DRAFT: needs review by a qualified UK solicitor/DPO before publishing.
Privacy policy
This policy is for parents, carers and teachers. There's a short version for children at the end, in For children.
Last updated: [DATE]
The short version
- Only grown-ups have accounts. Children never sign in, and we never ask them for anything. Children play on a grown-up's signed-in account.
- You can look around without an account, and start a list. Until you sign in, the list stays in your browser, not with us.
- Lists you make are stored with us, and belong to you. If you share one, anyone with its link can see its title and words, and a grown-up who signs in can play it. Nobody sees your email.
- Tags and your display name. If you give a list a tag, it's shared, and signed-in grown-ups who open it see the display name you chose. Grown-ups can follow your tag. You see how many follow it, never who.
- History and Following. When you open someone else's shared list, or play one of our ready-made lists, we keep it in your account's History so you can find it again. If you follow someone's tag, we keep that too. You can remove anything from either.
- We keep very little about your child: a name (a nickname is fine) and an avatar, and only if you choose, their school year and birth month. No surname, date of birth, photo or school.
- We keep what each child with a profile plays, so you can see their progress, while your account is active. If your account is locked, we keep it for 12 months, then delete it. A child who plays as "Someone else" isn't recorded.
- Teachers. If you tell us you're a teacher, a person on our team checks that your email address belongs to a school.
- Anyone can report a list. We don't ask who they are. To tell reporters apart we keep a scrambled code made from their internet connection, never the connection's address itself, and we delete it within 30 days.
- We look at reported lists, and can hide them or suspend or ban accounts. We keep a record of what we decide.
- No ads, no third-party analytics, no tracking pixels. We don't sell data or share it with anyone except the companies that help us run the service.
- One cookie, to keep you signed in, and some browser storage the service needs.
- You're in control. You can download everything, correct it, or delete a list, a History item, a follow, a child or your whole account at any time, even while your account is locked.
1. Who we are
Spellnino is run by [COMPANY], a company registered in England and Wales (number [COMPANY_NUMBER]), at [ADDRESS]. We're the "controller" of your personal data, which means we decide how it's used and we're responsible for it.
We're registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), registration number [ICO_REG_NUMBER].
Questions about privacy go to support@spellnino.com. We don't have a formal Data Protection Officer; our privacy lead reads that inbox.
2. What we collect
About you (the grown-up)
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your email address | To sign you in with a one-time code and send you service emails |
| A household name, if you give one (e.g. "The Patels") | To label your account. It's optional |
| When you confirmed you're 18 or over, and which version of our terms you agreed to | To show our accounts are for adults, and which terms apply to you |
| Sign-in records: when you signed in, which devices are signed in, and the "shared computer" choice | To keep your account secure and let you sign out other devices |
| Your plan: the dates of your free month, whether you've subscribed, whether your account is locked and since when, whether we've given it free (including as a teacher), renewal date, and a Stripe customer reference if you subscribe | To know what your account includes, and when to email you about it |
| A scrambled (hashed) copy of your email, made when your free month starts | So the free month can't be used twice |
If you tell us you're a teacher: that you ticked "I'm a teacher", your email's domain (for example oakfield.sch.uk), when you told us, whether we've confirmed it, and when. If we couldn't confirm it, a short reason |
To check the claim and give a confirmed teacher's account free, and to keep a record of what our team decided |
| If we give your account free: when it started, when it ends (if it has an end date), that our team gave it, and a short reason | To give it free, to end it on the right date, and to keep a record of what our team does |
| Your lists: each list's title, words, tag (if you give it one), when it was made and changed, and, if you share it, its share code and when you shared it | To store your lists, show them to you on every device, and let grown-ups you send the link to, or who follow the tag, play them |
| Your display name, if you set one (for example "Mr Dick") | To show it with your tagged lists, so the grown-ups who open them, and your followers, know whose lists they are |
| Who you follow: each grown-up's display name and tag you follow, when you followed, and when you last opened Following | To show you their new lists |
| How many people follow each of your tags (a count, worked out from other people's follows) | So you can see that a tag is being followed. We never show you who |
| Your History: lists you've opened from someone else's link, and our ready-made lists you've played. For each: which list, its title, how many words, and when you last opened it. Up to 50 | So you can find and play them again |
| If we take action on your account: whether it's suspended, the reason we gave you, and our moderation record | To apply our rules fairly, and to deal with appeals |
| Messages you send us, including appeals | To help you |
We don't ask for your name, phone number or home address. Your card details go straight to Stripe, our payment provider. We never see or store your full card number.
