Privacy

Who we are

Words Tower is made by an independent developer. You can write to us at info@vocabularygames.org.

What the game keeps, and where

To remember a child's words from one day to the next, the game stores some information in the browser on your device (its local storage and IndexedDB). On the website, this information is not sent to us unless a parent chooses family saving, as described below. Photos and custom pictures always stay on the device.

You can remove it at any time: “Start over” in Settings erases a child's progress, “Remove” deletes a child, and clearing the site's data in your browser removes the local copy. To remove a saved family from our servers, use “Delete account and all data” in Settings; see “Optional family saving” below.

Links to a word list. A parent or teacher can share a word list as a link, and a child can send a friend a challenge. The link carries the word list, the test date if one is set and, for a challenge, a made-up nickname (such as “Brave Fox 27”) with the number of words learned and the points. All of it sits in the address after the “#” sign, a part that browsers do not send to the server, so it never reaches us: our server's logs only see the marker that a list or a challenge link was opened. Anyone who receives the link can read what it carries, so please do not type a child's name into the list. Pictures and the child's name are never put into a link.

The worksheet generator. The worksheets page, vocabularygames.org/worksheets/, makes practice sheets from a list you type, in your browser. The list, the name and the test date you type there stay in that browser's storage, so they are still there next time; they are not sent to us. The QR code printed on each sheet is a link to the word list, as described above: whoever scans the sheet can read the list and the test date, and the name typed on the sheet is never put into it.

The Chrome extension

The extension is the same game in Chrome's side panel. It keeps the same information as above. It also stores the children's names, their word lists, test dates, the language and the progress in Chrome's sync storage, so the game follows your Google account to your other computers. Device settings (the chosen voice, sounds on or off) stay on the device. That copy is kept by Google under Google's Privacy Policy, and you control it in your Chrome sync settings. Pictures are never synced; they stay on the device. The extension uses storage to keep progress, sidePanel to open the side panel, and, from version 2.3.9, alarms to update the optional “words waiting” count on its icon once an hour; this count is off until a parent enables it. Family saving below is currently a website option; the extension uses Chrome sync. The board of the year needs no further permission. It does not read the pages you visit. The side panel itself sends no analytics and no tracking of any kind; the only things it can send are the board of the year, after the player presses “Join the board”, and the counts of a class list, after a parent presses “Follow this class list” (see “The board of the year” and “Class lists” below). Once a day it also reads a short file of news for parents from this website; that request carries nothing about you or your child.

When the extension is installed, Chrome opens one page of this website, vocabularygames.org/welcome/, to show how to pin the icon and open the side panel. That page counts how many times it is opened, with Cloudflare Web Analytics — no cookies, and nothing about you, your child or how the game is played, only an anonymous number of visits. When the extension is removed, Chrome opens another page, vocabularygames.org/uninstall/, to say goodbye; like every page of this website, it only has the anonymous visit count described below. It may offer one optional question — why you removed it — in a Google Form, which does not ask for your name or e-mail; answering is up to you, and Google processes the answer for us. The extension itself sends nothing when it is installed or removed.

What we do not do

• No advertising in the game or behavioural profiling of children.
• No analytics inside the game or the side panel. The pages of this website, the game page included, count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, as “This website” below explains; the side panel does not.
• No sale of personal information. The service providers named on this page process only the information needed for the features described here.
• Children are not asked for contact details. A parent may choose to store the private family data described below; the board of the year, if a player joins it, takes only a made-up nickname, counts and, if the player wants, a country; a class list takes only counts.

Speech

The game's own English words are read aloud by two natural voices, Matilda and Chris, and the translation under a word is read in your family's language by a native voice of its own. They are AI-generated voices, recorded once with ElevenLabs and shipped with the game as sound files: playing them sends nothing anywhere. Words you add yourself, or any word when you choose one of your device's voices in Settings, are read by your browser's own speech voices. Some browsers offer voices that run on the browser maker's servers (for example, Chrome's “Google” voices); if one of those is chosen, the English word being spoken is processed by that company.

This website

The site is served by a hosting provider that, like any web server, processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver pages and protect the site from abuse. We do not use this data to identify visitors.

Every page of this website, including the game page, counts its visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics. It sets no cookies and uses no identifiers; it records nothing about the child or how the game is played, only anonymous page-visit counts (for example, how many times a page was opened and from which country). The side panel of the extension does not carry it. Cloudflare processes these counts under Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.

