, under its own policy. The host may also count page visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which Cloudflare describes as working without cookies and without following people from site to site. We see totals, never a person.
• WhatsApp (only if you choose to share) receives the link you decide to send.

Because the host is a global network, a request from your device may be handled in another country.

The English edition does not use Google Analytics, advertising networks, social media plug-ins or tracking cookies.

What is not collected

• Email, phone, postal address, date of birth or a real name.
• Photos, videos or voice recordings of you, contacts, camera and microphone.
• Your precise location.
• Anything for advertising or for building a profile of a child.

Nothing is sold, and nothing is passed to anyone for marketing.

Children, and the laws that protect them

Wordkeepers is made for readers aged 8 and up, so we treat it as a children's service and keep to the strictest rules that apply to it:

• United States, COPPA: apart from the technical data that every web request carries (the IP address and browser type, seen by the host as described above), which is used only to deliver and secure the site (what COPPA calls "support for internal operations"), we do not collect personal information from children under 13. If we ever need more, we will first tell parents and obtain verifiable parental consent. A parent can write to us at any time to ask what we hold about their child, to have it deleted, or to refuse any further collection.
• United Kingdom, the Children's Code (Age Appropriate Design Code): settings are private by default, nothing about a child is public, nobody can contact a child through the game, and there is no profiling, no location use and no advertising. We do not use pop-ups or tricks that push a child to share more, and there are no purchases for real money.
• European Union and United Kingdom, GDPR: we keep the least information we can. The little we see, the host's access logs, is processed to deliver and protect the website (a legitimate interest). For online services offered directly to children, the age at which a child may agree on their own is set by each country, between 13 and 16. The English edition collects no personal information that needs such an agreement, so none is asked for. If that changes, a parent will be asked first.

We think children are safest when a grown-up is nearby, so we suggest reading this page together.

How long we keep it

• What is on your device stays until you delete it.
• The host's access logs are kept for a short period set by the host, and then removed.
• We keep no database of English players, so there is nothing else to keep.

Your rights, and a parent's rights

You (or a parent, for a child) can ask what information we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, ask us to stop using it, and complain to a data protection authority in your country, for example the UK Information Commissioner's Office, your EU data protection authority, or the US Federal Trade Commission.

To ask, write to [email protected] and say what you would like. We have no accounts, so we may ask for one more detail to be sure we are talking to the right person. We will answer as soon as we can, and within the time the law gives.

Security

The site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). The English edition keeps no player database that could be breached, and what is on your device stays on your device. No method is perfect, but the information involved is very limited to begin with.

The apps in the stores

This page is about the English website. The Wordkeepers apps for Android and iPhone are described in the Hebrew privacy policy. If English is added to the apps, this page will be updated first.

Changes to the policy

If the English edition starts to collect other information, for example an English leaderboard, this page will be updated beforehand, and the date at the top will change.