Privacy

Last updated 19 October 2026

Oddnaut (oddnaut.com) is a daily game run by James Bird in the United Kingdom, who is responsible for your data. Questions about it go to hello@oddnaut.com. We keep as little as the game needs, never sell it, and show no ads.

Age

Oddnaut is for people aged 13 and over in the UK. We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone under 13, and we never ask for a date of birth. If you think a child under 13 has used Oddnaut, tell us and we’ll delete their data.

What we keep, and why

• Playing as a guest: a random guest number (no name, no email), your plays and the answers you type, your Flight Jacket, and your settings. One cookie holds a random device number, so each device flies each Mission once.
• With an account: also your email address, or the sign-in you use with Google or Apple, and the callsign you choose, so your Flight Jacket follows you to any device.
• Feedback you choose to send: a Mission’s rating, your ratings of its prompts (and any reasons you tick), and prompt suggestions. Only Mission Control reads them, and ratings only as totals, never by player.
• Share links and referrals: every player has a referral code. Your share links carry it, with a short code for the flight you shared, so the link previews that flight. When someone plays for the first time from your link, we note that you referred them, to count your recruits for the Recruiter badge.
• How the game is used: what happens as you play (a Mission started or finished, each answer’s result but never the words you type, Gold found, appeals, shares and ratings), recorded by your guest or account number, never your name or email, so we can see what works and fix what doesn’t. In your browser, what you open and share is counted with a number made afresh for each page: nothing is stored on your device for it. Turn it off any time: Settings → Usage data.
• Friends, if you join: that you joined (you confirmed you’re 13 or over), whether you can be found by your callsign, your invite link’s code, your friends, the requests you send and receive, whom you block, and your places in the weekly friends league. A request you decline is kept for 14 days, so it can’t be sent again at once, then deleted. There are no messages or chat.
• Keeping it fair: if most of your answers come in faster than a person could type them, a nightly check flags your account for Mission Control to look at, with how fast they were. A flag never stops you playing; until it’s cleared, your flights are left out of the percentages and the friends leagues.
• Security logs: our hosts keep short-lived technical logs, which include IP addresses, to keep the game running and stop abuse.

We use this to run the game you asked for: to score your answers, keep your Flight Jacket and streak, and stop cheating. That’s our lawful basis (providing the service you use, and our legitimate interest in keeping it fair and working, and in improving it).

What other people see

• Never the words you type. Public pages show only the game’s own answer names.
• Gold Strikes: players who flew the same Mission see who struck each Gold first, by callsign once you’ve claimed it. The public answers pages name you only if your Flight Jacket is public; otherwise they say “an Oddnaut”. Turn your jacket off and your name comes off them.
• Your Flight Jacket is private unless you switch it on (Flight Jacket → Public Flight Jacket). Then anyone with its link sees your callsign, patches and sleeve badges, never your streak, stats or email, and search engines are asked not to list it. Switch it off and the page and its preview image are gone at once.
• What you share: a share posts your result’s coloured squares and a link, never your answers. A share image is drawn from the same result when it’s asked for; on a Named patch it shows your callsign. We don’t store it, but our network keeps each one it serves for up to a day, and a browser for up to an hour, so one asked for before you change your callsign or delete your account can still be seen for that long. Your share link previews that same picture to whoever you send it to.
• Friends: nobody can find or add you until you join Friends. Then another player finds you only by typing your whole callsign, never part of it and never by email, unless you turn off “Findable by callsign”; your invite link works for anyone you give it to. Your friends see your callsign and, once they’ve flown the same Mission, your progress, outcome and answer colours, and in the Debrief the game’s names for your answers (never the words you typed; a Gold only once they’ve found it or the answers are public). They see your points and place in your weekly league. A player you block sees nothing of yours but the public pages, and isn’t told.
• Your standing: “Better than 82% of Oddnauts” is counted from everyone’s finished flights, without names. A share says your band (“Top 10% of Oddnauts”) when you finished in the top half.

Who helps us run it

• Hosting (in London).
• The database and sign-in (in London).
• Email delivery: sends the sign-in codes we email you.
• An AI service: checks answers the game’s own lists don’t recognise. It sees the answer and the prompt, never who you are.
• Privacy-friendly usage analytics (in the EU): counts how the game is used, as above, including which share links bring players in (by their referral code). We send it ourselves: no cookies, nothing stored on your device for it, and no advertising.
• Google and Apple: only if you choose to sign in with them.
• A security check: when you first launch without an account, or ask for a sign-in code, it checks that you’re a person and not a program. It sees your device’s internet address and browser details, sets no cookie, and tells us nothing about you.

A full list of our providers is available on request at hello@oddnaut.com.

How long we keep it

Until you delete it. From launch, guest players who haven’t played for 12 months are deleted automatically. How the game is used is kept for 12 months. The answers you give also count in each prompt’s crowd numbers, without your name; those counts stay when you go.

Your rights

• Get a copy: Account → Export my data downloads everything we hold about you, including whether you were referred and how many of your recruits have finished a Mission, your friends, requests, blocks and league places, and a flag if there is one.
• Delete it: Account → Delete my account deletes it at once (a share image already served can stay in those caches for up to a day), and from our usage analytics within 30 days.
• Object to how the game is used being counted: turn off Settings → Usage data, and nothing more about you goes to our usage analytics.
• Correct it, object or ask anything else: email hello@oddnaut.com.
• You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Your browser

The game keeps your sign-in and settings in your browser’s own storage, plus the one device cookie above. Before launch, a browser let in with a beta invite also keeps an invite cookie for up to 60 days, which says only which invite let it in. No advertising or tracking cookies.

Changes

If this changes, we’ll update this page and its date.