Privacy.
Last updated: November 2026.
The short version
You can host and play without an account, and there are no ads. During a night our server holds what the room needs to run (nicknames, table names and answers) and deletes it half an hour after the last phone or screen leaves. Thinking Cap runs on Empyreal's game platform, shared with our other games; nothing about you moves between games unless you sign in.
What a night sends to our server
- Players: the nickname you type, the table you start or join, and your table's answers. Your table and the host see them. The TV shows table names and the scores and, after the reveal, can show the answers the room gave: without table names unless the host turns names on.
- Whether a phone left the app during a question. The host sees this as a hint (“away 12 s”), never as a penalty. Nobody else sees it.
- The host: the quiz being played, the night's settings and the marks.
- A random device id and key our server gives this install the first time it needs one, so a phone the host removed cannot rejoin that night, and so anything a host buys without an account belongs to this device. It is not linked to your name, your number or any account unless you sign in.
The room is saved while it runs, so a server restart costs a reconnect rather than the night. It is deleted half an hour after the last phone, console or TV leaves it, and in every case within a day.
What a host can send on purpose
- Pictures and clips uploaded for a question (on the website; in the apps a host pastes a link, and we keep a copy of what it points to). Pictures are shrunk on your device first, which also strips the camera details. They are stored by a fingerprint of the file and served to anyone with the quiz. Do not upload anything you would not show a room. Ask us and we delete one.
- A shared quiz. “Share” uploads a copy of that quiz so anyone with the link can view it and copy it. Ask us and we delete it.
- An AI round. The topic you type goes to Google's Gemini to write the questions and to check them against search results. Nothing else about you or the room goes with it. Your device (or account) counts how many free rounds it has used today and holds any AI credits.
- A kept room code. If you keep your venue's code, the server stores the code and a fingerprint of a key held on your device, and frees the code after 120 days unused.
- A wrong-answer report: the question, its answer and your note. We read these to fix the bank.
Signing in (hosts, optional)
A host can sign in with an email address (by a link we email, or with a password), with Apple or with Google. We keep the email address, the name on the account if there is one (Apple and Google may give us one), the Apple or Google id the account is linked to, a fingerprint of the password if you set one, the account's purchases and the devices it has signed in on, so purchases follow you to every device and every Empyreal game you sign in to. With each signed-in session we keep the address it signed in from and the browser or app it used, to keep the account safe; they are deleted when you sign out of that session or delete the account.
What syncs when you sign in. Signed in, your quizzes, packs, night settings and presets, venues and leagues are saved to your account so they are on every device you sign in on. That includes what you type about a venue (its branding, and the client's contact name, email, phone, usual night, fee and your notes) and team sign-ups (team names and the names of the people on them). Only you see them, and the other hosts of a venue you share. Delete them in the app and the deletion syncs.
Delete the account in Settings: it removes the account, its purchases record, its saved data and its uploads, in every Empyreal game. Purchases made on a device without signing in stay with that device.
Purchases (hosts only)
In the apps, the App Store or Google Play takes the payment and tells RevenueCat, which tells us what this device bought. On the web, Stripe takes the payment. We never see card details. We keep what was bought, when, and which device or account it belongs to, to give you what you paid for and to restore it. A claim code (shown after a web purchase) moves a purchase to another device; it works once, for a day.
What stays on your device
Signed out, all of this stays on your device: your quizzes, your night settings and presets, your venues and their client details, team sign-ups, your leagues and their tables. Signed in or not, these never leave it: which bank questions you ran this year (so a new night can leave them out), your Daily 10 scores, the builder's autosave, the last nickname you used and the seat you were in (so a dropped phone goes straight back to its table). Uninstalling the app or clearing the site's data removes them.
What else our servers see
Like any web server, ours keeps short-lived access logs (address, page, browser) to keep the service running and stop abuse. They are not used for anything else and are not shared. Our sites and the API reach you through Cloudflare, which carries the traffic and blocks attacks; it sees your address as any network does, and does not run analytics or load scripts for us.
The website counts page views with our own Umami analytics server: no cookies, no account or device id. Umami works out a rough location (country, region and city) from your address and does not keep the address. The app, on phones and in the browser, counts what happens (a screen opened, a room opened, a night finished, a quiz imported) with our own Aptabase analytics server. Each event carries a random id for this install (not the device id above), your account id while you are signed in, the kind of device, the app's version, the language and the country and region your address is in. It never carries names, answers, questions, room codes or anything you type. We use it to see how the app is used and to keep it working; it is never sold or used for advertising, and it is kept for 400 days. Neither the site nor the app loads third-party scripts or trackers. In the app, a picture question loads its image from wherever the host linked it.
Who else handles data for us
Only to run the service, and never to sell or advertise: Cloudflare (the network in front of our servers), Apple and Google (signing in, and payments in their stores), RevenueCat (store purchases), Stripe (payments on the web), Google's Gemini (the topic of an AI round), and our email provider (sign-in links and receipts).
What we don't do
No advertising, no ad tracking, no selling, renting or sharing of data, and no profile to build one from.
When this changes
Before anything new is sent or kept, this page will say exactly what and for how long.
Children
Thinking Cap is a trivia game for groups, used in pubs, offices, schools and at home. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything from anyone. Playing needs no personal detail; a nickname can be anything.
Contact
Questions or requests: [email protected].