Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

The Improv Collective ("we," "our," or "us") operates the website at improvcollective.com (the "Site"). We provide a free, curated library of improv games, teaching guides, and community resources for teachers, coaches, and performers.

For privacy questions or data requests, contact us at: hello@improvcollective.com

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Account Information

When you create an account or sign in, we collect:

• Email address
• Display name (optional)
• Password (stored as a salted hash by Firebase Authentication; we never see or store your plain-text password)

If you sign in with Google, we receive your email address and public profile information (name and profile photo) from Google. We do not receive your Google password.

2.2 Profile Information

After creating an account, you may optionally provide:

• Bio
• Troupe or organization name
• Profile photo (avatar), stored in Firebase Cloud Storage
• Improv goals and skill interests (onboarding survey)
• Theme preference (light, dark, system)
• Notification and privacy settings

2.3 User-Generated Content

We store content you voluntarily post or submit on the Site:

• Comments on game pages
• Game submissions (proposed new improv games)
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• Shared resources and resource links
• Favorited games
• Game ratings

2.4 Contact Messages

When you send a message through our contact form, we collect your name, email address, and message text. This is stored in our Firestore database (contact_messages collection) so we can respond to your inquiry.

2.5 Automatically Collected Information

When you visit the Site, we automatically collect:

• Usage data via Google Analytics: pages visited, time spent, referring URLs, and interactions (clicks, form submissions). Google Analytics sets first-party cookies (_ga, _gid, _gat) and collects device information including browser type, operating system, screen resolution, and network type.
• Engagement events (Firestore): when you are signed in, we log activity events—game views, favorites added/removed, comments posted, resources shared, searches performed, and filter usage. These are stored in a dedicated analytics_events Firestore collection and are associated with your user ID. Events are batched and flushed on a 10-second interval or when the tab loses focus.
• Game view counts (Firestore): every game page load increments an anonymous view counter in the game_stats Firestore collection. No personal identifier is attached to view counts.
• Game visits (local storage): recently viewed game IDs and timestamps are stored in your browser’s localStorage to power trending-game calculations. This is a fallback mechanism; it does not leave your device.
• Error logs (local storage): if a client-side error occurs, technical details (error message, stack trace, URL, timestamp) are stored in localStorage to help us debug. These are not transmitted automatically; they are only sent if you choose to report the error.

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3. Cookies and Local Storage

We use the following browser storage technologies:

You can disable cookies and clear localStorage in your browser settings. Disabling essential storage (Firebase Auth IndexedDB) will prevent you from signing in.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use your information for the following purposes:

• To create and manage your account
• To display your comments, game submissions, resources, and profile on the Site
• To send email notifications you have opted into (new comments on games you follow)
• To process and respond to contact form messages
• To understand how the Site is used and which games are popular (analytics)
• To power trending-game and popular-game rankings (anonymous aggregate data)
• To detect and prevent abuse, spam, and violations of our Terms
• To debug errors and improve performance

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes. We do not use your data for automated individual decision-making or profiling.

5. Third-Party Services

We rely on the following third-party services to operate the Site:

Firebase, Google Analytics, and Google Fonts are covered by Google’s Privacy Policy.

6. Data Retention

• Account and profile data: retained until you delete your account or request deletion.
• Comments: retained until you delete them. If a comment has replies and you delete your account, the comment text is replaced with "[deleted]", your display name with "Deleted User", and the author identifier is removed so the retained comment is no longer linked to you while preserving the conversation thread.
• Game submissions: if approved, your submission becomes part of the public game library. Attribution (your display name) is retained unless you delete your account, at which point attribution is removed while the game description remains.
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• Favorites: deleted immediately when your account is deleted or when you remove individual favorites.
• Contact messages: retained in Firestore until you request deletion or we no longer need them for reference. Typically deleted within 24 months of resolution.
• Analytics events (Firestore): personally-identifying events (those with a user ID) are deleted when you delete your account. Anonymous events (game_stats view counters) are retained indefinitely as aggregate data with no personal identifier.
• Local storage data: persists only on your device and can be cleared at any time through your browser settings.
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7. Your Rights and Choices

7.1 Account Deletion

You can delete your account at any time from your profile settings. For your security, this operation requires recent re-authentication and is verified on our servers before it proceeds. Once requested, your sign-in sessions are revoked immediately and the deletion is processed in the background (usually within a few minutes). We permanently remove:

• Your user profile and all associated Firestore data
• Your favorites list
• Your activity history and analytics events
• Your notification preferences
• Your contact messages and newsletter subscription
• Your profile photo from Cloud Storage

Comments are scrubbed (display name replaced with "Deleted User," content replaced with "[deleted]," and the author identifier removed) rather than fully deleted if other users have replied to them. Approved game submissions remain in the public library with attribution removed. Anonymous, aggregate view counters that contain no personal identifier are retained.

