Privacy policy

1. What we collect

This policy covers mad4change.com and everything on it. It is written to be read alongside the terms of service and the rules.

When you create an account we ask for an email address, a display name, a password and a ZIP code. The ZIP code is how we work out which city you play in, and it is the only piece of your address we want — we do not ask for a street address.

You can also choose to add a phone number, a charity to play for, and a short dedication. All three are optional and you can remove them.

When you donate, the payment itself is handled by Stripe. Your card number never reaches us and we never store it. What we keep is the amount, the date, and a reference that lets us match the payment to your account.

As you use the site we record the ordinary things a server records: which pages were asked for, when, from which IP address, and what browser asked. We also record when you sign in, when a sign-in fails, and when staff look at your account.

2. What we use it for

Your email address is how we reach you: confirming your account, resetting your password, telling you a round is about to lock, and telling you what happened to your money. We send those because you have an account, not because you opted in to marketing.

Your ZIP code decides which city you play in and which charities you can choose from. The town it maps to is shown with your name when you battle somebody, because this is a local game and knowing who you are playing is part of it.

Sign-in records and server logs are used to keep accounts safe and to work out what went wrong when something breaks. Nothing here is used to build a profile of you for advertising, because we do not advertise.

3. What other people can see

Public: your display name, the town your ZIP code maps to, the charity you are playing for, your badges, and your dedication if you wrote one. These appear on leaderboards and beside your battles.

Not public, ever: your email address, your phone number, your password, your exact ZIP code and how much you donated. Charity and city totals are published; the amounts behind them are not attributed to anybody by name.

If you would rather not be identifiable, choose a display name that is not your real one. We cannot un-publish something you put in your display name or dedication yourself after other people have seen it.

4. Cookies

We set a cookie when you sign in, so the site knows it is you on the next page. Without it you cannot stay signed in. We also store your choice of light or dark theme in your own browser.

That is all. There are no advertising cookies, no tracking pixels and no third-party analytics watching where you go. Blocking cookies will stop you signing in, but nothing else about the site depends on them.

5. Who else gets it

We do not sell, rent or trade your information. There is no circumstance in which we would.

Some of it has to pass through the companies that do a job for us: Stripe to take the payment, our email provider to deliver the mail, and a text-message provider if you ask for text reminders. Each of them gets only what that job needs, and each has its own privacy policy that governs what they do with it.

We share your details with a charity only if you ask us to. Charities are told what they have been granted; they are not told who gave it unless you say so.

We will disclose information where a court order, a subpoena or the law requires it, and we will cooperate with a law-enforcement investigation. If we are ever allowed to tell you that we did, we will.

6. Seeing, changing and deleting your information

You can see and change everything on your profile at any time, and you can change your email address from there as well.

You can ask us to close your account and we will. Closing it stops anyone signing in to it and ends every session, and we will remove the optional things — your phone number, your dedication — on request.

There is one thing we cannot do, and we would rather say it plainly than bury it. Donations are recorded in a ledger that cannot be edited or deleted, because a charity has to be able to account for every dollar it received and where it went. So if you have ever donated, the record of that donation stays, and your account stays attached to it. We close the account rather than erase it. The same is true of the records of staff actions and sign-ins, which exist so that we can be audited.

7. Email and text messages

Messages about your own account and your own seasons are part of having an account, and you cannot turn those off while the account is open.

News and updates are separate and off unless you ask for them. Every one of those has an unsubscribe link, and you can change your mind on your profile at any time.

Text messages only ever go to a number you gave us and confirmed, and only if you ticked the box asking for them. We record the exact wording you agreed to. Reply STOP to any of them and they stop.

8. How we look after it

Passwords are stored hashed, never in a form anybody here can read, and signing in to a staff account needs a second step as well as a password.

Access is limited to the people who need it. Every time a member of staff opens one person's record, that is recorded against their name, and so is every change they make and why they made it. That record exists so somebody can ask who has looked at your information and get a real answer.

No system is perfectly secure and nothing sent over the internet can be guaranteed private, so we will not pretend otherwise. If information of yours is ever exposed, we will tell you what happened and what we did about it.

9. Children

You have to be 18 or over to use Mad4Change, and we do not knowingly collect anything about anyone younger. If you believe a child has given us information, tell us and we will delete it and close the account.

10. Changes to this policy

If we change how we treat your information in a way that matters, we will email the address on your account and say so on this page. The version is at the top so you can see which one you are reading.