Before you sign in. You can browse the site and start a list in the list maker without an account. The list you type stays in your browser's storage on that device. It isn't sent to us until you sign in and save or share it. See section 11.
About your child
You can add up to 6 children as profiles, so each child can find themselves on "Who's playing?". You don't have to: children can also play as "Someone else", and then nothing about the game is kept.
| What | Kept? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A name | Yes | So your child can find themselves on "Who's playing?". A nickname is fine; it doesn't need to be their real name |
| An avatar (an emoji) | Yes | The same reason |
| School year | Optional | To suggest age-appropriate quick breaks and starter lists |
| Birth month and year (e.g. "2018-05") | Optional | To keep the school year right as they grow. We never ask for the day |
| Level setting (easy, normal, hard or auto) | Yes, with a default | To pitch the games |
| What they play: each session, each round, the word, the game, whether it was right first time, how many tries, how long it took, and whether they stopped early. If they get a word wrong, what they typed or tapped (up to 3 wrong spellings a round) | Yes, while your account is active | To show you progress and to choose what to practise next, including spotting a spelling mistake they keep making |
| Progress worked out from that: word levels, words learnt, points, days played | Yes, while your account is active | The same |
| Mistake patterns you hide | Only if you hide one | So the pattern doesn't show or change their games |
"Who's playing?" When a list is opened to play and your account has children's profiles, the app asks which child is playing. The game is recorded to that child. If you choose "Someone else", nothing is recorded.
Your account is active in its free month, while you're subscribed, or while we've given it free (for example as a teacher). From the day you add a child, what they play is kept, so you can see their progress.
If your account is locked (the free month or your subscription has ended), your children's profiles, history and progress are kept, and you can still see them. Nothing new is added, because the games are paused. Everything carries on when you subscribe. If you don't, we delete the account 12 months after it was locked, after emailing you first. You can download or delete it sooner at any time. See section 8.
Please don't type personal information into lists, including their titles. Lists are for spelling words. This matters more if you share a list, because the grown-ups you send it to, and anyone they pass it on to, can see it.
About people who play a shared list
A shared list plays only on a signed-in grown-up's account. The grown-up who opens the link, and their household, are already our account holders, so the table above applies to them.
- The grown-up's History. Opening someone else's shared link while signed in adds it to that account's History (see "About you", above). The person who shared the list isn't told who opened it.
- Following. If the list has a tag, the signed-in grown-up sees the owner's display name and can follow them. The owner sees only how many people follow, never who.
- The child. The game is recorded to the child picked on "Who's playing?", as for any list, and only that household can see it. As "Someone else", nothing is kept.
- Before signing in, a shared link shows the list's title and words, but it can't be played. We don't record who looked. Our servers see the request, like any web page (see "Technical data" below).
About people who report a list
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Which list, the reason chosen, and any details typed in (up to 500 characters) | To look at the report and decide what to do |
| A scrambled code made from the reporter's internet connection and the list (a keyed hash of the IP address and the list's share code). We never store the IP address itself with the report, and we delete the code when the report is dealt with, or after 30 days | To count how many different people reported a list, so a list reported by several people can be hidden automatically, and to stop one person sending lots of reports |
| When it was sent | The same |
| A copy of the list as it was (its title and words) | So we can decide fairly, and deal with an appeal, even if the list is changed or deleted afterwards |
You can report a list whether or not you're signed in. We don't ask reporters for their name or email, and we never tell a list's owner who reported it. Please don't type your name or contact details into a report. If you report by email instead, we'll have your email address and whatever you write.
