OUTSIGHT LABS & TELL
Privacy policy
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Your privacy, in plain English
Tell Public asks for an email address so you can sign in with a code. Tell Schools pupils use generated IDs and secret codes supplied by their teacher, without pupil names or emails. Tell Public also saves your chosen region, preset portrait, generated detective name and game progress. Your email is never displayed on the leaderboard. We do not ask players for a real name, date of birth, address, phone number or uploaded photograph.
The website enquiry form is separate: it asks for your name, email and the details you choose to send us. Email addresses and account records are personal data, even when the game uses a made-up detective name.
1. Who is responsible?
Outsight Labs operates Outsight Labs and Tell as a self-employed sole trader and is responsible for the personal data described here. For privacy questions or requests, contact us using our website enquiry form and say that your message concerns privacy.
2. What we collect and why
| Information | Purpose and lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Tell email address and internal account identifier | Creating and identifying your account, sending requested sign-in codes and enabling access across devices. Necessary to provide the account service you request (contract). |
| Generated detective name, selected preset avatar, country/region and leaderboard choice | Personalising the requested account and showing the regional league you select (contract). Optional public league participation is based on consent, which you can withdraw in Settings. |
| Lessons, answers, solved cases, achievements, XP and active game state | Saving progress, checking answers and awarding scores and trophies (contract). |
| Short-lived sign-in challenges, failed-attempt counters and keyed hashes derived from IP/email addresses | Preventing automated abuse, protecting accounts and limiting code requests (legitimate interests in running a secure service). |
| Enquiry name, email, topic, audience and message | Responding to your enquiry; taking steps towards a requested booking or working relationship (contract/pre-contract steps), or handling other correspondence (legitimate interests). |
| Technical access and delivery records | The hosting, security and email services may record IP addresses, request times, browser/request details, recipient addresses, delivery outcomes and message content, depending on their configuration. Used for delivery, diagnosing problems and protecting the service (legitimate interests). |
You do not have to create a Tell account to browse this website. An email address is needed for Tell account access; without it we cannot send a sign-in code. Region is selected by you, rather than taken from GPS. Please avoid including sensitive personal information in enquiries.
3. The public leaderboard
Joining the league is optional. If you opt in, other visitors can see your generated detective name, chosen preset avatar, selected country/region, XP, solved-case count and rank. Your email address and internal account identifier are not included in the public leaderboard response. Switch off league participation in Settings to remove your account from future public listings. Someone may already have viewed or copied a public listing.
Private leagues
You can create a private league or join one using an invite code. We store the group label, its creator’s internal account identifier, membership links and join times. Please use a generic group label and do not put pupils’ or other people’s real names in it. Joining or creating a league requires you to confirm sharing your generated detective name, preset portrait, XP and solved-case count with its members. This is separate from public league participation and is based on your consent. Your email address and selected country are not included in private league rankings.
Only members can request a private league’s rankings. Only its creator can retrieve the invite code through the game; invite codes are stored encrypted and can be replaced by the creator. A code is a means of joining, so share it only with intended members. Someone who receives a code can pass it on. Leave a league to withdraw future membership sharing; creators can delete their league. Game progress is retained when you leave or delete a league. Membership records are removed when you leave, when the league is deleted or when your account is deleted. Deleting a creator’s account also removes their leagues and those leagues’ memberships. Other members may already have viewed or copied a ranking.
Tell Schools
The school determines the educational purpose and the lawful basis for processing pupil learning information. Outsight Labs acts as the school’s processor for generated pupil IDs and aliases, class membership, learning results, progress and the private class league, under its documented instructions and the school data-processing agreement. The school should supply its own privacy information and contact for pupil rights requests. We assist the school with those requests.
Invited teachers use a school email address, a WordPress account, password authentication, class assignments and two-factor authentication managed by Wordfence. Pupils do not have WordPress accounts. Their codes are stored as password hashes and their sessions as token hashes, not readable login secrets. A school can link a generated ID to a pupil, so these records are pseudonymous personal data, not anonymous data. Assigned teachers see their classes; pupils see only their own class league. Authorised operators can access records for administration and support.
We separately act as controller for business contacts, teacher contact details needed for service administration, support correspondence, billing and proportionate service-security records. We rely on legitimate interests in administering and securing the service; contractual necessity applies where a contact is personally party to the contract, and legal obligation applies to required tax records. We do not reuse school pupil records for advertising, unrelated product development or AI training. Tell’s authored learning content does not send pupil work to a live AI service.
