Privacy notice

Who is responsible

Can You Name is operated by Teemu Korhonen in Finland, who is the controller of the personal data described here. Privacy requests can be sent to privacy@canyouname.com.

What we collect

• Gameplay data: the challenge, each voice transcript, answer order and timing, and whether it was accepted. We do not receive or store voice audio. Pending answer transcripts are held temporarily in a dedicated on-device queue until the server acknowledges them; acknowledged entries are deleted immediately and abandoned entries expire after 24 hours.
• Session data: start and finish times, a pseudonymous player identifier, and your research-use choice and policy version. Badges you earn are kept against that identifier so they last between runs.
• If you optionally claim a shelf, account data: your verified email, sign-in provider, provider account identifier, project-local login sessions, bounded username and profile colors/emblem, and explicit links to the pseudonymous player identifiers you choose to add. Creating an account is not required to play.
• Basic technical and security logs supplied by our hosting providers, which can include IP address, device information, and request timestamps.
• Voice reliability diagnostics: whether the mic check started, produced a transcript, timed out, or hit a browser or permission error, together with the browser language. These diagnostics never contain audio or the words spoken during the mic check.
• Feedback you choose to send: your message, the page you sent it from, your pseudonymous player identifier, and an email address only if you supply one. We use an address you leave to reply to you, never to market to you.
• Aggregate page-view counts from Vercel Web Analytics, which stores nothing on your device and does not identify you across sites.
• For challenges about public people, public catalog data such as a creator's display name, handle, stable platform identity, dated popularity evidence, source reference, and official public avatar reference. This catalog data identifies challenge answers; it is kept separate from player recall records.
• If you accept optional analytics, Microsoft Clarity records page interactions and provides session replay and heatmaps. Voice transcript and verdict text are masked from replay, and advertising storage is not enabled.

Browser speech recognition is supplied by your browser or operating system. Its provider may process audio under its own privacy terms; audio is not sent to Can You Name.

Why we use it

• To run the challenge, judge answers, show results, and prevent abuse. This is necessary to provide the service you request.
• If you choose an account, to authenticate you, carry claimed shelves across devices, attribute competitive achievements, and provide private export and deletion controls. This is necessary to provide that optional account service. Account security and bounded moderation records rely on our legitimate interest in preventing abuse and protecting players.
• To study aggregate recall patterns such as which items people remember first and how recall changes over a sprint, always in aggregated or anonymized form. The legal basis for this use is our legitimate interest in producing anonymous recall research; you can object at any time with the opt-out below, and future runs on that browser are then excluded.
• To keep the service secure and reliable, based on our legitimate interests in operating it safely.
• To maintain accurate challenges about public creators, based on our legitimate interest in operating a public-cultural recall game. A listed person can request a correction or removal using the contact below; inclusion does not imply endorsement of or by that person.
• With your consent, to understand how people navigate the site and where the interface is confusing using optional Microsoft Clarity analytics.

Your research choice never affects your ability to play.

Research and sharing

We may publish, share, or license statistics and findings only in aggregated or anonymized form. We do not sell identifiable gameplay or contact data. Service providers may process data for us only to host, secure, and maintain the product. Core providers are Vercel for hosting and cookieless page-view measurement, Neon for the production database, Google when you choose Google sign-in, and Resend for single-use sign-in links and feedback replies. Can You Name uses its own provider configuration and account tables; it does not share Game Backlog accounts. If you accept optional analytics, Microsoft Clarity also processes usage data for us. Provider infrastructure may process data outside the EEA using lawful transfer safeguards.

Retention

Identifiable or pseudonymous gameplay records are kept for up to 24 months, then deleted or irreversibly anonymized. Consent records may be kept longer when needed to demonstrate compliance. Hosting and security logs are kept for the shorter periods set by our providers. Fully anonymized statistics can be kept indefinitely because they can no longer be linked to a person.

Account contact/profile data and active login sessions are kept while the account exists; expired verification tokens and sessions are pruned. Deleting an account immediately removes its contact/public identity and irreversibly unlinks retained research rows. The deletion control also offers erasure of linkable gameplay, transcripts, feedback, and product events.

Your choices and rights

You can opt out of research use at any time with the control below. The choice is stored in a cookie on this browser and applies to future runs; runs recorded before an opt-out, and statistics already irreversibly anonymized, cannot be linked back to remove them. Depending on your circumstances, you can ask for access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or object to processing. Contact privacy@canyouname.com. We may need information that verifies the request belongs to you.

Signed-in players can download a private JSON copy of account, gameplay, transcript, badge, event, and feedback data. Export and deletion require a recent sign-in. Public results and replays never expose rejected or raw transcripts.

A public username can appear on leaderboards, eligible competitive replays, challenge cards, and a noindex achievement profile. You can switch to anonymous competition without deleting achievements, and rename subject to the displayed cooldown and abuse controls.

You can also complain to the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman in Finland or your local EEA supervisory authority.

Cookies and changes

We use storage needed to keep a guest session, remember choices, and secure the service, including the temporary IndexedDB answer queue described above. If you sign in, a separate HttpOnly Can You Name session cookie lasts for at most 30 days. Signing out revokes it and rotates this browser to a new unclaimed player identifier while preserving your research and analytics choices. Clarity storage is optional and stays off until you accept analytics; you can change that choice above at any time. We will post material changes here and request fresh consent when a change requires it.