About how the service is used
- Usage counts. When things happen in the app (for example, "a session started" or "a list was shared"), the app sends us the event name. We add it to a daily total and keep only the total. These counts never include a child's nickname, id or words, a list's words, or your email.
- Error reports. If the app breaks, it sends us the error message, the screen it happened on and the app version. We delete these after 30 days. They're designed not to contain personal data.
- Technical data. Like any website, our servers see your IP address and browser details when you connect. We use them to deliver pages, stop abuse (for example, limiting how many sign-in codes, list views or reports one connection can make) and keep the service secure. We don't use them to work out where you live or to track you.
What we don't collect
- No surname, date of birth, photo, voice recording or school for any child.
- Nothing about a child's play when they play as "Someone else".
- Nothing about a teacher beyond their email domain and our check: no name, role, school records or documents.
- No location, beyond what an IP address implies.
- No contacts, camera or microphone.
- No advertising identifiers.
- Nothing from social media.
3. How we use it, and our lawful basis
Data protection law says we need a lawful basis for each use.
| What we do | Data used | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Run your account and sign you in, and record that you're 18 or over | Email, sign-in records, age confirmation | Contract: we need it to provide the service you signed up for |
| Store your lists, and let the signed-in grown-ups you share them with play them | Lists, share codes | Contract: it's what you ask us to do when you make and share a list |
| Keep your History of lists you've opened from a link, and ready-made lists you've played | History | Contract: it's part of your account, so you can find lists again |
| Check every list for words we don't allow when it's saved, and when it's played | Lists | Legitimate interests and legal obligation: keeping children safe, and our duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 |
| Show children's profiles on "Who's playing?" | Name, avatar | Legitimate interests: letting your child find themselves and see their name on the screen. Your child isn't a party to the contract with us, so we rely on legitimate interests rather than contract for their data |
| Run the games, save progress and show it to you | Children's profiles, sessions, progress | Legitimate interests: providing the practice you asked for, for your child. We've weighed this in our impact assessment, and your child's interests come first |
| Keep a locked account's data, and delete it after 12 months | Everything in the account | Legitimate interests: so you and your children can pick up where you left off if you subscribe. We keep it for a set time only |
| Check a teacher's claim, give a confirmed teacher's account free, and record what we decided | Your email and its domain, the claim and its dates, our decision and reason | Contract: you asked for the teacher offer when you signed up. Legitimate interests: making sure the offer goes to teachers, and keeping a record of what our team does |
| Show your display name and tags with your tagged lists, and let grown-ups follow them | Display name, tags, lists | Contract: it's what you ask us to do when you set a display name and tag a list |
| Keep the lists you follow, and show the owner how many people follow each tag | Your follows; a count of follows | Contract (for the follower: it's a feature you asked for). For the owner's count, legitimate interests: telling owners a tag is in use, without saying who |
| Give an account free, end it, and record that we did | Your account, the dates, the reason, that our team did it | Contract (it changes what your account includes) and legitimate interests (keeping a record of what our team does) |
| Choose what to practise next ("smart practice"), and show you "what works" and mistake patterns | Sessions (including wrong answers) and progress | Legitimate interests, as above. See section 4 |
| Take payment and manage your subscription | Email, Stripe customer reference, plan | Contract |
| Keep tax and accounting records | Invoices and payment records | Legal obligation |
| Send service emails: sign-in codes, free month reminders, payment receipts, renewal reminders, cancellation confirmations, teacher check results, the notices before a locked account is deleted, and messages about your lists or account | Email, plan, lists, teacher claim, moderation decisions | Contract, and legal obligation where consumer law or the Online Safety Act requires the notice |
