Privacy notice

Who looks after your information?

The Lingo Games operates this service. For privacy questions, corrections or requests, contact hello@onlineenglishspeakingclub.com, or use the private Contact the Office form on our homepage.

What we collect and why

Player accounts contain your real name, competitor nickname, email, selected country and English division. We use your email to verify access through a single-use sign-in link, and your country and division to place your results. We do not collect player passwords.

We store game attempts, answer counts, timings, personal bests, question history and medals to run the games, reduce repeated puzzles and produce tournament standings. We also store messages you send, Village posts and reports, and account-review decisions so we can support players and moderate the community.

Hosting logs may contain connection information such as IP addresses. Application security limits use hashed identifiers to prevent excessive requests. Sponsorship requests include the contact and company details you submit; advert statistics record views and clicks using hashed visit identifiers, with aggregate totals in the Office.

We use account information to provide the service you join, and use security, moderation and service-management information for our legitimate interests in running a safe, reliable competition. We do not use sign-in requests to enrol you in marketing emails.

What other people can see

Public standings show your nickname, country, division, game results and awards. Your real name and email are not displayed on leaderboards. Village participants see your nickname and the posts you choose to publish. Team Chat is shared with verified members representing your selected country; Global Village and Problems are shared community rooms. Do not post private contact details or information about other people.

Private contact messages, reports and appeals are available to authorised Office management, rather than other players. Office management can access member details, results and moderation records.

Schools and classroom play

Teachers have separate verified email accounts. A teacher provides their name, school, country and classroom settings. Pupils enter a first name and classroom nickname; they do not need an email or password. The owning teacher can see their class roster, results and medal table. An admitted pupil sees their own play screens and records.

Classroom information does not enter public country standings or Legends. Teachers can export classroom results and permanently delete their classroom records from their private area. Teachers should arrange appropriate permission for participation and avoid unnecessary pupil details. Contact the Office for teacher-account access or deletion requests.

Hosting, email and sponsors

Hostinger hosts the site and its private database. Mailjet receives the name, email address and private sign-in message needed to deliver a requested pass. These providers process information to supply their services. Our Office contact form stores messages internally and does not send them by email.

We do not give advertisers player names, email addresses or classroom rosters. Sponsor links take you to another website, whose own privacy policy applies. Contact us if you would like more information about our hosting and email providers.

Cookies and your browser

A first-party session cookie keeps sign-ins, classroom access, security checks and advert request verification working. Email sign-in passes are single-use and expire after thirty days. Our email-request protection uses short-lived keyed hashes and a small browser calculation processed on this site; no external challenge service receives this information. Challenge and email-limit records are cleaned after twenty-four hours when the next request arrives. Closing or signing out ends the relevant access; sessions also expire. Your browser can retain a small list of announcement versions already shown, so the same announcement need not appear on every visit. You can clear this site’s cookies and local storage in browser settings, which may sign you out or show announcements again.

Optional site statistics and Google Analytics

If you allow analytics, our own Office statistics also record visits to public pages, the referring website hostname, a broad device category and a general live activity label (home, locker room or game arena). An anonymous daily identifier estimates visitors and live activity; we do not store your full IP address, browser agent, names or account details in these statistics. Page addresses exclude query strings and fragments. Raw traffic records expire after 35 days and live-presence records after five minutes. Country estimates appear only when our host supplies a country code; otherwise they show as Unknown. Necessary only disables this collection too. Office statistics also summarise existing member and game records to help us run the competition.

If you choose Allow analytics, we load Google Analytics to understand visits to our public games, event and legal pages. Google receives information about your browser, device and page usage. We do not attach player names, emails, account identifiers, classroom details or game answers. Our analytics setup removes query strings and fragments from the page addresses and referrer addresses it supplies, and disables advertising signals and personalisation.

Analytics stays off until you allow it. Necessary only lets you keep playing without loading the Google tag. Your choice is saved in this browser for up to six months, and analytics cookies are configured to expire after six months. Use Cookie settings in the footer to change your choice at any time. Withdrawing permission disables collection, clears this site's accessible Google Analytics cookies and reloads the page. Office, sign-in, account and school/classroom pages do not load our analytics script.

Google processes analytics information through its services; see Google's privacy policy. Analytics is optional and is separate from sign-in and gameplay.

Delete my account details

To leave the games, open My account and choose Delete my account. Confirm a fresh email sign-in pass, then return within ten minutes and type DELETE to confirm. Account deletion is permanent.

Deletion removes your name, email, Village content, private contact messages linked to your account and current leaderboard contributions. Completed official tournament results and medals remain anonymously under “Former competitor” so recorded places and country results stay accurate. The remaining historical reference cannot be used to sign in.

We keep your account and game history while your account is in use. For teacher accounts, pupil information or information sent outside a player account, contact the Office using the details above. We verify requests before making changes.

Your choices and requests

You can ask us to correct information, provide access, delete information or restrict or object to particular uses. Contact the Office using the details above for access to your information, corrections or requests concerning teacher or sponsorship records. We may need to verify you before acting. Requests about classroom pupils should also be raised with their teacher.

If you are unhappy with how your information is handled, contact us first. You can also raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office or the relevant authority where you live.