Privacy Policy · Funstead Games

The short version

Your photos and names stay on your phone. The Funstead Games app copies the photos you pick into the app and never uploads them. Names you type stay on the phone too, and so will Stories when they arrive in December.
The app has no ads, no tracking, no analytics and no accounts. You can play without the internet.
On iPhone, the app sends us nothing. On Android, a Google component that finds faces in photos on the phone sends Google basic technical information about how it's running. It never sends photos.
We never sell or share your information, and we don't use it for advertising or to train AI.
Family Connect (coming in December 2026) is optional. If your family uses it, family members create an account with their email address and send photos to the player's phone through our servers. Part 2 explains exactly what that involves.
Questions? Write to us at support@funsteadgames.com. A real person reads every email.

Who we are

Funstead Games is made by Puff Together LLC, doing business as Funstead Games, a California limited liability company. In this policy, "Funstead", "we" and "us" mean that company. "The app" means the Funstead Games app (listed in the stores as "Funstead: Photo Games") for iPhone and Android.

This policy covers:

the app;
our website, funsteadgames.com;
emails between you and us; and
from the day it launches, Family Connect, our family website at family.funsteadgames.com, and the parts of the app that connect to it.

It's in three parts:

Part 1: The app. What happens to your information when you play.
Part 2: Family Connect. Takes effect when Family Connect is released, planned for December 2026.
Part 3: For everyone. Support emails, our website, children, security, your rights, and how to reach us.

Apple and Google sell the app for us, and their own privacy policies cover what they do (for example, your purchase and your App Store or Google Play account).

Part 1: The app

What the app keeps on your phone

The app needs a little information to work. All of it stays on the phone the app is installed on. We don't receive it, and we can't see it.

The player's name, typed at "Hi! Who's playing?", so the app can say "Good morning, Linda" and "Wonderful, Linda!"
The photos you choose. The app saves its own smaller copies inside the app, with the day each photo was taken and the name of the album it came from, so it can show them in the games and in the photo viewer. The copies don't keep the photo's location or camera details.
Notes the app makes about each photo, also on the phone. For example, where the faces or the main subject are, so a jigsaw or a card is framed nicely, and whether a photo looked blurry, dark or like a screenshot, so it can be skipped.
Rough places, for trip albums. When you add photos, the app may read where they were taken, on the phone, to group photos from a trip into an album such as "Trip · June 2025". It doesn't keep the exact places. It keeps only a rough tally of the areas photos came from (squares about 50 km, or 30 miles, across), so it can tell home from away.
Stories (from the December update), if the player tells the story behind a photo: the words they type and any voice recording they make (see "Stories and the microphone" below).
Game progress and settings: scores, saved games, levels, text size, light or dark, sounds and similar choices, and, if you set it, an age range (such as "70s") so Trivia can ask about the right decades.

What we collect from the app

On iPhone: nothing. Apple defines "collect" as sending data off the phone in a way that lets the app maker (or its partners) access it for longer than it takes to answer a request in real time. The iPhone app doesn't send your information anywhere, so in Apple's words, it collects no data. Its App Store privacy label says "Data Not Collected".

On Android: only Google's diagnostics, described next. We don't receive anything from the Android app either.

Finding faces, on the phone (Android: Google ML Kit)

To frame photos nicely (and to center a jigsaw or a playing card on the people in a picture), the app looks for faces, pets and the main subject in each photo on the phone itself. It finds where faces are; it doesn't recognize who anyone is, and it doesn't create face templates or "faceprints". Nothing about faces is ever sent to us.

On iPhone, the app uses Apple's Vision framework, which runs on the phone and sends nothing.
On Android, the app uses Google's ML Kit (face detection, object detection and image labeling), which also runs on the phone. Google designed ML Kit to send Google limited technical information so it can keep the component working and improve it: for example, the device model and operating system, the app's name and version, performance and error information, which ML Kit features were used, and a random identifier for that installation of the app. ML Kit never sends your photos, the results it finds, names or anything you type. We can't turn this off and we don't receive this information. Google handles it under its own terms; see Google's "ML Kit data disclosure" page (developers.google.com/ml-kit/android-data-disclosure).

Permissions the app asks for

The app asks only when you use a feature that needs a permission, and it works without any of them.

Photos. On iPhone, the app asks to see your photo library (all photos or only the ones you select; you choose), so you can pick photos, and so it can read a shared family album if you set one up. On Android, the app uses the phone's own photo picker, which only gives the app the photos you pick. Either way, the app keeps its own copies on the phone and never uploads them.
Shared family album (iPhone only). If you pick a shared album in Photos, the app checks it for new photos and copies them into the app, on the phone, through Apple's PhotoKit. If the album's photos are stored in iCloud, your iPhone may download them from Apple, as it does for the Photos app.
Camera, only if you choose to take a new picture while adding photos. The picture is treated like any other photo you pick.
Saving to Photos, only if you choose to save a photo from the app back to your library.
Microphone, only for Stories, once that feature arrives in the December update (next section).