4. Secure account storage
Your email and progress are stored in the website’s account database, with account authentication and application access controls. Tell requires HTTPS for sign-in and gameplay. Login codes are short-lived, single-use and stored as a keyed digest rather than a readable code in the authentication table. Sign-in requests are rate limited. Authorised site administrators can access account data as needed to operate and support the service.
No internet service can promise absolute security. A code is also present in the email sent to you and may be recorded by email delivery logs. Keep your email account secure and never share a sign-in code. This notice does not claim that the database or every backup is encrypted at rest; those protections depend on the hosting and backup services in use.
5. Service providers and international processing
Our current setup uses IONOS for website hosting and Microsoft 365 for email. FluentSMTP connects the website to the email service. Hosting, email and backup/security providers may process information on our behalf to provide their services. We do not sell player data or use account emails for advertising. Website enquiries and requested sign-in emails are not marketing subscriptions.
Provider processing and support can involve locations outside your country, including outside the UK or EEA. Where a restricted international transfer occurs, applicable safeguards must be used, such as an adequacy decision or approved contractual safeguards. Contact us for information about the providers, processing locations and safeguards applicable to your information.
6. How long information is kept
- Tell accounts and progress: retained while your account remains open, so you can resume your learning. You can delete a player account and its progress in Settings.
- School learning records: our policy is deletion from live systems 30 days after confirmed subscription termination, after an opportunity for the school to request return. An authorised administrator records termination and completes the due deletion queue. This is a managed process, not an automatic expiry deletion. Temporary suspension or an overdue renewal does not itself start deletion; we agree the actual end date with the school and review unresolved expiry promptly. Earlier return or deletion follows the school’s instructions, subject to lawful exceptions.
- School-only teacher accounts and support records: removed through school offboarding; accounts serving another authorised purpose require separate review. Minimum school contract and billing records are retained separately for legal record keeping. Sole-trader tax records are kept for at least five years after the relevant 31 January filing deadline, and longer where legally required.
- Login challenges: expire after ten minutes; expired challenge and rate-limit rows are removed by the scheduled cleanup. Expiry prevents use even if scheduled deletion is delayed.
- Rate-limit records: expire after the relevant short security window, normally minutes or hours, then scheduled cleanup removes them.
- Enquiries: kept in our email system for as long as needed to handle the enquiry and any resulting work, resolve disputes and meet applicable record-keeping obligations. We review correspondence and remove it when no longer needed.
- Access logs, email logs and backups: kept for the operational, security and recovery periods configured with the relevant services. Deleted records may remain in restricted backups until those backups rotate out; backups are not used to republish deleted accounts.
Deleting a Tell account does not automatically remove separate enquiry correspondence or provider logs. Contact us if your request also concerns those records.
7. Your choices and rights
You can change your portrait, selected region and league preference in Settings. You can also delete your Tell player account there. For access to your data, corrections, portability, restriction, erasure or help with an account, contact our website enquiry form. We may need to verify that the request is yours without asking for unnecessary extra information.
You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. You can withdraw consent for the public league at any time in Settings; this does not affect processing before withdrawal. Rights depend on the circumstances and applicable law. We normally respond to a data-rights request within one month, subject to lawful extensions or exceptions.
You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. If EU/EEA data protection law applies to you, you may also complain to your local supervisory authority.
8. Younger detectives
We use clear explanations and preset portraits and do not ask for a child’s real name or photograph. If you are a child, ask a parent, carer or teacher to help you decide whether to create an account and which email address to use. Keep the public league off if you do not want others to see your detective profile. Parents and carers can contact us about a child’s data or to request help deleting it. Tell Public private leagues are separate from the managed Tell Schools service. Schools should use the school service for managed classroom accounts and agree their supervision, privacy and safeguarding arrangements before onboarding real pupils. Learning content is aimed at ages 10 through adults; content suitability does not override another service’s minimum age or establish a lawful basis by itself. Teachers can use fictional examples without creating accounts on third-party services.
Reading preferences
The Aa control offers larger text, alternative colour themes and reduced animation. Requested choices are stored only in browser local storage under tell_reading_preferences_v1, without an account identifier, until reset or browser data is cleared. They are not sent to our server and can persist on shared devices. Browser or operating-system voice playback, if selected, follows the device’s own speech-service configuration; a written transcript remains available.
9. Cookies, automated processing and changes
See our cookie policy for sign-in cookies and browser storage. Game answers are scored automatically and used to award XP and rankings; we do not make automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you. We update this notice when the service or its data practices change and show the revision date above.