Privacy Policy

Last updated October 9, 2026

Brightkeep is a learning adventure for kids 5 to 12. We made it to teach kids, not to make money from what they do. This page says, plainly, what we keep, why, and what you can do about it. It should take about ten minutes to read. It follows the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC's rule under it.

The short version

• A grown-up creates every account, and agrees to what we keep about their kids before adding the first one. Kids don't have emails or passwords, and can't sign up on their own.
• We keep only what the game needs: a kid's first name, their age and grade, their heroes, and how they play and answer.
• We use it only to run Brightkeep and make it better. No ads, ever. We don't sell or rent anyone's information, share it for marketing, build ad profiles, or track anyone across other sites or apps.
• There's no chat and no public profiles. Kids can't send messages to anyone, and only play alongside families a grown-up invited.
• You can see, download, fix or delete your kids' information whenever you like. If a family stops using Brightkeep, we delete its kids' information after 12 months.

Who we are

Brightkeep is made and run by Vogel CC, a small business in Texas run by Jim Vogel, a dad who builds it for his own kids too. A person reads every email and answers every call.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: (940) 278-8188
• Mail: a mailing address is coming soon. Until then, please email or call.

What we keep about grown-ups

• Your email address, to sign you in with a one-time code and to send you Brightkeep emails.
• Your name and your family's name: what the kids call you (like "Mom" or "Grandpa") and what your family is called. Kids see the name you choose next to cheers and goals you send them.
• If you sign in with Google or Microsoft: the name and verified email address they share with us. Google also sends a link to your profile picture; we don't show or use it. See Signing in with Google or Microsoft.
• Your settings and notes for your kids: goals, rewards, homework, spelling lists, playtime limits, cheers and the devices you set up (and the names you give them).
• A sign-in record: when you're signed in, our sign-in system notes the device's IP address and browser type with that session, so you stay signed in and we can spot misuse.
• Your consent: when you agree to what we keep about your kids, we record who agreed, when, which version of the notice you saw, and the IP address and browser you agreed from (see A grown-up's consent comes first).
• Your plan: which plan you're on, its status and dates, and your last invoice's amount. Your card and billing address go to Stripe (and Link, when your plan is sold through Link), not to us (see Who helps us).
• If you joined the waitlist: your email and the kids' ages, if you added them.

What we keep about kids

• A first name, typed in by you. Please use a first name or a nickname, nothing more.
• How to talk about them: whether they're a boy or a girl, or you'd rather not say and Brightkeep just uses their name.
• A picture code: the three pictures your kid taps to sign in, stored scrambled so nobody, including us, can read it back.
• Their age, picked when they make a hero, so the questions fit them.
• Their grade at school, if you add it, so you can see their levels beside it. We never ask which school.
• Their heroes: each hero's name (made from Brightkeep's own word lists), looks, gear, pets and progress.
• How they play and learn: what they do in the game, every question they're asked and how they answered (including the words they type in spelling), how long they play, and which skills they've learned. This is how the game picks the right next question, and how you see what clicked and what's still tricky.
• Identifiers on their devices: see Cookies and device identifiers.

We never ask kids for an email, phone number, address, school, photo, voice or location, and there's nowhere in the game to type one in.

How we use it

Only to run and improve Brightkeep:

• to sign you in, keep your family's game saved, and let your kids play on the devices you set up;
• to choose questions at the right level, and to show you how your kids are doing on your grown-ups' page and in the weekly email;
• to send the emails you need: sign-in codes, invites, plan reminders, consent and data notices, and the weekly note (which you can turn off);
• to find bugs, keep Brightkeep safe, and make the game teach better. When we look at how Brightkeep is doing overall, we look at totals, not at one child.

We don't use anyone's information for advertising, and there are no ads, ad trackers, or "buy" buttons in the game. We don't sell, rent or trade it.

Playing with other families

Every family has its own home world, and kids only ever meet heroes living in the worlds their family is in. A family only gets into another family's world by invitation: one of that world's owner grown-ups sends an invite (a link, a short code, or an email we send for them), and an owner grown-up of the invited family accepts it and chooses which of their kids come along. Nobody can find or join a world any other way, and there are no public worlds.