The app does not ask for your location, your contacts, your calendar, or permission to track you, and it has no advertising identifier.

Stories and the microphone

Stories, coming in the December update, lets the player tell the story behind a photo, by typing or by recording their voice. Until that update, the app doesn't use the microphone at all.

The microphone is used only while recording. It turns on when the player taps Record your voice and turns off when they tap Stop (or after 3 minutes, or when they leave the app). The app never listens in the background.
Stories stay on the phone. The words and recordings are saved inside the app. We don't receive them, and the app doesn't analyze voices.
Stories are shared only if the player taps Share (see "Sharing" below). Then the player chooses who gets them.
Deleting: a story can be changed or deleted at any time from the photo. Removing a photo also removes its story (the app asks first). Deleting the app deletes every story.
Typing with the keyboard's own dictation microphone is handled by Apple or Google's keyboard, not by us.

When you tap Share (on a photo) or Send to family (on a win), the app hands the picture, words or recording to your phone's own share sheet. You choose where it goes: Messages, email, WhatsApp, Facebook and so on. From then on, the app you chose handles it under its own privacy policy. Nothing passes through us.

Buying the app

You buy Funstead through Apple's App Store or Google Play, and they process the payment under their privacy policies. We never see your card or payment details. Apple and Google give us sales reports that normally don't identify you. If you ask Google for a refund, Google may show us limited order details (such as an order number, the date and the price) so we can handle it. Family Sharing and Family Library are run by Apple and Google.

Backups

If you use your phone's backup (iCloud Backup on iPhone, or Google's backup on Android), the app's data, including photos and stories, may be included in that backup. Those backups are run by Apple or Google under your account; we can't see them.

Deleting your information from the app

A photo: Settings › Family photos, or Photo options on the photo. This removes the app's copy only; your phone's photo library isn't touched.
A story: open the photo and choose Change, then Delete this story.
Scores and progress: Settings › More settings › Reset all progress.
Everything: delete the app from the phone. Because we don't have a copy, there's nothing more to delete on our side.

Part 2: Family Connect

When this part takes effect: on the day the Funstead update with Family Connect is released, planned for December 2026. Until then, Family Connect doesn't exist, and nothing in this part applies. We've published it early so families can read it before they sign up.

What Family Connect is

Family Connect is an optional, included part of Funstead (there's nothing to buy). On a website, family.funsteadgames.com, up to six family members can send photos with captions to the player's Funstead games, and choose which games appear first on the player's home screen. The player's phone joins the family once, with a code, and gets the photos the next time Funstead opens.

In this part, "family members" means the adults who use the website, and "the player" means the person who plays Funstead on the connected phone. The player doesn't have an account and doesn't sign in.

If your family never uses Family Connect, the app on your phone makes no Family Connect connections at all, and Part 1 describes everything.

What we collect from family members (on the website)

Your email address, to send you sign-in links (there's no password) and, rarely, important messages about your account or a change to this policy. We don't send marketing email.
Your first name, shown to the family and to the player with your photos, like "From Sarah".
The photos you add, and their captions. Before a photo leaves your phone or computer, our website makes a smaller copy and removes its location (GPS) and camera details. We keep only the day the photo was taken, if the photo records it. Our servers check every photo and refuse any that still contain location information.
Family information: the family's name, what you call the player (for example "Mom"), who is in the family and who organizes it, invitations (we store a scrambled version of each invite link, not the email address of the person you invite), and which games are pinned or hidden on the player's home screen.
The family's activity list, such as "Sarah added 4 photos" or "Mom hid a photo", which everyone in the family can see.
Reports and blocks. If you report a photo, we keep your report and any reason you give. If the family's organizer blocks someone, we keep that person's email address on the family's block list, so they can't rejoin.
Security records. To stop abuse, we count requests by network (IP) address and by email address. We store these counts in a scrambled (hashed) form and delete them within a day. Our hosting provider also keeps short technical logs of requests (such as the time, the page requested and whether it worked), without the contents of photos or forms.
One cookie. The website sets a single sign-in cookie so you stay signed in (for up to 30 days after you last use it). It isn't used for anything else. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.

What the player's phone sends (only when connected)

When a family member connects the player's phone (the player must tap Yes, connect on the phone), the app starts talking to our servers. It sends:

a random connection code created when the phone joins, which isn't a phone number, name, advertising ID or anything else from the phone;
the phone type (iPhone or Android) and the app version;
when it last checked for new photos;
what happened to each family photo: added to the games, or skipped (for example, "looked blurry" or "already there");
the player's choices to hide or report a photo, or to stop photos from a person; and
only if the player turns it on in the app ("Let my family see when I've played"): the date they last played. Never which game, for how long, or how well.

