What HERD stores, and for how long

Version 2026-10-19e. This is the plain-words notice behind the "Before you play" screen. HERD is not meant for children: to play you need to be 16 or older, or play with a parent's permission. See also the Terms and Refunds.

Your email

Sign-in is a one-time link sent to your email, or "Continue with Google", where Google gives our sign-in provider your email address, name and profile picture link (the game itself only uses the account id). The email address and a random account id are kept by our sign-in provider for as long as the account exists. We never show your email to other players and we do not send marketing mail.

Your answers

During a show, and for one day after it, your answers are stored with your account id so you can reconnect and see your result. One day after the show every answer is cut loose from the account: the account id is replaced by a random id that is created on the spot and never written down. From then on the answers exist only as part of the crowd that later players play against. One honest limit: our database provider keeps a rolling 30-day recovery history of every change, so the state from before the cut is technically recoverable by us for 30 days after it. We have no process that does that, and after 30 days it is gone everywhere.

Some questions touch politics, religion, health or sex life. Those answers get exactly the same treatment, and the "Before you play" screen is where you agree to it (GDPR Article 9, explicit consent). You can refuse by not playing.

Your handle and crowns

Your handle is public: it appears on the crowns board. Crowns (shows you won) are counted per account and shown by handle, today and all time. Both are deleted with the account.

Cards: the questions you survive are counted per account, and the cards you earn (which sentence, which show, when) are stored with the account and shown only to you. Deleted with the account.

Which shows you played

For the five-entries-a-day rule we keep, per day, which shows your account entered. This list holds no answers.

So that you never meet the same questions twice within a month, your account keeps the ids of the question packs it met in a show or in training, for 30 days. Ids only, no answers; deleted with the account.

How you found us

A shared result or a creator's link brings you here through a short address such as /s. We count that visit as a number per day and per link: no address, no device, nothing about you. If you then sign in, your account keeps one note of which link brought you, so we can tell which links work. Nothing is sent to anyone else; deleted with the account.

Challenges with friends

A challenge is different from a show on purpose: its ten answers are kept with your account. The other people in that challenge see, with your handle, how alike you are once they have answered all ten themselves; your answers to each question are shown only if you switch on "Show my answers" (off unless you turn it on) and they have it on too. Its questions never touch politics, religion, health or sex. A challenge is deleted with all its answers after 30 days, and at once if you delete your account. If you invite someone by email, your own mail app sends it from your address; we never mail people who did not sign up.

The survey after a show, and thumbs on questions

If you fill in the short survey or rate a question after a show, that is stored with the show and is cut loose from your account together with your answers, one day after the show.

Show reminders

If you tap "Notify me 1 minute before", your browser creates a push subscription and we keep its address until that show starts; the nudge is sent, then the address is deleted. The push carries no content; the notification text is fixed. You can switch notifications off in your browser at any time.

On your phone

The site keeps your sign-in token, your streak, a visit counter, your reminder choices and your after-show survey answers in your browser's local storage. Clearing site data removes them. Your answer to the cookie question is kept there too. The only third party that sees your visit is Google, through its ad tag and Google Analytics, described below; there is no other tracker.

Google Ads and Google Analytics

We advertise on Google. To learn which ads bring players, the site loads Google's ad tag. It tells Google that a visit came from an ad, and, once per account, that a new account was created and that a first full show was played. The same tag also feeds Google Analytics, which counts visits: the pages seen, the device and country, and which ad or link brought you. It never sends your email, your handle, your answers or your account id.

In the EU, the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the site asks first. With "Only necessary" Google sets no cookies and receives only cookieless signals that it can count but not tie to you (Google Consent Mode); with "Accept" it may also set its advertising and analytics cookies. Elsewhere the tag works with cookies without asking. To answer again, clear this site's data in your browser. Google's own rules: policies.google.com/privacy.

Where

The game runs on Cloudflare, sign-in on Supabase, and sign-in mail goes through Postmark, and ad measurement and visit counts go to Google (above). Each keeps only what it needs for that job.

Deleting your account

On the first screen after the gate, "Delete my account" does it at once: your email and sign-in are deleted, this week's entry lists lose your account, the shows you entered are cut loose from it immediately, and your sign-in link stops working. Anything a show still holds about you (for example picks you made while watching a show you had not entered) goes with that show's own cut, within a day. Nothing is kept that points to you. It cannot be undone.