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Privacy

Last updated 11 November 2026

What stays on your device

The game saves a few things in your browser's local storage so it can remember you between visits. They are not cookies, and they stay on your device:

• your stats: trips played, current and best streak, average and best score;
• today's progress, so a reload doesn't lose your trip, and which days you've finished;
• a copy of today's prompts, so a reload works without a connection;
• your sound setting and whether you've seen the sound tip;
• a random ID made up by your browser (for example k3Jx9…). It isn't linked to you, your device or any account.

You can delete all of it at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser settings. Your stats and streak go with it.

What we receive when you finish a daily trip

To show how your score compares with everyone else's that day, the game sends our server two things: your final score as a percentage (0 to 100) and the random ID above.

• The server keeps a one-way scrambled version (a hash) of the ID, only so that one browser counts once per day.
• Your percentage is added to a tally of how many players got each score. We don't keep a list of individual scores.
• Your answers, your IP address and your device details are not stored with it.

The tallies are kept per day and we may delete old ones at any time. Practice packs send nothing.

Answer checking

Spelling is matched in your browser. We may later turn on an optional check for close misspellings: if the game can't decide whether a typed answer matches, it would send the prompt and the text you typed, and nothing about you, to an AI service (Anthropic) to decide. It is off at launch. If we turn it on, this section will say so.

Server logs

Like almost every website, our hosting provider (Vercel) automatically records basic details of each request: your IP address, browser type, the page or file requested and the time. We use these logs only to keep the site running, investigate errors and stop abuse, and they are deleted on the host's schedule. To limit abuse, the score and answer-check servers also look at IP addresses briefly in memory; they aren't saved.

Other services the site uses

• Vercel hosts the site and its small server functions.
• Upstash stores the daily score tallies described above.
• Google Fonts supplies the typefaces. Your browser downloads them from Google, which receives your IP address and browser details when it does. See Google's privacy policy.

Pictures, backgrounds and answer data are served from our own site. Links to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons only take you there if you click them.

Analytics and advertising

The site has no analytics and no ads right now. To keep the game free we may add privacy-friendly visit counts or advertising (for example Google AdSense) in future. Before we do, we'll update this section to say:

• which provider we use and what it collects;
• whether it uses cookies or similar technology, including any used by third-party ad vendors such as Google to show ads based on your visits to this and other sites;
• how to opt out of personalised ads, and how we ask for your consent where the law requires it.

Children

The game isn't aimed at children under 13, and it doesn't collect information that identifies anyone, children included.

Your choices and questions

Because we never learn who you are, we usually can't find "your" data on our side, but we're happy to help with any question or request. Email support@shimworks.co.

Changes

If we change what the game collects, we'll update this page and the date at the top before the change goes live.

Terms Credits support@shimworks.co

Back to the Present is operated by Shimworks LLC.