The phone never sends photos, the player's name, Stories, contacts, its location, or anything about faces. Faces are still found only on the phone (see Part 1).

Faces and voices

No face processing happens on our servers or on the website. We never receive face images, face measurements, templates or "who is in this photo" information. Family Connect doesn't receive Stories or voice recordings.

How we use this information

Only to run Family Connect:

to sign you in and keep your account secure;
to show the family's photos, captions and activity to the family;
to deliver photos and home-screen choices to the player's phone, and to show the family whether they arrived;
to handle reports, blocks and removals, and to prevent abuse; and
to answer you when you write to us, and to tell you about important changes.

We don't sell or share personal information, show ads, track anyone across apps or websites, build profiles, or use photos or captions to train AI.

Who can see the photos

Only the members of that family, and the player on their connected phone. Photos are never public.
Every photo link is private, works only for a short time (two hours at most), and stops working the moment the photo is removed.
Funstead staff look at a photo only if someone reports it, if you ask us to (for example, for help), or if the law requires it.

Service providers, and where data is stored

We use two companies to run Family Connect. They handle data only on our instructions and only to provide their service to us.

Cloudflare, Inc. hosts the family website and our servers, and stores the family's information and photos, in the United States. Cloudflare's network may carry data through its data centers in other countries on the way. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Cloudflare also receives and forwards email sent to support@funsteadgames.com.
Postmark (operated by ActiveCampaign, LLC) sends the sign-in emails. It receives your email address and the email itself, and keeps its sending records for a limited time. Open and click tracking are turned off.

We don't use any other outside services for Family Connect: no analytics, advertising, social media or tracking tools.

How long we keep it

Photos and captions: until a family member removes them, the family is deleted, or the photo is no longer one of the family's 1,000 newest. (Then it leaves our servers, but stays on the player's phone.)
When something is deleted, it's removed from our live systems right away, and from our backups within 30 days.
Activity list: 1 year.
Sign-in links: they work for 15 minutes; we delete the records within a day after that.
Sign-in sessions: 30 days after you last use the website.
A disconnected phone's record: 90 days.
Resolved reports: 1 year.
Block-list email addresses: until the family is deleted.
Your account: until you delete it.

Your choices: download and delete

On the website, at any time:

Remove a photo you added (the organizer can remove any photo). It also leaves the player's phone.
Download all the family's photos (as a ZIP file, with captions) and your account data, in Settings.
Delete your account in Settings. This removes the photos you added (from the player's phone too), your email address and your name. Your name in the activity list becomes "A former member". If you organize a family, the longest-standing member becomes the organizer; a family with nobody else in it is deleted.
Delete the whole family (organizer). Every photo, caption, setting and member list is erased, and the family's photos are taken off the player's phone.
Step-by-step instructions are at family.funsteadgames.com/delete.html. If you can't sign in, email us from the address you use and we'll delete it within 30 days.

On the player's phone, the player can hide or report any family photo, stop photos from one person, turn "played today" on or off, and disconnect (keeping or removing the family's photos), all in Settings › Family Connect.

Reports and moderation

Anyone in the family can report a photo they didn't add, and the player can report a photo from the phone. Reports come to us by email, and we aim to review each one within 24 hours. We may remove a photo, remove someone from a family, or close an account that breaks our Terms of Use. If the law requires it (for example, for child sexual abuse material), we report content to the authorities, such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and keep what the law requires.

Photos of other people, including children

Family photos often show other people, and very often grandchildren. So:

Please add only photos you have the right to share with your family this way. For a photo of a child, that means their parent's or guardian's OK.
Anyone who appears in a photo (or, for a child, their parent or guardian) can ask us to remove it, even if they aren't in the family. Write to support@funsteadgames.com with the family's name or the email address of the person who added it, and a description of the photo. We'll remove it within 3 business days and tell you when it's done.
Family Connect accounts are for adults. See "Children" in Part 3.

Stories and Family Connect

Today, Stories always stay on the player's phone, even when the phone is connected to Family Connect. If we later offer a way to send stories to the family website, the player will be asked first, on the phone, and we'll update this policy before that feature is released.

If Family Connect ever closes

We'll give at least 90 days' notice by email, with a way to download every photo.

Part 3: For everyone

When you email us

If you write to support@funsteadgames.com, we receive your email address, your name if your email shows it, and whatever you write or attach, such as a problem report copied from the app (the app's "Report a problem" adds the app version and phone model, never photos or names). We use it only to help you and to improve Funstead, and we keep it for up to 3 years, unless you ask us to delete it sooner or the law requires us to keep it longer. Email to that address passes through Cloudflare's email forwarding to the mailbox we use.

