Tadpole Games is built for children, so we collect as little as we possibly can. We don't show ads, we never sell or rent your data, and we don't track you across the web. Your game progress stays on your own device. The only personal information we hold is the email address a parent gives us to manage a paid membership — and you can delete it at any time.
This policy explains what information Tadpole Games collects, why, and what your rights are. It applies to our website at tadpolegames.com and our mobile apps.
Tadpole Games is a service operated by Difflex Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 09803430 (trading as "Tadpole Games"), whose registered office is at First Floor North, 40 Oxford Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 2EE. For the purposes of UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), Difflex Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.
You can reach us about anything in this policy — including privacy requests — at [email protected].
Our games are designed to be played by children, with the educational content (phonics, maths, languages and geography) aimed at primary-school ages. We take that responsibility seriously and follow the principles of the UK Information Commissioner's Age Appropriate Design Code (the "Children's Code").
Children do not need an account to play, and we do not ask children for any personal information. A child can play every free puzzle without giving us a name, an email, or anything else. Accounts and payments are for adults only (a parent or guardian) — see "Eligibility" in our Terms of Use. We do not knowingly collect personal data directly from a child. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.
As you play, the game saves your progress in your browser or app's local storage — for example your chosen difficulty, which puzzle you're on, the words you've found, and your gentle accomplishment stats. The same place holds a sign-in token if you've logged in to a membership, and a cached copy of your membership status.
This information stays on your device. We don't receive it, and it isn't used to build a profile of anyone. You can clear it at any time by clearing your browser's site data, or by deleting the app.
Premium memberships are optional. If a parent chooses to subscribe, we handle a small amount of personal data so we can give you access and manage the membership:
We do not see or store your card number. All card details are handled directly by our payment processor, Stripe (see below).
A free account is optional and lets you save progress and try each Premium game once. To provide it we use your email address — to send the one-tap "magic link" you sign in with, and as the key to your account (we also store a one-way hashed SHA-256 form of it as the lookup key). We record the date you signed up and your email preferences.
Marketing emails. When you sign in, an option on the form lets you choose whether to receive occasional emails from us about new games and learning tips. These are optional and separate from the essential sign-in and membership emails. You can unsubscribe at any time — using the one-tap link in every marketing email, or the email-preference toggle on your Account page. We send them through Resend (see below), and we never share your email with other companies for their own marketing.
Our Colour It game lets a signed-in member turn a photo of their own into a black-and-white colouring page. When you choose a photo and tap Make, the photo is sent securely to our AI partner — Google's Gemini model, reached through the AI gateway OpenRouter — which redraws it as outlines and sends the line drawing back. We add the border and finish it in your browser.
We do not store your photo or the finished colouring page. Your photo is passed straight to the AI to be processed and is then discarded — we don't write it to disk or to any database. So that the same photo can't be charged for twice, our server briefly keeps a one-way hash (a scrambled fingerprint that can't be turned back into a picture) for a minute or two; it holds no image.
This AI processing happens on our providers' servers, which are outside the UK, in the United States (see section 6). Google and OpenRouter may hold the image briefly for their own safety and abuse checks, under their own privacy policies (OpenRouter, Google).
Photos of children. A Colour It photo is chosen and uploaded by the adult account holder. Photos may show children, so please only upload images you have the right to use — and you don't need a photo of your child's face: pets, toys, drawings and objects work just as well. Because we don't keep the photo, there is nothing for us to retain about anyone pictured in it.
We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. We use your device's local storage to remember your game progress, your cookie choice, and to keep you signed in to a membership — these are essential to how the game works and store nothing about you beyond that.
Analytics cookies (optional, with your consent). On the website, if you accept the cookie banner, Google Analytics sets its _ga cookies so we can count visits and see which games get played. If you decline (or simply ignore the banner), Google Analytics is never loaded and no analytics cookies are set — the games work exactly the same either way. Cloudflare's analytics remains cookieless regardless. You can change your mind at any time: .
We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share the limited data above only with the trusted service providers that help us run Tadpole Games, and only so they can perform that service for us:
We may also disclose information if we are legally required to do so, or to protect the rights, safety and security of our users and our service.
Some of our service providers (such as Stripe, Resend, Cloudflare, OpenRouter and Google) are based in, or process data in, countries outside the UK including the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, it is protected by appropriate safeguards — such as the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, or the providers' approved data-transfer frameworks.
Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases:
We keep your account and membership data for as long as you have an account or membership with us, and for a limited period afterwards as needed for accounting, tax and fraud-prevention. You can delete your account at any time from the Account page (this cancels any active subscription, removes your account record, and removes you from our marketing list). If you only unsubscribe from marketing emails, we keep a minimal record of that choice so we can honour it. Information stored on your device stays until you clear it or delete the app. Payment records held by Stripe are retained under Stripe's own policy and applicable law.
You have rights over your personal data under UK data protection law, including the right to:
To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. You can also delete your account yourself at any time. We won't charge you for a request or treat you differently for making one.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk — though we'd appreciate the chance to put things right first.
We design for safety: minimal data collection, payments handled by a specialist processor, membership stored against a one-way hash of your email, and sign-in by short-lived links rather than passwords you have to remember. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information.
We may update this policy from time to time — for example if we add a feature or change a service provider. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Significant changes affecting members may also be notified by email.
Questions, requests, or concerns about your privacy? Email us any time at [email protected]. We're a small UK team and we read everything.