Privacy Policy
The short version: no advertising, and nothing about you is ever sold. Your creative work stays in your browser. We count visits ourselves and use Google Analytics to see which pages are useful. If you choose to sign in, we keep the minimum needed to run your account, and nothing more.
What stays in your browser
The Deduction Board saves your preferences (name, bio, theme, custom characters), your saved maps and palaces, board feature settings, and your game records in your browser's localStorage. This creative work is never uploaded to our servers, and you can erase it at any time by clearing your browser's site data for elementarytools.com.
Accounts (optional)
You can use the whole site without an account. If you sign in with Google, we store: your Google account identifier, your name, email address, and profile picture as provided by Google; your supporter status; and a daily count of how many AI requests you make (used only to apply fair-use allowances). We do not see or store your Google password. To delete your account and its data, email hello@elementarytools.com from the address on the account.
AI features
When you use an AI feature, the text you submit (and, on voice calls, your microphone audio)
is relayed through our server to Google's Gemini service
(generativelanguage.googleapis.com) to generate the response. The relay exists
only to attach the site's service credentials — Elementary Tools does not log or store your
submissions or the responses. Processing by Google is governed by
Google's privacy policy
and their API terms.
Visit statistics
We count page views ourselves, on this server. For each view we record the time, the page, the country, and a visitor token — a one-way hash of your IP address and browser combined with a secret that changes every day. That means the same person cannot be recognised from one day to the next, and your IP address is never stored.
Country is taken from a header supplied by our CDN where one exists. If not, the address is exchanged for a country code — after your page has already been sent, so it never slows you down — via ipwho.is or country.is. Only the resulting country is kept; the address is never written to our database, and the cache that avoids repeat lookups holds a one-way hash rather than the address itself. Records older than 60 days are removed automatically. This first-party counting uses no cookie at all.
Google Analytics
Public pages also load Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID
G-4MK644CF02), which helps us understand which parts of the
site people find useful. It sets its own cookies (typically _ga and
_ga_*, which persist for up to two years) and sends Google your page address,
referrer, approximate location, device and browser details. Google Analytics 4 does not log
full IP addresses. This data is processed by Google under
their privacy policy;
see also how Google uses Analytics data.
It is not loaded in the administration area, and not for signed-in administrators. You can opt out for every site using Google's opt-out add-on, or by using your browser's tracking protection. There is no advertising network on this site and nothing here is sold to anyone.
Cookies
Our own cookies are functional only: a session cookie that applies fair-use limits on the AI features, and — if you sign in — a signed login cookie so you stay signed in. Google Analytics sets its own analytics cookies as described above. There is no advertising network and no advertising cookie. The visual library p5.js is loaded from the cdnjs content delivery network, and Google's sign-in button (on the account page only) is loaded from Google; each may see your IP address as part of serving those files, as any web request does.
Server logs
Like virtually all websites, our hosting provider keeps standard access logs (IP address, requested page, browser user-agent, timestamp) for security and troubleshooting. These logs are not used for profiling and are rotated automatically.
Text-to-speech
The "read aloud" feature uses your browser's built-in speech synthesis. Depending on your browser and operating system, this may process text locally or via your browser vendor's services.
Children
Elementary Tools is a general-audience site and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. Signing in requires a Google account, which itself has age requirements set by Google.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will appear on this page with an updated effective date.
Questions
Email hello@elementarytools.com.