Privacy Policy

Daily Holmes is a daily deduction puzzle, free to play, with an optional paid membership called The Inspector's Desk. The page you're reading explains what data we collect, why, and what you can do about it. Plain language, no legalese where I can help it. The data controller is Offbeat Tech, LLC, 1209 Mountain Road Pl NE, Ste N, Albuquerque, NM 87110, United States.

What we collect

You don't need an account to play the daily case. Played anonymously, most of what runs stays on your device: your game state, settings, and revealed hints sit in your browser's localStorage and never leave the device unless you specifically submit something to us.

If you create an account, we hold your email address and, where you signed in with Google, the fact that Google is your sign-in method and the basic profile Google returns. Passwords are stored only as a hash by our authentication provider; we never see them. Alongside your account we keep a profile record with your display name, your membership tier, your founding member number if you have one, and, for members, the customer and subscription references issued by our payment processor.

When you play with an account we store your results: the case, your deduction text, your pin notes, your score, and the time you played. This is what makes your record, your streak, and the archive history work across devices.

When you submit a case, a tip, or a public deduction, we receive the text you typed (and the pin notes you dropped on the photograph, if any). If you provide a handle or email along with a submission, we store those too. Email is never shown publicly; we use it only if we need to ask a clarifying question before publishing.

Our server keeps standard request logs (your IP address, user-agent, the path you hit) for a short rolling window to prevent abuse.

Payments

Memberships, whether a subscription or the one-time founding seat, are sold and billed through Stripe, on Stripe's own hosted checkout and billing pages. Your card number, expiry, and security code go to Stripe and never reach Daily Holmes servers. We never see them and cannot store them. What comes back to us is a customer reference, a subscription reference where one exists, the plan, the status, and any renewal date. Stripe processes your payment data as its own controller under its privacy policy, and it may use device and transaction signals for fraud prevention.

How we use what we collect

Deduction text and pin notes are sent to OpenAI's API for scoring. If you dictate a reading with the voice tool, the audio is sent to the same API once, for transcription only: we do not store the recording anywhere, and only the resulting text comes back to your reading box. Per OpenAI's API terms, data submitted through the API is not used to train their models. Account and profile data run your login, your record, and your membership. Payment references run billing and let us confirm whether an account is entitled to Desk benefits. Your email is used for account mail (receipts, renewal notices, password resets, service notices), and, only if you asked for it, for the Bureau's newsletter, which you can leave from the link at the foot of every one of those emails. Aggregate page views and feature usage tell us what's working and what isn't.

Third parties we send your data to

Supabase hosts our database and runs authentication. OpenAI scores deductions. Vercel hosts the site and provides Speed Insights and Analytics. Stripe takes payments and runs the billing portal. Brevo sends our email and holds our contact lists. Google provides Analytics, and, once our application is approved, AdSense. Discord hosts our community rooms, including the members room that comes with a Desk membership; if you join, your Discord account is subject to Discord's own terms and privacy policy, and we see only what a server operator sees. Each of these has its own privacy policy.

Cookies, analytics, and ads

We use essential storage to keep you signed in, to hold your game progress, and to remember your consent choice. That is the part the site cannot work without, and it runs regardless of the banner.

Everything else waits for you. Google Analytics loads only after you accept analytics in the consent banner, and not before. Advertising, which today means Google AdSense once our application is approved, loads only after you accept ads. Reject, or simply ignore the banner, and neither script is fetched at all. You can change your mind at any time through Cookie settings in the footer. Vercel Analytics and Speed Insights are cookieless and measure aggregate traffic and page performance only.

Members of The Inspector's Desk are not shown advertising and no advertising script is loaded for them, whatever the consent banner says.

How long we keep things

Account and play records are kept while your account exists, and are removed when you delete it. Request logs roll off within days. Newsletter contacts are removed when you unsubscribe.

Billing records are the exception. Invoices, receipts, and the tax records behind them must be retained for a number of years under tax and accounting law, so deleting your account does not erase them. What remains is the financial record of a transaction, held for that legal purpose alone, not a playable account or a marketing contact.

Where your data goes

Our providers are largely United States based, so data about you is processed there and in other countries where they operate. We rely on the safeguards those providers offer for international transfers.

Your rights (GDPR and CCPA)

You can ask us what we have about you, ask for a copy, ask us to correct it, request deletion, object to a use, or opt out of analytics and ads at any time. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising beyond the ad consent you give in the banner. Email bureau@dailyholmes.com with the subject "Privacy request" and tell us which one. We aim to respond within seven days. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself, from your profile page. We cancel any active subscription first, so nothing renews after you're gone, then remove your account, your profile, your saved cases, and every marketing record we hold about you, including your newsletter subscription and our record of the emails we sent you. Access ends immediately, including for any part of a paid term still running, so cancel and play out the term instead if that matters to you. A founding seat has no subscription to cancel; deleting the account ends its access the same way, and the 14-day refund window in the Terms is the road back if you just bought it.

Two things outlive the deletion, and we would rather say so than let you find out later. Your past readings and scores stay in the game with no person attached to them, so a reading you left in the Common Room remains there without your name, and the site's statistics stay correct. Billing records kept for tax purposes also survive, as described above.

Children

Daily Holmes isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect data from minors, and accounts and subscriptions are not for them. If you believe a child has created an account or submitted something, email us and we'll remove it.

Changes

If we change this policy in a material way, we'll show a banner on the site for at least two weeks before it takes effect, and account holders get an email. Continued use after that counts as acceptance. If a change adds a new use of your data that needs consent, we will ask for it rather than assume it.

Contact

Offbeat Tech, LLC, 1209 Mountain Road Pl NE, Ste N, Albuquerque, NM 87110, United States.

bureau@dailyholmes.com

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