Once two families share a world:

• Kids see each other's heroes walking around: the hero's name (made from Brightkeep's word lists, not the kid's real name), looks, gear, pet, level and where it's standing. They can team up and battle together.
• There's no chat. Kids can only send a small set of ready-made faces and phrases (like a wave, "Good job!" or "Follow me"). Kids can't share pictures, links or anything they type. You can turn even the faces and phrases off: on your kid's Settings tab on the parents' page, set "Talking with other kids" to Off. They still play alongside the others, but can't send or see faces and phrases.
• Grown-ups of each family in the world see, on their Worlds page, the other families' names and the first names of the kids who play there. When you're invited, you see the name of the grown-up who invited you and their family's name.
• Nobody in another family sees your kids' answers, progress, playtime or anything on your grown-ups' page.

An owner grown-up can leave a world, or take one of their kids out of it, any time on the Worlds page of the parents' page. A world's owners can also remove a family from it. Either way, your kids' heroes there are put to rest: kept for your family, and hidden from everyone in that world. There are no public profiles, leaderboards with names, or ways to look up other players.

A grown-up's consent comes first

Brightkeep is for kids, so a parent or guardian sets everything up, and agrees before we keep anything about a kid. Here's how:

1. Only a grown-up, signed in with their own email (or Google or Microsoft), can add a kid. Only an owner grown-up of the family can agree to what we keep.
2. Before the family's first kid is added, we show the grown-up a short notice: what we keep about kids and why, who helps us run Brightkeep, what other families can see, and their rights. They tick a box saying they're the parent or legal guardian and agree, then press "I agree". Until they do, no kid can be added.
3. We record who agreed, when, which version of the notice they saw, and where from (the IP address and browser).
4. About a day later we email that grown-up to confirm they agreed, and how to take it back. Because we never share kids' information with anyone but the companies that help us run Brightkeep, the law lets us check consent this way ("email plus").
5. If we change what we keep about kids, or who we share it with, we'll show the new notice and ask again before relying on it.

Families whose kids were playing before we added this notice see it once on their next visit to the grown-ups' page. Their kids keep playing in the meantime, and the page keeps a reminder up until an owner agrees.

You can withdraw your consent any time on the Family page of the parents' page, under "Your family's data", or by emailing or calling us. Withdrawing deletes every kid in your family and everything about them, and we keep nothing more about a kid unless you agree again. To stop us keeping one kid's information, remove just that kid instead.

Your rights, and how to use them

As a parent or guardian, you can at any time:

• See what your kids have done and learned on your parents' page.
• Fix a kid's name, your name, or your settings there yourself.
• Download a copy of everything we keep about your family: on the Family page, under "Your family's data".
• Delete a kid and everything about them: on the kid's Settings tab, an owner grown-up can choose "Remove from the family". Their heroes, answers, goals and notes are deleted right away.
• Delete your whole family's account on the Family page.
• Refuse further collection by withdrawing your consent (see above), which deletes your kids' information.
• Stop the weekly email from your settings, or from the link at the bottom of any weekly email.

You can also ask us to do any of these for you: email [email protected] or call (940) 278-8188. We answer within 30 days, usually much sooner. Before we show or change anything, we make sure the request really comes from the kid's parent or guardian: we ask you to email from the address you sign in with, or to sign in to the grown-ups' page, and we never act on a request from anyone else.

Deleting a hero inside the game keeps that kid's learning record (so you can still see it); removing the kid on your grown-ups' page deletes it.

Who helps us run Brightkeep

Brightkeep runs on our own server, with its own database, not a big cloud platform. A few companies help with things we can't do ourselves. Each gets only what it needs for its job, is bound by written data-protection terms with us to keep it safe and confidential, and may not use it for anything else:

• Cloudflare carries traffic to our server and protects it. It runs Turnstile on the waitlist form, which checks that a person (not a bot) is filling it in, using your IP address and browser details. It also counts visits to these marketing pages with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which doesn't use cookies or track you across sites.
• Mailgun sends our emails, so it gets the address and what's in each email: sign-in codes, invites (with the inviting grown-up's and family's names), plan reminders, consent and data notices, the waitlist note, and the weekly email, which includes your kid's first name and how their week went.
• Stripe and Link handle payments. Most plans are sold through Link (Stripe's affiliate Sold through Link, LLC), which sells the plan for us as the merchant of record: it works out and collects sales tax, sends your receipts and helps with payment questions, and keeps what it needs for that under the Stripe Privacy Policy. A plan sold by Vogel CC directly has Stripe process the payment and work out its sales tax (Stripe Tax). Either way they get your email, name, billing address and card details. About your kids they get only how many there are, when a yearly plan's price depends on it, and never a name or anything a kid did.
• Google and Microsoft, only if you choose to sign in with them.

