Privacy policy

The short version

• We collect what we need to run the game: your account, your handle and avatar, and your answers and scores.
• Boards show your handle and avatar, never your email or your Google name.
• There are no ads, no ad trackers and no analytics scripts. We don't sell your data.
• You can download your data or delete your account at any time in Account settings.
• Trivia Night HQ is for people 16 and older.

What we collect

When you create an account

• With Google: your email address, your name, your Google account ID and the link to your Google profile picture. We ask Google for your basic profile and email only. We don't use your Google name or picture on the site.
• With email and password: your email address and your password, stored only as a secure hash. We email you a 6-digit code to check the address is yours; the code is stored hashed and expires after 10 minutes.
• Your handle, your avatar choice, your settings (sound, motion, email preferences) and when you confirmed you're 16 or older.
• Your browser's time zone (for example "Europe/London"), so emails can say good morning or good evening at the right time.

When you play

• The games you play, each answer you pick, whether it was right, how long you took, and your scores, ranks and tiers.
• If you report a question: the reason and any note you add. Reports only go to our question reviewers.
• If you join a friends' room as a guest: the nickname you type, shown to people in that room.

When you comment on our YouTube videos

Comments you leave on our YouTube videos are public; we read them to reply. We keep a copy of the comment's text, your public YouTube name and channel ID, and when you posted it, so we can answer you and fix any question you point out. We never post anything on your behalf.

Playing without an account

You can play as a guest. We keep a guest player in your session cookie so your game and its result stay yours while you play. If you sign in afterwards, we move that game to your account.

Technical data

Like every website, our servers see your IP address and browser details with each request. We use IP addresses to rate-limit sign-ins and sign-ups (to stop password guessing and spam) and they appear in short-lived server logs. When the site hits an error, an error report may include technical details of that request (see the error-monitoring service below). Video plays and Subscribe clicks on the Watch page are counted per episode, not per person.

To protect fair play, when you sign in or play a ranked game we keep a one-way code made from your IP address and browser type. It can't be turned back into your IP address, and we delete it after 90 days.

How we use it

• To run your account and the game: sign-in, saving your scores, boards and results.
• To send the emails the service needs: sign-in codes, password resets, a notice if your email changes, and a note if a moderator changes your handle or warns you. If you win a weekly title we may email you about it; you can turn that off in Account settings. We don't send marketing email from accounts.
• To keep things fair and safe: rate limits, spotting cheating, and fixing bugs.
• To improve questions: answers in aggregate (for example, how many players got a question right) help us tune difficulty. Public stats about players only ever use real people, never the house crew.

Where the law asks for a legal basis: we process your data to provide the service you signed up for (contract), to keep it secure and working (legitimate interests).

What other people can see

• On the boards and results: your handle, avatar, scores, ranks and, if you have them, your title and badges.
• Where public profiles are available, your profile page shows your handle, avatar, stats, trophies and recent ranked nights. You can hide it in Account settings.
• In a friends' room: your handle or guest nickname and your score.
• Your email address and Google name are never shown to other players.

Cookies and storage

We use only what the site needs to work:

• A session cookie that keeps you signed in (or remembers your guest game). It ends when you close your browser.
• A security cookie that protects forms from forgery.
• Your browser's local storage for small preferences on your device: sound on or off and volume, and whether you chose to see a video before playing its questions. A session-only entry stops one video play being counted twice.

No advertising or analytics cookies. YouTube videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, and the player only loads when you press play. Video thumbnails are loaded from YouTube's image servers, so YouTube can see that a page with its thumbnail was opened.

Services we use

These service providers process data for us, only to provide their service. Some are in the United States.

• A hosting provider: runs the site and its database.
• An email delivery service: sends our emails (codes, resets, notices).
• A content delivery network: stores and delivers images, sound and other media. Like any web server it sees your IP address when it sends you a file.
• An error-monitoring service: error reports, so we can fix crashes. A report can include the page, your browser, your IP address and your account number, but we strip passwords, codes, tokens and email addresses.
• Google: "Sign in with Google", if you use it. Google's own privacy policy applies to your Google account.
• YouTube (Google): the show's videos and thumbnails, and the public comments on them, which we read through the YouTube API Services. Google's Privacy Policy applies to YouTube.

AI and the house crew

AI tools help us prepare questions. Every question is checked before it reaches players. AI also suggests replies to comments on our YouTube videos: it sees the public comment and its thread without names, and a person reviews and posts every reply. AI tools never receive your account, your answers, your reports or anything else about you from this site.

The house crew are illustrated, computer-controlled characters who play alongside you. They always carry a HOUSE badge, they are not real people, and they never count in stats about players.

How long we keep it

• Your account stays until you delete it.
• When you delete your account we remove your email, sign-in details, settings, badges and titles, and the notes on your reports. Your past games stay on the boards as an anonymous "Former player", so the scores still add up. Your old handle is held for 30 days so nobody can grab it straight away, then released.
• Guest games are kept as anonymous records.
• Copies of YouTube comments stay with our reply notes. Email us to have yours removed.
• Fair-play codes (the one-way codes made from your IP address and browser type) are deleted after 90 days, or straight away if you delete your account.
• Server logs are short-lived, and database backups roll over and are overwritten within a few weeks.

Your choices and rights

• Download your data as a file from Account settings.
• Delete your account there too. It takes effect straight away.
• Change your handle, avatar, email, password and email preferences, and hide your profile, in Account settings.
• Suspensions and bans only happen for breaking our Terms. If it happens to you, you can appeal by emailing trivianighthq@gmail.com.
• For anything else (correcting data, objecting, asking what we hold), email trivianighthq@gmail.com. We'll reply within 30 days.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or move your data, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to your local data protection authority. We'd appreciate the chance to sort things out first.

Age

Trivia Night HQ is for people aged 16 and older. We ask you to confirm your age when you sign up. If you believe someone younger has an account, email us and we'll delete it.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS only. Passwords and sign-in codes are stored as hashes, sign-in attempts are rate-limited, and changing your password or email signs out your other sessions. No system is perfect: if something goes wrong that affects you, we'll tell you.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy we'll update the date at the top, and for significant changes we'll let signed-in players know on the site or by email.

Trivia Night HQ. Email trivianighthq@gmail.com. See also our Terms.