Privacy notice

§2The Bureau is for grown-ups

The website is meant to be used by adults: parents, grandparents, carers and teachers. There are no accounts of any kind, so there are no child accounts, no child profiles on our servers and no way for a child to sign up, chat, post or send us anything.

Children enjoy the documents you print, and a child may scan the “Scan to verify authenticity” QR code on one. That opens a verification page written for children (see The verification QR code). It has no forms, adverts, sign-ups or cookies, and collects nothing from the child beyond an anonymous, cookieless page-view count.

§3Details you type to make a document

Each document asks for a few particulars: usually a child’s first name, sometimes an age, a pronoun and details such as a recent kindness, a pet’s name or a lost tooth. Please use first names only. We use these details only to make the document you asked for.

Classic documents

Classic documents are assembled from the Bureau’s prewritten wording with your details filled in. Nothing you type for them is stored on our servers.

Bureau-personalised documents (AI)

When you choose to have a document personalised, the details you entered for that document are sent to our server and on to Anthropic, whose Claude AI model drafts the wording. Before anything is sent, our server removes things that look like email addresses, phone numbers, web links and street addresses, and replaces school names with “school” unless the field is meant for one. The draft comes straight back to your browser. We do not store the request or the result, and we do not use it for anything else.

The same applies to the elf planner’s “tonight’s idea” feature, which sends the supplies, time and mess level you choose and the children’s ages.

It also applies to personalised bedtime stories: the first name, optional age, up to three details and the optional topic you type are sent, with contact details removed, so Claude can write the story. Reading the story library, listening to narration (which uses your own device’s voices) and saving favourites send nothing to anyone. Saved favourites are kept in your browser only.

Anthropic processes this information on our behalf, as our service provider, under its commercial terms for API customers. You can read how Anthropic handles data in its own privacy policy.

§4The verification QR code

Documents can carry a “Scan to verify authenticity” QR code. To create it, the site sends the document’s case number, type, date of issue and, if the document shows one, the child’s first name to our server, which signs them into a link and sends the link back. Nothing is stored.

The signature stops the link being altered, but it does not hide what’s inside: anyone who scans the code on the printed page can see that case number, document type, date and first name on the verification page. Treat a printed document like a birthday card on the fridge. With a pass, you can leave the QR code off any document.

§5What stays in your own browser

Some things are kept only in your browser’s local storage, on your device, and never on our servers:

• Your clearance pass, if you buy one: a signed token recording the plan, its dates, your order code and the payment reference. Your browser sends it to our server to check it is genuine (at most once a day) and when you use a pass feature.
• The Kindness Ledger: the children’s profiles and wins you record. Ledger details only leave your device if you use them in a personalised document, as described above.
• Recent filings and preferences, so you can find a document again.

You can remove all of it by clearing this site’s data in your browser settings. Your pass can also be removed on the Your clearance page and restored later with your email and order code.

§6Cookies and analytics

We use two small, functional cookies, and no others. Neither contains personal information.

Both are signed so they can’t be tampered with, can’t be read by scripts on the page, and are only sent to our own service endpoints. There are no advertising cookies, no social-media pixels and no third-party trackers.

We count visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which records aggregate page views (such as which pages are visited, the referring site, country and device type) without cookies and without building a profile of anyone.

The secure checkout, which is run by Paddle rather than by us, uses its own cookies for security and fraud prevention under that company’s policies.

§7Payments

Clearance passes and gift passes are sold by our reseller Paddle (Paddle.com), the merchant of record for those orders. Paddle’s checkout collects your email address, payment details and billing country (and postcode where tax rules need it) and processes them under Paddle’s privacy policy.

We receive your email address, what you bought, the amount, the payment status and your order code. We never see or store your full card number. We keep no customer database of our own: the payment company’s record is the only record, which is how we can restore a pass from your email address and order code.

§8Technical data and security

The site is hosted by Vercel, which, like any web host, processes technical request data such as IP addresses to deliver pages and protect the service. We use IP addresses briefly, in memory, to slow down abuse (for example, too many attempts to restore a pass in an hour); we don’t store them in a database or use them to identify anyone.

Everything travels over HTTPS. Passes and links are signed so they can’t be forged, and our error logs are written to leave out names, addresses and document contents. No system is perfectly secure, but collecting so little is the best protection we know.

§9Who we share information with

We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising. We share it only with the service providers who run parts of the Bureau for us, and only what each one needs:

Paddle is based in the United Kingdom and the others in the United States, so information may be processed there. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

§10Children’s privacy

We take children’s privacy seriously and designed the Bureau so that it needs very little. In line with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA):

• The Bureau is directed to adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13.
• Details about a child are provided by a grown-up, used only to make the document that grown-up asked for, and are not kept on our servers.
• We never use information about children for advertising, profiling or anything other than making the document.
• The verification page a child might visit sets no cookies, has no adverts or sign-ups, and collects nothing beyond an anonymous page-view count.

If you believe a child has sent us personal information, or you’re a parent who wants to review or delete information about your child, contact us and we’ll help promptly.

§11How long information is kept

• Details typed for a document: not kept by us after the request is answered.
• Browser data (pass, Ledger, recent filings): until you clear it.
• Payment records: kept by Paddle for as long as needed for accounting, tax and fraud prevention.
• Cookies: as listed above.

§12Your choices and rights

Most of what the Bureau knows about you is on your own device, where you can see and delete it yourself. For anything held by Paddle in connection with your order, you can ask us to tell you what we hold, correct it or delete it, by writing to us from the email you paid with and including your order code if you have one. We’ll respond within 30 days.

Depending on where you live (for example California, the UK or the EU) you may have further rights, such as to object to processing or complain to a data protection authority. We’ll honour these requests wherever you live, and you’ll never be treated differently for making one.

§13Changes to this notice

If we change how the Bureau handles information, we’ll update this page and its date. If a change is significant, we’ll say so clearly on this page before it takes effect.

§14Contact

Questions or requests about privacy? Write to us at support@bureauofwhimsy.com.