We may share information if the law requires it, or to protect a child's or anyone's safety. If Brightkeep ever changes hands, this policy's promises go with it, and we'll tell you first.

Signing in with Google or Microsoft

If you choose "Continue with Google" or "Continue with Microsoft", we ask only for your basic profile: your name and email address. We use them only to sign you in and to know which family is yours. We don't ask for your contacts, files, calendar or anything else, and we don't fetch your Microsoft profile photo.

Brightkeep's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We don't transfer it to anyone else, use it for ads, or let people read it, except as needed for sign-in, security, or the law.

Cookies and device identifiers

Brightkeep uses a few identifiers that stay on a device. We use them only for Brightkeep's own internal operations, never for ads, profiles, or following anyone around the web:

• A sign-in cookie that keeps a grown-up signed in (for up to 60 days) or a kid signed in on their device. It holds a random session id, not a name.
• A device cookie on each device you set up for your kids: a random token that tells our server which kids may play there, until you remove the device.
• Saved game data in the browser on a kid's device (their heroes and sound settings), so the game can keep playing when the internet drops.
• IP addresses, which our server sees with each visit: we use them to keep accounts safe (for example, slowing down someone guessing picture codes) and note them with grown-ups' sign-ins and consent.

No advertising or tracking cookies, and no third-party analytics in the game. Cloudflare may set its own cookies when it checks for bots.

Keeping it safe

We follow a written information security program: Jim is responsible for it, we look for risks to families' information at least once a year, and we test and update our safeguards when things change. Everything travels encrypted (HTTPS). Sign-in codes expire after 10 minutes, picture codes and PINs are stored scrambled, and tokens from Google and Microsoft are stored encrypted. Our server and its backups sit on machines we run ourselves, reachable only through Cloudflare and our private network, with keys and passwords kept off the code. Only Jim, and staff he names, can see family accounts, and only to help a family or fix a problem. No system is perfect; if something ever goes wrong with your information, we'll tell you quickly and plainly.

How long we keep things

We keep kids' information only as long as it's needed to run Brightkeep for them, and then delete it. This is our written data retention policy. Each kind of information, why we keep it, and for how long:

• Kids' information (names, ages, grades, heroes, learning records, settings): to run the game and show you how your kids are doing, while your family uses Brightkeep. Deleted right away when you remove a kid, delete your family, or withdraw your consent.
• When a family stops using Brightkeep: if your plan ends, your kids' adventures pause and their heroes wait. We keep their information for 12 months after the plan ends, or after the family last used Brightkeep if it never had a plan (a grown-up signing in or a kid playing counts), so a family that comes back finds everything as it was. After that we delete every kid in the family and everything about them. We email the family's owners about 30 days and again about 7 days before, with a one-click link to keep everything and a reminder to download a copy first; nothing is deleted with less than 30 days' notice. Your grown-up account stays, so you can come back and add your kids again.
• Your grown-up account, and other grown-ups in your family: while your family's account is open. A grown-up who leaves the family or is removed: their account, their sign-in records (including any Google or Microsoft link) and their own heroes are deleted right away.
• Backups: our database is backed up every hour so nothing gets lost. Hourly backups are kept for two days and daily ones for 60 days, then deleted, so deleted information is gone from backups within 60 days too. We only use a backup to restore Brightkeep after something breaks.
• Consent records: kept while your family's account is open, to show we asked properly; if you withdraw consent, the record notes when. When a family is deleted, we keep only when consent was given and under which notice, without the grown-up's name, email or browser.
• Sign-in sessions: up to 60 days, or until you sign out.
• Waitlist: until you join, or ask us to take you off.
• Server logs: we keep no record of the pages people visit. Error logs mask email addresses and are capped in size, so they're overwritten within days or weeks.
• Billing records: Stripe, Link and we keep invoice records as long as tax law requires. They never hold anything about a kid but how many there were. You can also ask Link to delete what it holds about a plan sold through it; that cancels the plan.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll post the new version here with a new date. If a change affects your kids' information in a way that matters, we'll email you first, and we'll ask for your permission again before using it in any new way. The notice grown-ups agree to now is version 2026-10-09.

Contact

Vogel CC, Texas, USA. Email [email protected] or call (940) 278-8188. Mailing address coming soon.