Draft: awaiting the owner’s review. These words are not final. Anything in [brackets] is a fact still to be filled in.
The small print
Privacy
What FlickerTale keeps, where, for how long and why. The short version is very little, for a very short time, and nothing that says who you are.
The short version
- No accounts. Nobody signs up, and we never ask for an email address, a phone number or your real name.
- No cookies, no adverts, no trackers. Nothing on this site follows you anywhere else, and nothing is sold, ever.
- A game is gone within two hours. The names, clues and scores of a game are kept on our server only while it is played, and deleted at most two hours after its last move.
- Your phone remembers a little, in its own storage, so a reload puts you back in your seat. Cookies and storage lists every item.
Who looks after your information
FlickerTale is run by [Owner: the operator’s legal name], [Owner: postal address]. For anything on this page, email support@flickertale.com.
What a game handles, and for how long
To play a game, the people at the table type a name (any name: a nickname is fine), choose a companion and a colour, and during play the storyteller types a clue. The server also keeps each hand of cards, the cards played, the guesses and the scores.
All of it exists to run the game you started, and is shown only to the table it belongs to: your hand only on your own phone, the rest on the big screen and the phones at that table. It is held on our server while the game is played, and deleted at most two hours after the last move; a table nobody sat down at goes sooner. We do not look at games, and nothing about a game is kept afterwards.
Network addresses
Like every website, our server sees the network (IP) address of each device that connects to it. We use it, in memory only, to stop one address opening hundreds of rooms or sending a flood of notes or error reports. For the house players’ daily Claude allowance, an address is turned into a one-way code that changes every day and cannot be turned back into the address; those counts are kept for the day.
If someone tries to sign in to the owner’s private console and gets it wrong, the attempt is written to the server’s log with its address, to stop anyone guessing their way in.
The server’s log
The server writes short lines to its log so we can see that it is healthy: when a room opens and closes (with its code, how many played and for how long), when a house player sits down, and what each Claude decision cost. Apart from the notes you send us (below), these lines never contain a player’s name, a clue or a network address. The log is kept by our hosting provider for [Owner: how long Fly.io keeps the app’s logs].
House players and Claude
When a house player thinks with Claude, an AI made by Anthropic, each of its decisions sends Anthropic the rules of the game, the round’s clue, and the pictures and descriptions of the cards that seat can see. It never sends anyone’s name, the scores, the room’s code, or anything a person typed other than the clue. Anthropic keeps these requests for [Owner: Anthropic’s retention for API requests, from its terms and the workspace’s settings]. Without Claude, house players think on our own server and nothing leaves it.
Notes you send us
The Leave a note form asks for your words and nothing else. A Report a problem note also carries the room’s code, the moment in the game, the version of the site and your browser’s own description of itself, all shown on the form before you send it; never a clue or a name. We ask you not to put anyone’s personal details in a note.
A note is written to the server’s log, and, when the server has its own storage, to a file that keeps the most recent notes and drops the oldest first. It is not linked to your network address. If you email us instead, we see your email address and keep the conversation for [Owner: how long support emails are kept].
The note form can be protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that tells people from scripts. When it is switched on, it runs only on that form, and Cloudflare sees the check’s own information about your browser.
Error reports
When error reports are switched on, a page or the server that runs into a bug sends a report to Sentry, through our own server rather than straight from your browser. A report says what went wrong and where in our code, the version of the site, the page’s address without the part after “#” (which holds a room’s joining secret), and your browser’s description of itself. Names, clues, tokens and network addresses are taken out before a report leaves, on your device and again on our server, and the Sentry project is set not to store addresses [Owner: confirm “Prevent storing of IP addresses” is on]. Sentry keeps reports for [Owner: the Sentry project’s retention].
Who else handles information for us
| Company | What it does for FlickerTale | What it can see | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Runs our server | Everything a game carries while it runs, the server’s log and network addresses | United States |
| Anthropic | Thinks for the house players that use Claude | The clue and the cards a house player can see; no names, no addresses | United States |
| Cloudflare | Turnstile on the note form, when switched on | The check’s information about your browser | [Owner: region, from Cloudflare’s terms] |
| Sentry | Error reports, when switched on | What went wrong and where, and the browser’s description of itself; no names, clues or addresses | [Owner: the Sentry project’s data region] |
| Namecheap | Looks after the flickertale.com name | Lookups of the name, mostly by internet providers rather than by you | United States |
Each of them handles information only to provide their service to us. When a note tells us about a bug, we may copy the problem (never who sent it) into the tracker where our code is kept, on GitHub. [Owner: the date each data processing agreement was accepted, from docs/ops/PROCESSORS.md.]
Children
FlickerTale is made to be played by families, and has nothing to sign up for. We never ask anyone, of any age, for contact details, and a name at the table can be a nickname. We do not knowingly keep personal information about children, or about anyone.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, the law gives you rights over information about you: to see it, correct it, delete it, or object to how it is used. Because we keep so little, and nothing tied to who you are, there is usually nothing to find once a game has ended; but ask us at support@flickertale.com and we will look. You can also complain to your data protection authority.
We handle what we do on the basis of [Owner: the lawful basis, from the policy generator: for example legitimate interests in running the game you asked for and keeping it safe from abuse]. Our server is in the United States; [Owner: the safeguards for transfers from the UK and the EU].
Changes
If this page changes, the date below changes with it, and anything important will be said on the front door first.
Last changed on 29 September 2026.