safety & privacy 🛡️

🔑 no accounts, no logins, no email

there's nothing to sign up for. your burrow lives at its own secret link, and that link is the key: whoever has the link is the keeper, and can visit and look after the beings. (it's also how we know a request, like tidying a burrow away, really comes from its keeper.) so keep it like a house key, and only share it with people you'd trust to feed your beings. 🧀

if a link is ever lost, the burrow isn't deleted: it just naps somewhere safe. (that's why ⚙️ settings has "email it to myself". it opens your own email app, and nothing passes through us.)

📦 what we keep, and why

this is the whole list for a burrow:

• the burrow's name and its beings: which ones you hatched, the names you gave them, and how full their tummies are.
• your timezone, guessed by our web host from your connection when you visit, so bedtimes and festivals happen on your clock. we don't keep your location.
• a birthday, if you add one: day and month only, never the year. it's optional, and you can change it or forget it any time in ⚙️ settings.
• post: your postbox code, the friends you've added (with the nickname you gave them), and your last 40 postcards and treats. you can tidy post away whenever you like.
• pen pal: only if you switch it on (who you're paired with, so post can find them).
• a gentle nudge, only if you switch it on: the anonymous push address your browser gives us (it has no name or email in it), the hour you chose, and when we last sent one. switch it off in ⚙️ settings and it's deleted straight away.
• presents: a wrapped gift remembers its wrapping, note, eggs and optional birthday. if nobody unwraps it within a year, it wanders home and is deleted.
• the post box on the home page: whatever you write in it, plus a name only if you choose to add one. we read every note. 💛 please don't put personal details in a note (like a full name, address or phone number).

we also keep a few totals for the whole site, like "burrows made", "hugs given" and "cheese eaten", plus how many burrows there are in each country. the country comes from your connection at the moment a burrow is made, and it's only added to that country's running total: it's never saved with the burrow. totals only: none of it is linked to any burrow or person.

how long things are kept: burrows nobody visits just nap, for as long as it takes, and we never delete them on our own. post you tidy away is deleted straight away, and only your newest 40 cards are kept. notes in the home page post box are kept so we can look back at everyone's ideas and requests (ask in another note if you'd like yours deleted).

your own device also remembers a few little settings, like whether film tickets are on. they stay on your device and are never sent to us. we don't use cookies at all.

to stop the site being flooded, your connection's address is used to count things like "burrows made today". those counts only live in memory for the day, and they're never saved. our web host (Cloudflare) passes every visit along to us and protects the site from attacks. we've switched off its visit logs, so nobody keeps a list of which pages were visited, burrow links included. we only keep our own error messages (like "the cheese slipped") for a few days so we can fix things, and they never contain a burrow link.

🚫 what we never collect

• no real names (unless you choose to use one, see the tips below), no email addresses, no phone numbers, no home addresses
• no photos, no microphone, no camera, no precise location
• no adverts, no tracking, no analytics, no selling or sharing data. ever.
• no in-app purchases. nothing here costs anything.

all burrows, presents and postboxes are hidden from search engines, and burrow pages never pass their link on to other websites when you tap out of them.

if you switch on a nudge, your browser's own notification service (like Google's, Apple's or Mozilla's) carries it to your device. what we send them is empty: your device then asks your burrow what to say, so they never see your beings' names.

everything on our pages comes from our own site, even the fonts. the film links take you to youtube, and the instagram link to instagram, which have their own privacy rules.

💌 post & pen pals

• nobody can type to anyone. postcards and treats are picked from lists we wrote and checked ourselves, so nothing unkind or unexpected can arrive.
• a postbox code can only receive. it never opens your burrow, so it's fine to share it with friends.
• "🙈 no more post from them" is on every card from a friend. their post tidies away, and they're never told.
• pen pals are switched off unless you choose them. they're anonymous both ways: neither of you ever sees a burrow name, a being's name or a postbox code, only which kinds of beings the other one has. you can say goodbye and get a new pen pal, or stop pen pals, any time.
• there are gentle limits on how much post anyone can send each day.

🤖 AI friends

you can invite an AI assistant (like Claude) to visit your burrow through our connector. it can only do what you can do: peek at how everyone's feeling, feed, wash, play, hug and watch films. it can't see your post or anyone else's burrow, and it only knows your burrow because you gave it the link.

when a being needs a name, Echo, our own tiny AI, suggests one. Echo only ever hears what kind of being it is ("a little otter"), never anything about you.

🌙 gentle by design

• nothing here ever dies. hungry beings just nap, and they glow when you come back.
• no streaks to lose, no guilt, and no notifications unless you ask for one. the gentle nudge is off until you switch it on, it's one a day at most, only on days nobody's visited, and only once a week if your burrow's been quiet for a while.
• at night (10pm to 6:30am, your time) the beings sleep, and visits are extra sleepy and gentle.
• soft sounds (and a mute button), no jump scares, and calm motion if your device asks for it.

💡 tips for keeping safe

• keep your burrow link private. share your postbox code with friends instead.
• use a nickname for your burrow and beings rather than a real full name. this one's especially good for younger players.
• tummy got cheese is made for everyone, of every age. younger players: ask a grown-up to help keep your burrow link safe 🔑, and show them this page! 🧀
• if you add the daily reminder to your calendar (⚙️ settings), your burrow link goes in your calendar with it. we don't store anything for this, but anyone who can see your calendar could open your burrow.
• if anything ever feels wrong, tell us (just below). 💛

🔍 check it yourself

you don't have to take our word for it. free privacy checkers like webbkoll and blacklight visit a page and list every cookie, tracker and outside website it uses.

try them on our home page, or on our example burrow: tummygotcheese.com/demo-burrow-9mkewc5s. every burrow runs exactly the same code.

please don't put your own burrow link into a checker, though. your link is your key, and checkers remember what they're given. 🔑

📮 questions, worries, or tidying a burrow away

write to us in the post box on the home page.

if you'd like a burrow tidied away for good, put its link in your note and say so (the link shows it's yours). it isn't instant, though: we tuck it away for 30 days first. during that time, the burrow's link shows a sleepy "tucked away" page with a bring my burrow back button. if someone asked without you knowing, or you change your mind, one tap and everyone wakes up. after 30 days, it's tidied away for good. 🌙