How Print Puzzles handles privacy.

Who is responsible for this site?

Print Puzzles is operated by Hamilton Digital Media Limited. For privacy questions, data requests, article corrections, puzzle requests, or bug reports, email contact@print-puzzles.com or use the contact page.

What information we collect

There are no user accounts, paid checkout, comments, community profiles, or newsletter signup forms on this site, so we hold very little that identifies you directly. The largest category of information is what Google collects on our behalf through analytics and advertising, described in its own section below.

• Messages you send us: if you email Print Puzzles, we receive your email address, name if you provide it, message content, attachments, and any page or bug details you include.
• Analytics and advertising data: Google Analytics and Google AdSense collect information about your visit, including your IP address, device and browser, the pages you view, roughly where you are, and identifiers stored in cookies. See the section below.
• Technical site data: our hosting and security systems may process server log information such as IP address, requested page, time of request, browser or device information, referrer, and error details.
• Puzzle settings: worksheet titles, puzzle counts, PDF options, custom word lists, and game choices are used in your browser to build the puzzle and the PDF. The site code does not send them to us or to anyone else.

How puzzle tools and PDFs work

Printable puzzle builders, playable puzzles, and PDF downloads are designed to run client-side in your web browser. This means the puzzle data and worksheet options are used on your device to show the preview, support play, and create the PDF.

If you email us a screenshot, PDF, puzzle setting, browser details, or bug report, that information becomes part of the message you chose to send.

Google Analytics and Google AdSense

Every page on this site loads two Google services. Google Analytics (measurement ID G-1CK7L2EMT2) tells us which pages are used and which are ignored, which is how we decide what to build next. Google AdSense (publisher ID ca-pub-2263775579120324) is what pays for the site, and it is the reason every puzzle here is free with no account and no paywall.

Both are provided by Google, which acts as an independent controller of the data it collects through them. Between them they may collect your IP address, device and browser details, the pages you visit and how long you stay, an approximate location derived from your IP address, the site that referred you, and identifiers stored in cookies on your device. Where you have consented to personalised advertising, Google may also use that data to build an advertising profile and show you ads based on it, including on other websites.

How consent works, and where it does not apply

This is the part most privacy policies blur, so it is worth being exact. Before either service is allowed to store anything, the site sends Google a consent instruction. That instruction sets analytics storage, advertising storage, advertising user data, and ad personalisation to denied for visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. If you are in one of those places, nothing non-essential is stored until you agree to it through the consent prompt, which is provided by Google's own consent management platform.

Outside those countries there is no denied default. If you are visiting from elsewhere, including the United States, analytics and advertising cookies are set when the page loads and you are not asked first. That is how the site is currently configured, and you are entitled to know it rather than have it described as a global consent banner.

You can change your mind at any time. Clearing cookies for this site through your browser removes the identifiers already stored. Google also offers its own controls that work across every site using these services: the Google My Ad Center page controls ad personalisation, and the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on stops Analytics collecting data at all. A browser set to block third-party cookies, or a content blocker, will also prevent most of this collection.

Cookies and similar technologies

Print Puzzles sets no cookies of its own. The site code stores nothing in local storage or session storage, and it has no login, no saved progress, and no preferences to remember. Everything below is set by Google through the two services described above.

• Analytics cookies distinguish one visitor from another and one visit from the next, so a page viewed twice by one person is not counted as two people.
• Advertising cookies are used to select ads, limit how often the same ad is repeated, and, where you have allowed it, personalise what you are shown.
• Consent cookies record the choice you made in the consent prompt, so you are not asked again on every page. This one is necessary: without it, your refusal could not be remembered.

No ad units are written into these pages, so any advertising is placed automatically by Google rather than positioned by us. The advertising script loads on every page regardless of whether an ad is shown.

Why we use information

• To provide the website, puzzle tools, downloadable PDFs, and playable puzzle features.
• To understand which pages are used, so build time goes to puzzles people actually print.
• To show advertising, which is what funds the site and keeps every worksheet free.
• To respond to emails, bug reports, puzzle requests, correction requests, and general questions.
• To maintain site security, diagnose errors, prevent misuse, and keep pages available.
• To improve puzzle pages, print layouts, guides, and user experience based on feedback.
• To meet legal, regulatory, accounting, or record-keeping obligations where they apply.

Lawful bases where UK or EU data law applies

Consent is the basis for analytics and advertising cookies for visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. Nothing non-essential is stored for those visitors until they agree, and consent can be withdrawn at any time by the routes described above. Withdrawing it does not affect anything done before you withdrew it, and it does not stop you using any part of the site.

Legitimate interests covers operating a secure website, replying to genuine messages, fixing bugs, improving puzzle tools, and keeping reasonable records of site feedback. Where you are outside the countries listed above, we rely on legitimate interests for measurement and advertising, subject to the local law that applies to you and to your right to object.

Legal obligation covers anything we are required to keep or disclose by law.

Who information is shared with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not pass your email or anything you send us to advertisers.

Google is the significant recipient. Data collected through Google Analytics and Google AdSense goes to Google, which uses it under its own privacy policy and as an independent controller for advertising purposes. We see only aggregated reports, not a list of individuals.

Information may also be handled by service providers that help operate the site and our email, such as hosting, security, backup, and technical support providers. We may share information if required by law, to protect the site, or with professional advisers where necessary.

Print Puzzles links to external sites, including Hamilton Digital Media, author pages, and social profiles. Those sites have their own privacy practices when you visit them.

Where information is processed

Google operates globally, so data collected through Analytics and AdSense may be processed outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Google states that it relies on the safeguards required by UK and EU data protection law for those transfers, such as standard contractual clauses and the relevant data privacy framework. Our hosting and email providers may likewise process data outside the UK or EEA.

How long information is kept

Contact messages are kept only as long as needed for the reason they were sent, such as replying to a question, fixing a bug, handling a correction, or keeping a reasonable record of a site issue. General messages are normally reviewed for deletion within 24 months unless there is a good reason to keep them longer.

Server logs are kept by hosting or security providers for limited operational periods. Exact log periods may depend on the provider and the technical need, such as security monitoring, debugging, and abuse prevention.

Analytics and advertising data is retained by Google under its own schedules and the data retention setting on our Analytics property, which can be as short as two months and no longer than fourteen for event-level data. Cookies set in your browser have their own expiry dates and can be removed by you at any time.

Children and family use

The worksheets here are often for children. The site itself is not: building a PDF, choosing print options, and downloading a file are things a parent, teacher, tutor, or carer does, and that is who these pages are written for. There are no child accounts, profiles, comments, or direct messaging, and nothing on the site asks a child for information.

Advertising is served on that basis, as a general-audience site used by adults. If a child uses this site, they should do so with an adult, and any message to us should come from the adult rather than the child.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask for access to your personal information, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, portability, or withdrawal of consent where consent is the basis for processing. To make a request, email contact@print-puzzles.com.

For analytics and advertising specifically, the fastest routes are the ones in your own hands and they work immediately: clear this site's cookies in your browser, use Google's My Ad Center or the Analytics opt-out add-on, or block third-party cookies. Because we hold only aggregated reports rather than a record tied to your name, a request to us for a copy of "your" analytics data will usually be met with an explanation that we cannot identify you within it, which is itself the honest answer.

If you are in the UK and are unhappy with how a privacy issue is handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. We would appreciate the chance to resolve the issue first.