| Deal with reports, hide lists, suspend or ban accounts, handle appeals, and keep a record of our decisions | Reports, reporter codes, lists, your account and email, the moderation record | Legal obligation (the Online Safety Act's duties to remove illegal content, protect children, run a complaints process and keep records) and legitimate interests (keeping children safe and applying our rules) |
| Report child sexual abuse content to the National Crime Agency, if we ever find it | The list and the account behind it | Legal obligation (Online Safety Act s.66) |
| Stop a banned person signing up again | A scrambled (hashed) form of their email | Legitimate interests: keeping children safe and our rules effective |
| Prevent abuse: rate limits and bot checks, and stopping repeat free months | IP address, browser signals, a scrambled (hashed) form of your email | Legitimate interests: keeping the service secure and fair |
| Fix bugs and see which features are used | Error reports, daily usage totals | Legitimate interests: keeping the service working and improving it |
| Answer your messages and requests | What you send us | Legitimate interests, or legal obligation for data protection requests |
We don't send marketing. If we ever want to send news by email, we'll ask you first, separately, and you can say no. Emails telling you that your free month is ending, that your account is locked, or that a locked account will be deleted, are service messages about your account.
Teacher checks are made by a person, not by a computer. If we can't confirm you, you can reply and tell us more.
We never rely on your child's consent. Children under 13 can't consent to online services in the UK, and we never ask them to.
4. Smart practice and "what works"
These features use your child's play history to tailor their practice. The law calls this "profiling", so we explain it here.
- Smart practice decides the order of words and the mix of games in each session:
- Words due for review, and words your child finds tricky, come up first. Words they know well come last.
- Games that seem to help your child come up a little more often. Every game keeps a chance of appearing, so there's always variety.
- On "auto", the level moves up after three strong sessions and down after two hard ones.
- "What works" shows you, in the grown-ups' area, which games seem to help your child spell words from memory later.
- Mistake patterns. When your child makes the same kind of mistake in 3 different words (for example, one s where there are two), that's a pattern. Words with that kind of mistake come up more, and a game may show one of their own earlier wrong spellings as a wrong choice. You see the patterns in the grown-ups' area, and can hide any of them: a hidden pattern doesn't show or change the games. Your child never sees a pattern or a count of their mistakes.
What they don't do:
- They don't make decisions with legal or similarly serious effects on your child.
- They don't label your child or compare them with other children.
- They don't show your child adverts or content from anyone else.
- They're worked out from your account's own history only.
You can set a fixed level instead of "auto", and hide a mistake pattern, in the grown-ups' area. When a child plays as "Someone else", there's no profiling at all: every game uses every word, in a random order.
5. The grown-ups' progress area
The grown-ups' area shows you what your child has played: words learnt, accuracy, time spent, "what works" and mistake patterns, with what they wrote. It's there so you can encourage them.
We tell your child, in words they understand, that a grown-up can see how they're getting on. If you share a device, anyone who can pass the grown-ups' check on that device can see this area.
6. Who sees it, and who we share it with
People you share a list with. Anyone with a list's link can see its title and words, without signing in. A grown-up who signs in can play it and download its worksheets, and it's kept in their History until they remove it. If you stop sharing or delete the list, it shows in their History as no longer available, and the words can't be opened. Nobody you share with sees your email, your other untagged lists or anything about your children, and we don't tell you who opened your link. People may pass the link on, and the app they got it through (a chat app, email or a class page) may keep it, under their own privacy policies.
Your display name and tags. If a list has a tag, signed-in grown-ups who open it see your display name and the tag, and can follow it. Your followers see your display name, that tag, and the lists you give it. They don't see your other tags. Signed out, a list's page doesn't show your display name. Choose a display name you're happy for parents and other grown-ups to see. Please don't use a child's name, or anything that helps someone contact you.
