What Shepit keeps, and why.

Who is responsible

I am, Max Mosin. Write any time; I usually answer within a few days.

On your device

• Your progress and settings are saved on your iPhone (and in its backups), or in your browser if you play on this website. No cookies.
• The game also keeps a random number and a list of recent game moments. In this version they never leave your device.
• A friend’s challenge you open is kept there too, until you play it.
• The game downloads settings, story parts and voices from Shepit’s server, and sends nothing about you.
• On the iPhone it asks only for notifications and, if you save your result picture, to add it to Photos.
• When the iPhone app opens, it asks Expo whether there is an update to the game (see below).

Notifications

On the iPhone, the game can tell you when the next part of Leo’s story, or the Whisper’s letter after it, is ready. Your iPhone asks only when you turn them on. They are set on the phone itself; nothing about them reaches me. Turn them off in the game’s Settings or your iPhone’s.

On this website, REMIND ME saves a calendar file instead.

Sharing and links

Sharing makes a picture of your night or a short text with a link, and it goes only where you send it. The link holds the case, your score and rank, and which version you played.

Links to other websites open only when you tap them.

Problem reports

REPORT A PROBLEM in the game’s Settings sends me what you type, with the game’s version, iPhone or browser (and the iOS version), the screen size and how many cases you’ve closed. No name, email or IP address is kept with it, so please leave yours out. Each report deletes itself after a year.

The letter list

The “Hear it first” box on the home page.

• What I keep: your email, when you signed up, which version of the box you saw, and your city vote.
• Why: a short letter when a new story or case comes out, and when Shepit comes to iPhone. I write each one myself.
• Leave any time: reply “stop”, or write to me. I take you off within 10 working days.
• No confirmation email: if someone else typed your address, write to me and I’ll delete it.

Statistics

No play statistics in this version. If that changes, this page changes first, and the game asks you before sending anything.

What the game never takes

Your name, contacts, photos, location, microphone or advertising ID. No ads, no selling data, no tracking across apps or websites, so “Do Not Track” changes nothing here.

Who helps run Shepit

• Cloudflare hosts this website, the web game and Shepit’s server, and stores the letter list and problem reports. It sees your IP address and device type to deliver and protect them, under its data processing terms. Shepit doesn’t keep them.
• Email: mail to [email protected] is forwarded by Cloudflare (Email Routing) to a Gmail mailbox held by Google. Cloudflare doesn’t store the messages.
• Google holds that mailbox, [email protected] (Gmail). My replies and the letters are sent from it.
• Expo delivers game updates to the iPhone app. Each time the app opens it asks Expo’s server for one, sending your IP address, the iOS version, the app’s version and a random number the update system keeps on your iPhone (and, if an update failed to start, its error). Expo uses them to send updates and to count the iPhones on each version.
• Apple runs the App Store and shows notifications.

Where it is kept

With me in Canada, and with Cloudflare, Google and Expo in the US and elsewhere, under those countries’ laws. The EU and the UK recognise Canada as protecting personal data, and Cloudflare, Google and Expo are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

How long

• On your device: until you reset or clear it, or delete the app (a backup can bring it back). RESET PROGRESS erases your nights, your casebook and Leo’s story; the rest stays until you delete the app.
• The letter list: until you leave or ask. If the letters stop, I delete the list.
• Problem reports: a year, then they delete themselves.
• Emails to me: deleted within a year of our last message.
• Update checks: as long as Expo’s privacy policy says.

Your rights

• See, correct or delete what I hold about you: write to me from the address you used. I answer within 30 days.
• In the EU or UK you can also object to how I use it, ask me to limit it, or get a copy to take elsewhere. The letter list needs your yes, which you can take back any time. Running the site and the game, its updates and problem reports, and answering your emails rest on my legitimate interest in doing so.
• Not happy with my answer? Complain to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Commission d’accès à l’information in Québec, your data protection authority in the EU, or the ICO in the UK.

Children

Shepit is a murder mystery, not made for children under 13, and I don’t knowingly collect their data. If a child sent me something, tell me and I’ll delete it. Under 16 in the EU, or 14 in Québec? Ask a parent before joining the letter list.

Changes

When this page changes, so does the date at the top. Big changes also show in the game.