Children's privacy notice

Why you are getting this notice

Whyland is a learning game for children aged 4 to 12. A US law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and similar laws elsewhere say we must tell you what we collect from your child and ask your permission first. If you started a family account, we collected your email address only to send you this notice and ask for your consent.

Before you agree

A child can play before you agree. We then collect only what the game needs to work: a random session cookie, scrambled network addresses, game events tied only to random ids, and error reports, greeting voice lines, and for online play the explorer's position, look and preset waves. We use them only for the internal operations listed in the privacy notice, never to contact your child, build a profile of them or show ads. If your family has an account and you have agreed, these events carry a random family id and a random id for each child (never a name or an age), so we can see how families use the game. You can switch this off in Grown-ups.

We also keep each explorer in a cloud save in our database, under a made-up username: their first name, age, look and settings, your setup answers including any tricky-things answers, and their progress, so nothing is lost with the device.

What we collect with your consent, and why

• Your child's first name, how to say it, and age: to greet them, choose things that fit their age, and label your reports.
• Your answers about school, reading and where to start: to pick the right first chapters at the right level.
• Progress and the explorer's look: so the adventure carries on from any device you link.
• Tricky-things answers, kept with the explorer's cloud save: so the game stays gentle in the ways you chose, on a new device too.
• Weekly summaries of play: for your email report.

We do not keep your child's voice, photos, location or contacts. Children cannot chat or type messages to anyone in Whyland.

Reading out loud is on by default, so your child can practice reading from the first day, and you can turn it off for a device in Grown-ups. Each reading (at most 12 seconds of your child's voice) goes to Whyland's own speech service, is turned into words only to check the reading, and the speech service deletes it when the check ends. Saved reading recordings: at the end of setup, the screen where you hand the device to your child says that handing it over means you agree to us saving your child's reading-out-loud recordings. Your agreement is recorded. A signed-in parent can also switch Save reading recordings on in Grown-ups, Privacy. Then we keep each recording, encrypted, so you can listen back to your child's reading, and so we can check and improve how well read-aloud hears children. Recordings are never sold, never shared beyond our service providers, and never used to train AI models unless you separately agree. They are kept until your child has not played (for a family account) or not read out loud (for an explorer without one) for 365 days. You can listen to them, delete one or all of them, or turn saving off any time in Grown-ups. They are deleted at once when you delete your child, the explorer or your account. If your child starts playing before a grown-up finishes setup, nothing is saved until then. The device keeps only a simple result, and our server keeps daily counts with no name, age or sound for 35 days. When nothing is saved, the sound is used only to check that one reading and is deleted straight away, so we do not ask for your consent first for that; turning reading out loud off stops it on that device.

Who receives it

Only our service providers, who run parts of Whyland for us and may use the information for nothing else:

• Hosting and database (Vercel, Supabase): everything we store.
• Character voices (ElevenLabs): the words of a greeting line, which include your child's first name.
• Email (Amazon SES): your email address and the emails we send you, which can include your child's first name and a summary of their play.
• Payments (Stripe, members only): what you type into its payment page. In our apps, the App Store or Google Play, and RevenueCat, which tells our server about those memberships with a random family id.
• Reading out loud (the cloud computing host that runs our speech service, unless you turn reading out loud off): each reading, deleted when it has been checked.
• Error reports and statistics (Sentry, PostHog): no names, ages or network addresses.

We do not disclose your child's information to third parties for their own use, and never for advertising. You can consent to us collecting and using your child's information without consenting to any disclosure to third parties.

How to give consent

• Free family account: confirm with the link or code in our email. We send a second email to confirm your choice.
• Membership: paying with your card gives consent. The charge appears on your card statement.

If you do not give consent within 30 days, we delete your email address and anything else you gave us.

Review, delete or change your mind

At any time you can see and download your child's information, ask us to correct it, delete it, and withdraw your consent so that we stop collecting it. Use your family account's privacy page, Grown-ups on the device, or email us. Withdrawing consent deletes the information that needed it; the game keeps working on the device.

AI voices

Character voices are made with AI. Some of the young characters' voices are AI voices modeled on recordings of real people. We never use your child's voice to make a voice.

How long we keep it

Only as long as we need it: for example sign-in codes for 24 hours, weekly summaries for 13 weeks, and the family account until you delete it or it goes unused for 24 months. The full table is in the privacy notice.

Contact

Questions, or a request about your child's information: