Privacy Policy

Written in plain language to describe what this project actually collects and does with it, rather than to cover every eventuality. If anything here is unclear or looks wrong, email artemiichirkov@gmail.com and it will be fixed.

What we collect, and why

We are not going to claim this project collects "no PII." That claim would be false the moment someone creates an account - an email address and other fields below are personal information. Here is exactly what exists, in two separate categories:

If you play without an account

An anonymous, randomly generated session identifier (a cookie), not tied to your name or email. The 40-point path you draw. Timing of your draw and how many times you redrew. A coarse device type (mobile/tablet/desktop) and a two-letter country code, both estimated from your connection, never a precise location. A salted, one-way hash of your browser's user agent string - the raw string is never stored. We do not store your IP address.

If you create an account

Everything above, plus: your email address (required, used only to sign you in), a display name you choose (not your legal name), optionally the year you were born (not your full birth date), and optionally a city and state (US only, chosen from a fixed list, not typed freely). All of these except email are self-reported and unverified - we do not check that they are accurate, and nothing in this project should be read as confirming that they are. If the location you enter does not match where your connection appears to be coming from, we store a flag noting that mismatch; it does not block you from playing, and rows flagged this way are excluded from location-based findings by default.

What this data is used for

The drawn paths are the actual point of this project: at scale, they become a dataset of how accurately people predict real trends, and where the biggest gaps are. Aggregated, anonymized drawing data may be published or licensed to third parties later, including as a research dataset - this is a stated goal of the project, not a hidden one. Anything published this way is aggregate statistics, not individual identifiable rows: no email address, no display name, and no single guess tied to a person leaves this project as part of that publication.

Account fields (email, display name, birth year, city/state) are used to run the account itself - signing you in, showing your streak, letting you edit your profile - and, in aggregate and de-identified form, for the same kind of research described above (for example, "does perception of this trend differ by age bracket," never "what did this specific person draw").

What we do not do

We do not sell your email address. We do not collect your full legal name or full date of birth - only a display name and, optionally, a birth year. We do not store raw IP addresses or raw browser user-agent strings. We do not use your data to serve you ads.

Your choices

You can play the first two charts on this site without an account at all. You can edit your profile fields at any time from your account page. To request deletion of your account, contact us using the address below.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request to delete your data: privacy@drawtheline.example (placeholder address - update before launch).