We collect less because families deserve better.

What the parent survey stores

The survey stores only the answers an adult chooses to submit:

• The adult’s general role, such as parent, caregiver, or educator
• The broad age ranges they are thinking about
• Creative interests and technology concerns
• The written idea they choose to share
• The date and time the response was received

The survey does not ask for names, email addresses, child birth dates, school names, home addresses, photographs, or account information. Please do not put identifying information in the written response.

What the parent mailing list stores

Adults can choose to join our email list at makejoylabs.org/list. The list stores exactly two things: the email address entered, and the date it was added, plus a random unsubscribe code so the leave link in each email works. Nothing else is asked for and nothing else is kept.

Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link, and makejoylabs.org/list/leave works at any time. Leaving deletes the address from the database — it is not archived or marked inactive. We do not use open tracking, click profiling, or any advertising tooling on list emails, and addresses are never shared or sold.

What an adult family account stores

Adults may choose to use the family account at makejoylabs.org/parents/account. It stores the adult email address, secure one-way hashes used for sign-in and device access, timestamps, adult-to-adult connection state, and up to four anonymous control spaces. A control space contains only a generated label, icon, color, and the adult’s current game settings. There is no field for a child’s name, age, school, location, photo, or other identity in MakeJoy’s database.

A parent may optionally save a family name and child names or nicknames only in that browser’s local storage. Those private labels are not sent to MakeJoy, a connected family, a QR code, or a game. They remain on that browser through sign-out. Clearing them in the parent app, deleting the adult account, or clearing that site’s browser data removes them. Anyone with access to that browser profile may be able to read its ordinary local storage.

A connected game can read only whether it is allowed, gentle guidance, sound, motion, and an optional break reminder. The account does not receive gameplay, scores, progress, session duration, drawings, photos, words, or behavioral history. The adult can revoke device access or delete the account and its account-held data.

Two active, mutually connected adult accounts may use the bounded test inbox. It stores the selected predefined phrase or emoji, the sending adult account, the adult connection, timestamps, and—only for “Hey, this is …”—the short adult first name or nickname the sender chooses to enter. Please do not enter a child’s name or other child information. The inbox does not accept a custom message body, attachment, link, image, audio, video, presence, typing indicator, read receipt, or notification.

Test messages are visible to the two connected adult accounts for seven days and the newest 50 are kept per connection. Expired rows are deleted when either adult next opens or sends in that thread; an inactive thread can retain inaccessible expired rows until then. The messages are stored in plain text and are not end-to-end encrypted. Ending the connection or deleting either adult account removes that thread’s message rows.

What the Support Local business form stores

An owner, manager, or authorized adult contact can request review for a free community spotlight from the unlisted Support Local page. The form stores the business name, town or local area, selected business type, public website or Facebook link, adult contact name and email address, and the date the request was received.

The request goes to a private founder review queue. Nothing is published automatically, and the adult contact name and email are never included in a public spotlight. We use them only to review the request and follow up about the Support Local project. The form has no field for child, customer, or family information; please do not submit any. To ask us to remove a request, email [email protected] from the contact address used on the form.

What a problem report stores

Adults can report a problem with our games or website at play.makejoylabs.org/report. A regular report stores the words typed, the kind of note selected, which page was named, and the date. Two optional extras exist, each off by default and shown before sending: the reporter's browser information, and one attached picture. Private review status and a short internal note may be added while the report is being reconciled. Please keep faces, full names, and anything personal out of pictures. To have a report removed, email [email protected].

What we do not use

We do not use advertising pixels, behavioral advertising, session replay, cross site tracking, or analytics inside a child experience. We do not sell or license survey responses or family information.

Website infrastructure

The website, survey, Support Local form, and adult family account use Cloudflare for hosting, security, and database storage. Resend delivers the optional adult account’s short-lived sign-in email and therefore receives the adult email address and six-digit code needed for delivery. Like most infrastructure providers, these services may process ordinary technical information needed to deliver and protect the service, such as network requests and security events. MakeJoy Labs does not use that information to build profiles of children or families.

Anonymous responses and deletion

Because the survey does not request identity or contact information, we usually cannot connect a stored response to a specific person later. If you accidentally include identifying information, contact us as soon as possible with enough detail to locate the response and we will make a reasonable effort to remove it.

Children’s privacy

Children should not submit the parent survey or the Support Local business form. MakeJoy Labs does not currently provide child accounts, public profiles, child chat, open adult chat, or cloud saves. The adult account’s fixed-choice test inbox is not a child feature and has no free-text message body. Every future product will receive its own privacy review before family testing or public release.

Changes to this notice

We will update this page when the website begins using a new service or collecting a new category of information. Material changes will be described plainly.