People you follow, and people who follow you. When you follow a tag, its owner isn't told it was you: they see only how many people follow it. Followers can't see each other.
Our moderators. A small number of named people at [COMPANY], using a secret key only they hold, can see reports, the reported list and the account it belongs to, so they can decide what to do. They can also give an account free, or end it, and they check teacher claims, which shows them the email address and its domain. Everything they do is recorded, with the reason.
We don't sell your data, and we don't share it for advertising. We use these companies to run Spellnino. They act on our instructions under contracts that protect your data:
| Company | What they do for us | Where the data is |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Hosts the website and app, stores our database (including lists and reports), and runs the bot check (Turnstile) | Database stored in the EU. Cloudflare's network serves pages from data centres worldwide, including the US |
| Stripe | Takes payments and manages subscriptions | UK and EU, with transfers to the US |
| [EMAIL_PROVIDER] | Sends our emails (sign-in codes, reminders, receipts, messages about your lists or account, and report notices to our team) | [Cloudflare: as above] / [Postmark: the US] |
| [SUPPORT_TOOL] | Our support inbox, which receives your emails, appeals and report notices | [ ] |
Some of these companies also use a little data for their own purposes, as independent controllers under their own privacy policies:
- Stripe uses payment data to prevent fraud and meet financial regulations (Stripe privacy policy).
- Cloudflare uses the signals from the bot check to improve its bot detection (Turnstile privacy addendum).
We may also share data if the law requires it: for example with the police under a valid request, with the National Crime Agency if we find child sexual abuse content (we must report it), or with Ofcom if it asks for information about how we meet our online safety duties. We may share it with professional advisers (such as our accountant, who sees payment records but not your child's data, or a solicitor handling an appeal or claim).
If [COMPANY] is ever sold or merged, your data would pass to the new owner, who would have to keep these promises. We'd tell you first.
7. Transfers outside the UK
Our database is held in the European Union. The UK recognises the EU as giving adequate protection.
Cloudflare and Stripe are US companies, and some data reaches the US (for example, when Cloudflare's network handles a request, or Stripe processes a payment). Both are certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, and both have the ICO's International Data Transfer Addendum in their contracts as a backup.
You can ask us for more detail about these safeguards.
8. How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account and lists | While your account is open. If nobody signs in for 24 months (and you're not paying), we email you twice and then delete the account. A locked account has its own, shorter limit, below |
| A list you delete | Gone from the app and its link straight away. Deleted from our database within 7 days, and from backups within a further 30 days |
| A share you stop | The link stops at once. We keep a record that the list was shared, and its old code, while the list exists, so reports about it can still be dealt with |
| Your History | While your account is open. It holds your 50 most recent items: when you open a 51st, the oldest drops off. [Items you haven't opened for 12 months are removed.] You can remove any item yourself at any time. Deleted with your account |
| A draft list in your browser, before you sign in | On your device only, until you sign in and save it, or clear it, or clear your browser's data. We never receive it until you save |
| Your children's profiles, history (including their wrong answers) and progress | While your account is open. You can delete a child at any time |
| A locked account (everything in it: your lists, History, follows, display name, children's profiles, history and progress) | 12 months after it was locked, unless you subscribe or we give it free. We email you 30 days and 7 days before. Signing in doesn't reset the time. Then it's deleted as for a deleted account |
| Your display name and tags | While your account is open. If you remove them, they're gone at once |
| Who you follow | Until you unfollow, the owner stops sharing that tag, or either account is deleted |
| A teacher claim | While your account is open. Our record of confirming or not confirming it is kept with our moderation record, below |
| Given free (including teachers) | While it's on. When it ends, the dates and reason stay on your account record until the account is deleted. Our record that a member of our team gave or ended it is kept with our moderation record, below |
| A deleted account | Hidden and signed out straight away, and shared links stop. Deleted for good after 7 days (you can restore it until then). Removed from our backups within a further 30 days |
