Privacy
Last updated 31 August 2026
Cortex is a daily puzzle game. It stores what it needs to keep your streak, rating and history, and nothing else. There is no advertising, no cross-site tracking, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone. We count page views — see visitor numbers below — using a cookieless measurement that stores no identifier and cannot follow you anywhere.
You do not need an account
On your first visit Cortex creates an anonymous account automatically. It holds a random identifier and no personal information — no email, no name, nothing that identifies you. This is what lets you play immediately without signing up.
You can later add Google to that same account so your progress survives a lost phone or a cleared browser. That is optional, and it is the only point at which Cortex learns anything personal about you.
If you never play, that account is not kept. An anonymous account with no puzzle history is deleted automatically 30 days after it was created, along with the random identifier that is all it holds. Answering a single puzzle, or adding Google, keeps it.
What is stored
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| A random account identifier | To know which progress is yours |
| Your puzzle results — which puzzle, right or wrong, and how long you took | To score the day, and to measure how hard each puzzle really is |
| Your rating, XP, streak and history of days played | The game itself |
| Your time zone | So “today’s puzzle” changes at your midnight, not somebody else’s |
| If you add Google: your email address, and the name and profile picture URL your Google account provides | To recognise you on another device, and to greet you by name. Your first name appears in the app header and your name and email on your profile — visible to you, not to other players. The profile picture URL is stored by our authentication provider as part of the sign-in record and is not used anywhere in Cortex |
Cortex requests only Google’s basic email and profile
permissions. It cannot read your Gmail, contacts, files or anything else.
The weekly league
The league ranks everyone who played that week by the XP they earned. Other players see a nickname the app generates for you — something like “Amber Ibis” — along with your weekly XP total, your position, and one badge — the highest you hold. They never see your other badges, your name, your email, or anything else about you, and the nickname cannot be traced back to you. Your name and email remain visible only to you, on your own profile.
What is stored on your device
A copy of your progress is kept in your browser’s local storage, alongside your sign-in session. The copy is what lets you finish a day with no connection and lose nothing. Clearing your browser data removes it; if you have added Google, your progress comes back when you sign in again.
Visitor numbers
We use Vercel Web Analytics to see how many people visit and which pages they land on. It sets no cookies, stores no identifier on your device, and does not build a profile or follow you to any other site. What it records is the page visited, the referring site, and coarse details such as country, browser and device type.
It cannot be tied back to your account or your puzzle history: it runs on the visiting page and never sees who is signed in. The script is served from this same domain, so no third party receives a request from your browser.
Who processes it
- Supabase — database and sign-in. Your data is stored in the United Kingdom (London region).
- Vercel — hosting, and the visitor numbers described above. Like any web host, it records requests, which includes IP addresses, for security and operational reasons.
Both are processors acting on our instructions. Nobody else receives your data.
Deleting your data
In the app: open See your progress and use Delete my progress. This permanently erases your puzzle history, rating, XP and streak from our database. It cannot be undone.
To remove your account entirely, including your email address and the sign-in record, email us at kotsanas23@gmail.com. Deleting a sign-in record requires administrator access, so this one cannot be self-service. We will action it within 30 days.
You can also ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, or ask us to correct it, at the same address.
Children
Cortex is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it.