7.2 Profile Privacy

You can control the visibility of your profile from your account settings:

7.3 Email Preferences

You can manage notification preferences from your account settings.

7.4 Analytics Consent

Analytics is off until you explicitly opt in. Your choice is synchronized through your account so withdrawing consent stops new analytics events and view counting across signed-in devices. Analytics consent is separate from your personalization preference and does not change your selected goals or skill interests.

7.4 Data Access and Portability

7.4 Data Access and Portability

To request a copy of the personal data we hold about you, or to request correction of inaccurate data, contact us at hello@improvcollective.com. We aim to respond within 30 days. Where technically feasible, we can provide your data in a structured, machine-readable format.

7.5 California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, you have the right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to: (1) know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose (detailed in this policy); (2) request deletion of your personal information (via account deletion or by contacting us); and (3) opt out of the sale of personal information—though we do not sell personal information. We do not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.

7.6 GDPR / UK GDPR Rights

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom (UK), you have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection to processing. Our lawful basis for processing your data is your consent (for analytics) and our legitimate interest in operating the Site (for account management and security). To exercise these rights, contact us at the email above. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

8. Children’s Privacy

The Site is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). While many improv games on the Site are suitable for classrooms and youth groups, account creation should be done by an adult (teacher, coach, or parent/guardian). If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us immediately and we will delete it.

9. International Users

The Site is hosted in the United States via Firebase Hosting (Google Cloud infrastructure). If you access the Site from outside the United States, your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from your jurisdiction. By using the Site, you consent to this transfer. We take appropriate safeguards to ensure your data is protected consistent with this policy.

10. Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data, including:

• All data is transmitted over HTTPS (TLS)
• Passwords are salted and hashed by Firebase Authentication using industry-standard scrypt; we never store plain-text passwords
• User-generated content is sanitized with DOMPurify to prevent XSS attacks
• A Content Security Policy (CSP) header restricts script sources to our domain, Google Tag Manager, and Kit
• Firestore security rules enforce authenticated access and data ownership validation
• Cloud Storage security rules restrict profile photo access to the owning user
• Account-deletion operations require recent re-authentication
• Rate limiting on email and notification endpoints via Cloud Functions

No method of electronic storage or transmission is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your data, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. How We Use Artificial Intelligence

We believe in being transparent about how artificial intelligence (AI) tools are used to help build the Site. AI assists with parts of our process, but a human is always in the loop and is ultimately responsible for what we publish.

• Research and sourcing: We use AI tools to help gather and surface perspectives, experiences, and ideas from publicly available websites and blogs. AI helps us find and summarize what the broader improv community has shared online.
• Human review and synthesis: A human (currently a team of one) always reviews, fact-checks, synthesizes, and designs the final written guides, game descriptions, and other editorial content. Because everything is reviewed by a person, updates can take time.
• Artwork: Some illustrations and imagery on the Site are generated with AI tools, based on a concept and creative vision first developed by a human.
• Written content: Some written content is drafted with the assistance of AI writing tools, again starting from a human-conceived concept and always finished and approved by a human.

We do not use your personal information to train third-party AI models, and we do not feed your account data, comments, or contact messages into AI systems for that purpose. As the community grows, we hope to welcome additional contributors to help create and review content.

12. Advertising and Monetization

The Improv Collective is currently provided free of charge. We want to be upfront about how the project is, and may in the future be, financially supported:

• Advertising: We do not run third-party programmatic ad network scripts on the Site today. We may accept sponsor inquiries and may display direct sponsorships, partner resources, or affiliate links that are relevant to the improv community. Paid placements will be clearly disclosed where they appear.
• Merchandise: We may offer merchandise to help support the business. Any purchases would be handled by a third-party commerce provider under its own terms and privacy policy.
• Third-party partners: We may partner with trusted third parties in the improv space (for example, schools, teachers, or tool providers). Where relevant, sponsored or affiliate relationships will be clearly disclosed.
• Sponsor inquiries: If you submit a sponsor inquiry, we collect the contact and campaign details you provide so we can review fit, respond, and manage a possible sponsorship. Submitting an inquiry does not subscribe you to marketing emails unless a separate opt-in is offered and you choose it.

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with advertisers or partners for their own marketing purposes. Sponsors receive aggregate reporting only, not user-level data such as account information, email addresses, favorites, comments, or contact messages.

13. Accessibility

We are committed to making the Site usable and accessible to as many people as possible, and we treat accessibility as an ongoing effort rather than a one-time project. We aim to follow recognized standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA and continue to test and improve over time.

We welcome all feedback on what could be improved. If you encounter a barrier or have a suggestion, you can let us know through our feedback form or by emailing hello@improvcollective.com. See our Accessibility Statement for more detail.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page with an updated "Last updated" date. For significant changes, we aim to notify registered users by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect. Your continued use of the Site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

15. Contact

For questions about this Privacy Policy, to exercise your data rights, or to report a privacy concern, contact us at:

Email: hello@improvcollective.com