| A deleted child | Gone from the app straight away. Deleted from our database within 7 days, and from backups within a further 30 days |
| The record that you're 18 or over, and which terms you agreed to | While your account is open, then deleted with it |
| Sign-in codes | Until used or expired (10 minutes), then deleted within a day |
| Security logs (IP-based rate limits and failed sign-ins) | 30 days |
| Error reports | 30 days |
| Daily usage totals | Kept, because they don't identify anyone |
| Reports about a list (the reason, details and date) | 12 months from the report |
| The scrambled code for each reporter | Until the report is dealt with, and no more than [30 days] |
| Report notices in our support inbox | 12 months, like the reports |
| Our moderation record (what we decided about a list or account, when, why, and who decided, including giving or ending an account free, and confirming or not confirming a teacher) | 6 years, in case of appeals, complaints or claims, and to show Ofcom how we've applied our rules |
| A banned email address (a scrambled, hashed copy only) | Until we lift the ban. We review each ban at least every [24 months] |
| A banned account's other data | [30 days] after the ban, once the time to appeal has passed, unless you ask us to delete it sooner. Then deleted as for a deleted account |
| Payment and invoice records | 6 years after the end of the financial year they relate to, because tax law requires it |
| A scrambled (hashed) copy of your email, to stop repeat free months | [24 months] after your account is deleted |
| Messages to us | 2 years after the conversation ends |
9. Your rights
You have these rights over your own data, and you can use them for your child:
- See your data. Download everything from Account settings, then "Download your data", or ask us. The download includes your History, who you follow, your display name and tags, and how many people follow each tag (not who).
- Correct it. Edit names, school years, lists, tags and your display name yourself, or ask us.
- Delete it. Delete a list, a History item, a follow, a child, or your whole account, from the app. This works even while your account is locked.
- Take it elsewhere. The download is a standard JSON file.
- Object. You can object to things we do on the basis of legitimate interests. We'll stop unless we have a strong reason that outweighs your interests or your child's.
- Restrict. You can ask us to pause using data while a complaint is sorted out.
Email support@spellnino.com for anything you can't do in the app. We'll reply within one month. We may ask you to confirm it's you by sending a code to your account email. There's no charge.
If your account is suspended or banned, you keep all these rights. If you can't sign in, email us from the account's address.
If you reported a list, we can't usually find your report, because we don't know who you are. If you tell us which list and when, we'll try.
If people follow your tags, we can't tell you who they are: that's their information, not yours. We'll tell you how many.
If you asked to be confirmed as a teacher, you can ask us what we checked and why we decided as we did.
Your child's own rights. The rights belong to your child. While they're young, you'll usually use them on their behalf. If an older child asks us directly, we'll take their wishes and understanding into account.
10. Keeping it safe
- Sign-in uses one-time codes, so there are no passwords to steal.
- Sign-in cookies can't be read by scripts on the page.
- Codes are limited, and repeated wrong tries pause sign-in.
- Deleting your account, or signing out everywhere, needs a fresh code.
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our hosting provider.
- Each account's data is kept separate on our servers.
- Share codes are random and long enough that they can't be guessed, and how many lists one connection can open is limited.
- Moderation needs a secret key held only by the people who moderate, and every moderation action is recorded.
No system is perfect. If something goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we'll tell the ICO within 72 hours where the law requires it, and we'll tell you if it's likely to affect you seriously.
11. Cookies and storage on your device
We use one cookie, __Host-session, to keep you signed in. The app also saves your lists, your children's profiles and their progress in your browser's storage so it works offline. Both are strictly necessary for the service, so we don't need to ask for consent, and we don't show a cookie banner. We have no advertising or analytics cookies.
The list maker, before you sign in. If you start a list without an account, the words and title you type are kept in your browser's storage, so they're still there when you sign in or come back. They stay on your device until you save the list, clear it, or clear your browser's data. They aren't sent to us until you save. On a shared computer, clear the list when you've finished.