Children

Words Tower is designed for children to use with a parent's or teacher's help. A parent controls whether private family progress is saved with us. Photos and custom pictures are never uploaded. We do not sell family information. A parent can export or delete the saved family in Settings, or contact us for help.

The board of the year

A player can join a public board of the year (a new one starts at 00:00 UTC on 1 January), on this website and in the Chrome extension alike; it works the same in both. Nothing is sent until the player presses “Join the board” at the end of a tower or in the game's word book. From then on, after each tower, the game sends: the made-up nickname (such as “Brave Fox 27”, built from fixed word lists, never a name) with its animal, how many word steps the player made this calendar year (words met, words brought to “familiar” and “mastered”), on how many days they played this year, and a random code this device made for the player. We store only a one-way fingerprint (a hash) of that code, so the row can be updated or deleted from this device and from nowhere else. In the extension this code stays in the side panel on the device: Chrome sync never carries it, so another computer on the same Google account joins separately, with its own code. While the player's flag is on (it is, unless “Hide my flag” is ticked in Settings), the board also keeps a two-letter country code, which Cloudflare works out from the internet connection; the board never stores or logs the IP address itself. “Hide my flag” removes the country at the next update, and “Leave the board” in Settings deletes the player's rows at once. Every year’s board is deleted a year after it ends. Before a player joins, the game only reads the public board, a request that carries nothing about the player. The board runs on Cloudflare (Workers and D1), which processes these requests for us under Cloudflare's Privacy Policy. It takes each device at its word and refuses only impossible numbers.

Class lists

A teacher or a parent of a class can make a class list on vocabularygames.org/class/: one link that stays the same, with the week's spelling words, which they change there each week. What our server stores: the words (with any translations typed beside them), the test date, an optional class name, when the list last changed, and a one-way fingerprint (a hash) of a private key that the publisher's browser made — so only that browser, or whoever holds the publisher's private edit link, can change or delete the list. We do not ask the publisher for a name or an e-mail address. Anyone who has the link can read the list and the class name, so please do not type a child's name into either. The class page also keeps plain counts of how its tools are used — a list made or changed, letters or worksheets printed, the message or the link copied — so we can see which of them help.

When a family follows a class list. Opening the link reads the list from our server; that request carries the list's code and nothing about the child. On this website, opening it before following also adds one to a count of how often the class's link was opened, and from where: the QR code, a printed letter, a worksheet or a shared link. Nothing more is sent until a parent presses “Follow this class list”. From then on the game reads the list again when a tower starts, to take a new one, and adds to three counts for the class: a child started following, a child climbed a tower with the list this week (once a week), a tower was climbed. The counts are only numbers for each class and week: nothing that identifies a child, a family or a device is stored with them. The publisher sees their class's totals, and we look at the totals over all classes to see whether class lists help and what to improve. The child's progress stays on the family's device as before. “Stop following”, in the game's book under For parents, ends it. If our Chrome extension is installed in the same browser, following a class list on this website also offers it to the extension's side panel — inside your browser, nothing more is sent to us — where it is followed only when you press “Follow this class list” there. Class lists run on Cloudflare (Workers and D1), like the board of the year. A class list that nobody changes for 400 days is deleted with its counts, counts are deleted after a year, and the publisher can delete the list at any time.

Optional family saving

On the website, a parent may choose to sign in with an e-mail code and agree to private storage of each child’s profile: its name as entered (a nickname is enough), words, word list, test date, learning progress and days played, dragon and treasures. Cloudflare Workers and D1 process and store this information for us. Signing in does not publish a child on a leaderboard. Photos and custom pictures stay on the device. The full game remains available without signing in. A sign-in e-mail is used only for access codes, not marketing. Resend delivers those codes for us; it receives the parent’s e-mail address and the login message, never a child’s profile, words, pictures or treasures. Open and click tracking are disabled for login mail. Codes expire after 15 minutes, sessions after 180 days; spent codes are removed after two days. Family profiles remain until the parent deletes the account. Settings offers a JSON export and deletion of the account, its profiles and sessions. Signing out or deleting the server account keeps the device’s local copy; clearing browser data removes that copy.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be published here with a new date.

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