We won't add you to a mailing list.

Our website (funsteadgames.com)

Our website has no cookies, no analytics, no ads, no tracking pixels and no social media plugins, and it loads nothing from other companies. It's hosted by Cloudflare, which, like any web host, processes your device's IP address and basic technical details to deliver the pages and to protect the site from attacks.

What we never do

We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising (in the words of California law).
We don't show ads, use advertising identifiers, or track you across other companies' apps or websites.
We don't use your photos, captions, stories or information to train artificial intelligence.
We don't buy information about you from data brokers.

Children

Funstead isn't made for children, and Family Connect accounts are only for adults (18 or older). Children are welcome to play the games on a grown-up's phone, but the app doesn't collect information from anyone (see Part 1). We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 has given us personal information, for example by creating a Family Connect account or by emailing us, we'll delete it.

Family photos may show children. On the phone, these photos never leave the device (Part 1). In Family Connect, adults may add family photos that include children, and we handle them as described in Part 2: they're seen only by the family, location details are removed, nothing about faces is processed on our servers, and any child's parent or guardian can ask us to remove a photo of their child at support@funsteadgames.com, even if they aren't in the family. We'll remove it within 3 business days.

How we protect information

We keep as little as we can. For Family Connect: encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest, private photo storage with short-lived signed links, scrambled (hashed) sign-in links and codes, rate limits, and checks that keep each family's information separate. Only the founder can access the admin tools. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we'll tell you as the law requires.

Your privacy rights

Everyone, wherever you live, can ask us to:

tell you what personal information we have about you, and give you a copy;
correct it;
delete it; and
stop any use you object to.

Email support@funsteadgames.com from the address the request is about (for Family Connect, the one you sign in with). For app-only users, there's usually nothing to look up: we don't have your information. We may ask you to confirm the request from that email address, so we know it's you. We answer within 30 days (45 days where the law allows, and we'll tell you if we need the extra time). We won't treat you differently for using your rights.

If we say no to part of a request, we'll explain why. You can appeal by replying with the word "Appeal". The founder will look at it again and answer within 45 days. If you're still not satisfied, you can contact your state's attorney general.

California residents

The California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act) gives California residents specific rights.

Right to know what we collect, use and disclose, and to get a copy; right to delete; right to correct; right to opt out of sale or sharing (we don't sell or share, so there's nothing to opt out of); right to limit the use of sensitive personal information (we use it only to provide the service, so there's nothing to limit); and the right not to be discriminated against for using these rights.
Authorized agents: someone you authorize can make a request for you; we'll ask for proof of the authorization and may ask you to confirm your identity with us directly.
What we collected in the last 12 months:
- The app: nothing. On Android, Google collects ML Kit diagnostics directly (described in Part 1).
- Family Connect (once released): identifiers (email address, first name, a random connection code for the player's phone, and hashed network addresses for security); customer records (name and email address); audio or visual information (family photos and captions); internet or other electronic network activity (the family's activity list, the phone's sync and delivery results, and short technical logs); and account log-in information (sign-in links), which California treats as sensitive personal information and which we use only to sign you in.
- Support emails: identifiers (email address, name) and what you write.
Sources: you, your family members (for example, the photos they add and the player's choices on the phone), and the player's phone.
Purposes: the purposes in "How we use this information" (Part 2) and "When you email us" (Part 3).
Disclosures: only to our service providers (Cloudflare and Postmark) for business purposes. We have never sold or shared personal information, including that of people under 16.
How long we keep it: see "How long we keep it" (Part 2) and "When you email us" (Part 3).
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: we don't track you across sites, so there's nothing for these signals to turn off. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, we treat it as a request to opt out of sale and sharing, which we already honor for everyone.
"Shine the Light": we don't share personal information with other companies for their own direct marketing.

Other US states

Residents of states with privacy laws (such as Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and others) have rights similar to those above: to access, correct, delete and get a copy of their personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, and profiling. We don't do targeted advertising, sell personal data, or profile anyone, and the rights above, including the right to appeal, are open to everyone.

Where Funstead is available

Funstead is made in the United States, and the app is sold only in the United States for now. The family website can be reached from anywhere, so a family member who lives abroad can join. If you use Funstead from outside the US, your information is handled in the United States, where privacy law may differ from yours. You can use the rights in this policy wherever you live.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the "Last updated" date at the top. If a change means we'd collect or use information in a way that reduces your privacy, we'll tell you before it takes effect: in the app's What's New notes, on this page, and, for Family Connect members, by email. We'll ask for your permission where the law requires it.

Contact us

Email: support@funsteadgames.com (for anything: questions, privacy requests, photo removal, reports)
Company: Puff Together LLC, doing business as Funstead Games, a California limited liability company
Mailing address: available on request at support@funsteadgames.com

Funstead Games Privacy Policy