Signing in happens in a box over the page you're on. It uses the same cookie, and doesn't add any other.
On a shared list, the device may remember which list was played last (just its code, not the words or any score), so it can offer to play it again. It's never sent to us, and "Forget it" on the page removes it.
See our cookie statement for the details.
12. Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, tell us first at support@spellnino.com. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, keep you updated and tell you the outcome.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at any time: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
For complaints about a list, a report, or a decision to hide a list or suspend or ban an account, see section 16 of our terms.
13. Changes to this policy
If we change how we use your data, we'll update this page and change the date at the top. If it's a big change, we'll email you before it happens.
14. Lists, share links, reports and moderation
Your lists. When you make a list, its title and words are stored on our servers, in your account. They belong to you. You can edit or delete them at any time.
Sharing a list. When you share a list, it gets a random code and a link (for example [DOMAIN]/l/k7q2mx3a).
- Whoever has the link can see the title and the words. That's anyone you send it to, and anyone they pass it on to. They don't need an account to look.
- To play it, or download its worksheets, they need to sign in with a Spellnino account. Children play on that grown-up's account.
- When a signed-in grown-up opens your link, it's saved in their History. We don't tell you who opened it, and they don't see your name or email.
- The link isn't listed or searchable on Spellnino, and search engines are told not to show it.
- Changes show straight away. If you stop sharing, or delete the list, the link stops working, and it shows as no longer available in other people's History.
- So please don't put names or anything personal in a list, including its title. Spelling words only. Anyone with the link can read the whole list.
The word check. Our servers check every list when it's saved, and again when it's played, against words we don't allow, such as swearing, slurs and sexual words, and check titles for web addresses, @ names and phone numbers. It's automatic; nobody reads your lists to do it.
Tags and following. If you give a list a tag, it's shared: it gets a link if it hasn't got one. Signed-in grown-ups who open it see your display name and the tag, and can follow it. Every list you give that tag then appears in their Following, with no new link, until you remove the tag from the list, stop sharing it, or stop sharing the tag. Stopping a tag takes it off all your lists that have it and ends everyone's follow of it; the lists stay shared, and their links keep working. You see how many people follow each tag, never who. Nobody can message anyone. If we hide a list, or suspend or ban its owner, it disappears from Following, as it does from History.
Children playing a shared list. They play on a signed-in grown-up's account. The game is recorded to the child chosen on "Who's playing?", like any other list, and only that household can see it. As "Someone else", nothing is kept.
Reports. Anyone can report a list, signed in or not, or the display name or tag shown with it. We keep the reason, any details they type, the date, a copy of the list as it was, and a scrambled code made from their connection and the list. We use the code only to count different reporters, and delete it when the report is dealt with, or after 30 days. If several people report a list, it's hidden automatically until we look at it.
Moderation. A person at Spellnino looks at every report. To decide, they see the list and which account it belongs to. They may hide the list, or suspend or ban the account, and they tell the account holder why. Everything they decide is recorded, with the reason. If you're affected, you can appeal (terms section 16).
Bans. If we ban an account, we keep a scrambled copy of its email address, made with a secret key, so it can't be used to sign up again. It can't be turned back into the address.
Worksheets are PDF files made on your device from the list. Nothing is sent to us to make them. Downloading them needs an account. A downloaded file is yours: if the list is later hidden or deleted, the file stays where you saved it.
Given free, and teachers. Sometimes we give an account Spellnino at no charge, for example to say thank you. We record when it starts and ends, a short reason, and that our team gave it. Account settings says "given free". Teachers who sign up with a school email and tick "I'm a teacher" are checked by a person on our team: we look at the email's domain. We don't contact the school or look you up. If we confirm you, your account is free with no end date, and we record that we did. Either way, what each child with a profile plays is kept, as on any active account.
For children
There's a short version of this policy written for children: privacy for children.