Privacy

Last updated 4 September 2026. Puzzle Party is run from the United Kingdom by an individual, and this policy is written under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The short version

You can play without an account and without telling us anything about yourself. We do not sell data, we do not build advertising profiles, and we do not ask for your email unless you choose to make an account.

Cookies we set

pp_guest

A signed random identifier so the site can tell your play apart from somebody else’s without knowing who you are. It contains no name, no email and no device information. Necessary for the game to work, which is why it is set without asking.

pp_banked

Your score for each daily puzzle, signed so it cannot be edited. This is what makes your first score the one that stands.

pp_spent

How many goes you have had at a daily, for the same reason.

pp:consent:v1

Your answer to the cookie question, kept in this browser’s local storage rather than in a cookie. It is the reason you are only asked once.

__Secure-neon-auth.* (only if you sign in)

The session cookies that keep you signed in, and a short-lived signed copy of that session so a page can tell it is you without asking again. They exist only for an account and go when you sign out.

pp:notify:v1 (only if you ask for reminders)

Which reminders you asked for and the hour you chose, kept in this browser’s local storage so the settings screen can draw itself. Asking for reminders also sends us the address your browser’s push service gave us, which is what a notification is delivered to, and how far your clock is from UTC, which is how we know when your nine in the morning is. Switching reminders off deletes it, and so does clearing this site’s data.

_ga, _ga_*

Google Analytics, which counts visits so we know which puzzles people actually play. Set only if you accept cookies. Say no and Analytics still counts the visit, without a cookie and without anything that could identify you or follow you anywhere: that is Google’s own consent mode rather than a promise of ours.

Your results as a guest

When you play a daily as a guest we keep the result against the random identifier in the guest cookie: which puzzle, which day, what you scored, how long it took. It is what puts you on that day’s board and what lets the result move onto an account if you make one in the same browser. There is no name on it and nothing in it that could be traced back to you, and it is the same information a signed-in player has on their account. Clear your cookies and the link between you and those rows is gone for good, which also means they can no longer be claimed. A guest row is kept while its day is still playable in the archive, which is a year, and deleted after that. A row on an account stays until you delete the account, and deleting the account takes it with it.

If you make an account

Accounts are optional and exist so your scores follow you between devices. We store the email address you sign up with and the display name you choose. Authentication is handled by Neon Auth, and accounts and scores are stored by Neon in its London region. You can delete your account at any time, and doing so removes the row and everything attached to it.

Lobbies

A lobby is the one place where something you type is shown to other people: the name you choose when you join. Nothing else you do in a lobby is visible to anybody outside it, there is no chat, no messaging and no way to send anything to another player, which is a deliberate limit and not a missing feature. Names are checked against a list of things we will not publish. A lobby and its results are deleted automatically twenty-four hours after the last person touches it.

If you see a name that should not be here, write to report@puzzleparty.co.uk and we will deal with it.

Measurement

We count page views with Google Analytics, described below, and nothing else. We do not fingerprint your browser, we do not buy or sell audience data, and there is no third-party tag on this site other than the two Google ones named on this page.

We also use Google Analytics, which is what the _ga cookies above are. It loads only after you have answered the cookie question, and if you say no it runs in Google’s cookieless mode: the visit is counted and nothing is stored on your device or tied to you. We use it to see which puzzles people actually play, which is the only reason it is here.

Advertising

The site carries advertising from Google AdSense on pages where nothing is in progress, and never during a puzzle. Nothing from Google loads until you have answered. Saying no does not remove the adverts, it removes the tracking: you get plain adverts chosen by the page you are on rather than by anything about you, and no identifier that follows you between sites. In the UK and the EEA no advertising script is on the page until you have answered. You can change your mind whenever you like:

We only ask this in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, because that is where the rule applies and it follows you rather than us. Google sets its own cookies once allowed and is a separate data controller for them; you can review and change what it does at myadcenter.google.com.

Children

The puzzles are suitable for all ages. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13, and the guest cookie is designed so that playing requires none. Where we later add features that let players write to each other, they will be built to the ICO’s Age Appropriate Design Code and described here before they go live.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to us holding it. Write to privacy@puzzleparty.co.uk. If we get it wrong you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.