Privacy

On your phone

Your games, streak, settings and leagues are saved in your browser, with a random ID made up for your device the first time you play. The ID isn’t your name, number or email; it’s how the game knows your answers are yours.

Erase my games and streak, in Settings, clears all of that, takes you out of your leagues and gives you a new ID. Answers already sent stay with the old ID, which can no longer be matched to your phone.

When you play

Each answer you type goes to our server to be checked, and is saved with the day, the question, whether it counted, how long you took and your ID. So are a few moments in a game: starting, finishing, running out of time, pressing “That should count”, sharing your result and opening a shared link.

If you press “That should count”, your phone also keeps what you typed, and for a week after asks our server, when you open the game, whether it’s on the list yet, so it can tell you. Those checks aren’t saved.

We use them to mark answers fairly, set each answer’s rarity, improve the questions and show the day’s numbers, such as how many players gave each answer. Something typed by enough players can appear, with no ID, under “What England said”.

If we later add an answer you typed and were turned away for, we may give you its miles: a record of that is saved with your ID, and your phone asks our server for it the next time you open the game.

We don’t save your IP address. It’s used for a moment to slow down floods of requests, then forgotten.

Only if you use them

Leagues. Your nickname, scores and answers are shown to the league’s other members: for each question, the answer from our list that counted, never what you typed. They see today’s only once they’ve finished today’s journey themselves. Leave a league and your nickname goes with you. Whoever started a league can see when each member last played and can remove a member; your games stay, and you can rejoin from the link.

If you join a league again under the same name, you can say that an earlier entry which has gone quiet is yours. Its scores then count for you in that league only, and we keep a note of the two IDs and the old nickname so it can be undone. Whoever started the league can undo it for two weeks, and joining again from the old device always takes the entry back.

Moving to another device. A copy of your games waits under a one-time code. It’s deleted once it’s used, or after 24 hours. The device you move to then shares the ID of the one you moved from, and what we held under its own ID moves to the shared one. Where both devices played the same day, the further game goes under the shared ID and the other stays under the old one.

Suggesting a question. We keep what you send, with your ID. Your first name and county appear in the game only if we use your question. Your email, if you give it, is only for telling you that, and is never shown.

Hosting

Boreen runs on Vercel, with its server in London, and its database is with Neon, in London. Like any host, Vercel sees your IP address and browser with each request and keeps short-lived logs to run and protect the site.

Visitor numbers come from Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. It counts pages, countries, device types and the sites people arrive from, and forgets each visitor within a day.

No cookies, no trackers

Boreen sets no cookies for players; the only one is the owner’s admin login. There are no ad networks or third-party trackers, and nothing is sold or shared for advertising.

Ads

Boreen is getting ready to show ads from Google AdSense, run by Google Ireland, to help pay for it. None load yet. When they start, Google and its partners will use cookies to show ads and measure them, and ads can be based on your visits to Boreen and other sites. In the UK, the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, you’ll be asked first, and ads there will be personalised only if you agree. This page will say more when they start.

Google explains how it uses information from sites like this at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and you can manage personalised ads from Google at myadcenter.google.com.

How long we keep it

Answers, game events and suggestions are kept while Boreen runs, unless you ask us to delete yours.

Backup copies, with Neon and on our own computer, are kept for about three months, so anything deleted is gone from them within that time.

Your say

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, or have it corrected or deleted, at hello@boreen.co.uk. We don’t know who you are, so tell us what to look for: your league and nickname, or the email or question you sent. Your answers are saved only under your phone’s ID, so Erase my games and streak is the way to cut them loose from you.

If you’re unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.