Privacy policy
Last updated: 21 August 2026
The short version
Brainblox is an 11+ practice app for children, set up and controlled by a parent or guardian. A grown-up creates the account; children play under a profile the grown-up manages.
We collect the parent's email address, a name and avatar the parent chooses for each child, and what happens as the child practises — the questions attempted and how they went. We use it to save progress, sync it between devices, show you a dashboard, and — only if you switch them on — email you progress summaries.
There are no adverts, no advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics, and no way for anyone to contact your child through the app. We do not sell your information. You can see or delete everything at any time.
Who we are
Brainblox ("we", "us", "our") is operated by Phillip Maplethorpe as an individual (sole trader). For the purposes of UK data protection law — the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 — Phillip Maplethorpe is the data controller for the personal information described here.
This policy is written for users in the United Kingdom, which is where Brainblox is offered. You can reach us at privacy@brainblox.app.
Who Brainblox is for
Brainblox helps children — typically aged 9 to 12, in school Years 4 to 6 — practise for 11+ entrance exams. It is designed to be set up and overseen by a parent or guardian.
Only a grown-up can create an account, and the grown-up creates and manages each child's profile. Children do not create accounts, are never asked for contact details, and cannot sign up on their own. We rely on the parent or guardian to give consent and to supervise their child's use of the app.
What we collect
When a parent creates an account
- Your email address — to sign you in, to sync progress between your devices, and (only if you opt in) to send you progress summaries.
- A password — handled by our authentication provider. We never see it or store it in a readable form.
When a parent sets up a child's profile
- A name for the child — the field is labelled "Username" and a nickname is perfectly fine. You do not have to use your child's real name, and we would rather you didn't.
- An avatar you pick from the set in the app.
- Two email preferences for that child — whether you want daily and weekly progress summaries. Both are off unless you switch them on.
As a child practises, while signed in
- Learning activity — which questions were attempted, which answer was chosen, whether it was right or wrong, the difficulty, when it happened, and which game or exam it came from.
- A copy of questions answered incorrectly, so that the parent dashboard can show you exactly what your child missed.
- Mock exam results — score, total and how long it took.
- In-game rewards — coins, XP, prizes and avatars earned or spent.
On the device itself
Brainblox keeps your progress in your browser's local storage — or, in the Android app, the equivalent storage inside the app. This is what lets the app work offline and keeps you signed in. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.
Playing without an account. You can use part of Brainblox without signing in at all. In that "guest" mode nothing is sent to us — progress is stored only on the device, and clearing the app's data removes it.
What we never collect
These are not "off by default" — the app contains no code to do any of them:
- No adverts, and no third-party advertising software of any kind.
- No advertising identifier (the Android advertising ID) and no device identifiers, phone number, IMEI or MAC address.
- No third-party analytics and no crash-reporting services. Nobody else watches what your child does in the app.
- No cross-app or cross-site tracking. The app connects to our own servers and nowhere else.
- No location data.
- No access to contacts, photos, files, the camera or the microphone. The Android app requests exactly one permission: internet access.
- No chat, messaging, comments or shared content, and no way for your child to be contacted by anyone through the app. High-score tables are worked out on your own device against friendly made-up characters — never real users.
- No purchases. There is nothing to buy inside Brainblox. Coins are earned by collecting them in the games and spent only on in-game prizes and avatars.
- No selling or sharing of your information for anyone else's marketing.
Why we use it, and our legal basis
| What we do | Legal basis (UK GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Run the app, save progress and sync it across your devices | Performing our contract with you |
| Show a parent their child's progress in the dashboard | Performing our contract with you |
| Send progress-summary emails to the parent | Your consent — you opt in, and can withdraw at any time |
| Keep the service secure and working, and fix problems | Our legitimate interests |
| Understand which parts of the app work well so we can improve it | Our legitimate interests |
We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell it.
Progress emails
Progress-summary emails are off by default. A parent chooses to turn them on, per child, in the parent area. There are two: one on days your child has practised, and a weekly summary.
They go only to the parent's email address, they are sent through our email provider Resend, and every one carries an unsubscribe link. You can also switch them off in the app at any time. We may still send essential service messages — confirming your email address, or a password reset.
Who processes your information
We use a small number of trusted service providers ("data processors"). They act only on our instructions and may not use your information for their own purposes:
| Provider | What they do for us |
|---|---|
| Supabase | Hosts the database and the account sign-in system — this is where account and progress data is stored. |
| Resend | Sends the progress-summary and account emails. |
| Cloudflare | Hosts and delivers the website and app, and routes our email addresses. |
We do not share your information with anyone else, except where we are legally required to — for example, to comply with a lawful request from the authorities.
Where your information is processed
Your information is stored in our Supabase database and protected in transit: everything the app sends travels over an encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) connection, and database rules mean an account can only ever read its own household's records.
Some of our providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where that happens, it is done under the safeguards UK data protection law requires — such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or an equivalent mechanism.
We have also deliberately turned off device cloud backup in the Android app, so your child's learning data is not copied into a phone or tablet backup.
Children's privacy
Brainblox is meant to be used by children under the supervision of a parent or guardian, and we take children's privacy seriously — including the principles of the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code.
- Children do not create their own accounts and do not give us contact details. A parent or guardian creates the account and every child profile.
- The only information about a child we hold is the name and avatar the grown-up chooses, plus the learning activity generated by playing.
- We do not require a child's real name and we never ask a child for personal information.
- There is no advertising, no profiling for marketing, no chat, and no way for a child to be contacted by anyone through the app.
- The parent area — the dashboard, the profile controls and account settings — sits behind the parent's own account password, which has to be re-entered each time and re-locks as soon as you leave it.
- Parents can view, correct or delete a child's profile and its data at any time.
If you believe a child has given us information without a parent's involvement, contact privacy@brainblox.app and we will delete it.
How long we keep it
We keep your account and progress data for as long as your account is active, because that history is the point of the dashboard — it is what shows whether your child is improving.
If you delete your account, or delete a child's profile, we remove the associated personal data (other than anything we must keep by law). Guest-mode progress lives only on your device, so clearing the app's data removes it.
How to delete your account and data
You can do this yourself, at any time, from inside the app — and you do not need to ask us.
- Delete everything. Sign in, open the account menu, then Settings, enter your password to unlock it, and choose Delete account. This permanently removes your account and every child profile on it — all progress, answers, coins and prizes — from our servers. It is immediate and cannot be undone.
- Delete one child. Sign in, open the account menu, then Child profiles, enter your password, and remove that profile. Their progress and answer history are deleted; your account and any other children are untouched.
- Can't sign in? Email privacy@brainblox.app from — or quoting — the address on the account, and tell us whether you want the whole account deleted or just one child's profile. We will complete it within 30 days of verifying your request and confirm by email.
Step-by-step instructions are on our account and data deletion page.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you or your child;
- Correct information that is wrong;
- Delete your account and data (the "right to erasure");
- Restrict or object to certain processing;
- Portability — receive a copy of your data in a usable format. There is no download button in the app, so we will email it to you within 30 days of your request;
- Withdraw consent — for example to progress emails — at any time.
To exercise any of these, email privacy@brainblox.app. You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office, at ico.org.uk.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. If we make significant changes we will update the "last updated" date at the top and, where appropriate, let you know in the app.
Contact us
Questions about this policy, or about your family's data? Email privacy@brainblox.app and we will come back to you.