Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how SantaSecret collects, uses, shares, and retains personal information when you use santa-secret.com and the Secret Santa services available through the website.

1. Who We Are

SantaSecret is operated by Santa Secret LLC, a California limited liability company ("SantaSecret", "we", "us", or "our"). Santa Secret LLC is the controller of personal information processed through SantaSecret for purposes of applicable data protection laws. Our contact details are in section 16.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information you provide directly

Depending on how you use SantaSecret, you may provide us with:

• your email address;
• your name or nickname;
• a phone number and postal address, if you enter them on your participant card for delivery of a physical gift;
• gift wishes, preferences, and other information you voluntarily enter on a participant card;
• messages you send in the in-game chats — the anonymous chat with your assigned Secret Santa and the chat with the game organizer;
• a picture you upload to use as your card avatar;
• messages and information you send to our support team.

2.2 Information provided by a game organizer

If you did not provide your personal information directly to SantaSecret, it may have been provided by the organizer of a Secret Santa game. An organizer typically provides your name or nickname, and may also provide your email address if they want SantaSecret to send you an invitation, draw result, or reminder.

By submitting another person's name, email address, or other personal information, an organizer confirms that they have informed that person and have that person's permission, or another lawful authority, to provide the information to SantaSecret for invitations, draw notifications, and participation in the relevant Secret Santa game. The organizer must be able to demonstrate this permission or authority upon request.

If you do not want SantaSecret to retain or process information provided about you by an organizer, contact us at postman@santa-secret.com.

2.3 Information collected automatically

When you use SantaSecret, our systems automatically process technical information such as:

• your IP address;
• your browser and device information;
• timestamps and request information;
• security, technical, and error logs;
• information necessary to maintain your session and operate the service.

We also collect limited information about how you interact with the website (such as pages visited and actions taken) through our SantaSecret-hosted analytics, as described in section 6.

3. How and Why We Use Information

We use personal information only to operate, secure, and improve SantaSecret.

3.1 Providing the service

We process information to:

• create and manage user accounts;
• create, join, and administer Secret Santa games;
• create and manage participant cards;
• conduct the random Secret Santa drawing;
• provide participants with their assigned recipient;
• let organizers administer games and communicate with participants;
• pass gift preferences and delivery information to the appropriate participants;
• provide other functionality requested by users.

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on the necessity of this processing to provide the service you requested or to perform our agreement with you.

3.2 Organizer-provided participant information

Where an organizer provides a participant's name or email address, we process that information to conduct the Secret Santa game requested by the organizer, send the relevant invitation or draw notification, and make the service function for that group.

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on our legitimate interest in providing the requested Secret Santa service, subject to the rights and interests of the affected participant.

3.3 Service communications

We use contact information to send messages necessary for the operation of SantaSecret, including invitations, draw results, reminders, account notifications, security and technical messages, and responses to support requests. We do not use participant information for unrelated mass marketing.

3.4 Security and reliability

We process technical information as reasonably necessary to prevent abuse, diagnose errors, protect users, and keep the service operating. Where the GDPR applies, this processing is based on our legitimate interest in maintaining a secure and reliable service.

3.5 Analytics

We use first-party website analytics to understand how SantaSecret is used and to improve the website and service. Where the GDPR applies, this processing is based on our legitimate interest in measuring and improving the service, subject to the rights and interests of visitors. Details are in section 6.

3.6 Legal requirements

We may process or retain information where necessary to comply with applicable law, respond to lawful requests, or establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

4. Information Shared Within a Secret Santa Game

SantaSecret is designed to allow people participating in the same Secret Santa game to exchange information needed for the game. What each role in a game can see depends on how the game is configured:

4.1 The game organizer

The game organizer needs enough information to run the game, so their view of each participant intentionally shows some fields and hides or masks others:

• Always visible to the organizer: the name or nickname you use in the game, your avatar, whether you have opened your invitation, whether email or Telegram notifications are enabled for your card, and your gift-sent and gift-received status.
• Shown as filled or not filled, with only a short partial preview (typically the first two or three characters followed by asterisks): phone number, delivery address, postal code, and postal recipient. The organizer can see that you have filled these fields in, but not their full contents.
• Hidden by default; the organizer can reveal the full text on request: your gift wish. The organizer sees a "not filled in" badge if you have not written anything, or a "Show" button if you have; clicking "Show" displays the full wish text to that organizer so they can help coordinate the draw or answer questions about your wishlist.
• Never visible to the organizer: the anonymous chat between you and your assigned Secret Santa.

The organizer can also exchange messages one-to-one with each participant through a dedicated organizer chat. Those messages are not anonymous — the organizer sees who wrote them and the participant sees they are talking to the organizer.

Because the organizer administers the game, they have access to any card information through the SantaSecret administrative interfaces. If you do not want a particular organizer to see something, do not enter it in SantaSecret, or ask a different person to organize the game.

4.2 Your assigned Secret Santa

After the draw, your assigned Secret Santa can see your gift wish, delivery address, and other information you filled in for receiving a gift. You can also exchange messages with your assigned Secret Santa through an anonymous in-game chat that does not reveal their identity to you or your identity to them.

4.3 Other participants

Other participants in the same game can see your name or nickname, avatar, and whether you have sent or received a gift — unless the organizer has chosen to hide names. Other participants cannot see your gift wish, delivery address, phone number, or private messages.

4.4 What is not shared

The anonymous chat between you and your assigned Secret Santa is not visible to the organizer or to other participants.

5. Service Providers

We use a small number of third-party service providers to operate SantaSecret. They process personal information as necessary to provide their services to us.

We do not use open-tracking or link-tracking pixels in the transactional emails we send through Postmark.

Sign-in through an external authentication provider is described in section 8.

Basic first-party website analytics are provided by a SantaSecret-hosted instance of Umami Analytics, described in section 6.

We do not sell or rent personal information. We disclose information to providers for the purposes described in this policy, including payment processing below.

Premium payments through Stripe

On santa-secret.com, Premium checkout is handled by Stripe using Stripe Managed Payments. We send Stripe your checkout email address, payment and order references, the Premium product description, price and currency. Stripe collects payment details directly on its hosted checkout and may process billing, device and fraud-prevention information under its own privacy policy. SantaSecret does not collect or store your full card number or card security code.

We store the checkout email, order and provider transaction identifiers, amount, currency, payment status and timestamps, linked to the purchasing profile, to confirm payment, activate Premium, provide support and handle payment records. This applies to both guest and permanent profiles. The receipt email does not automatically become your account email or make a guest profile permanent.

We process these records to fulfil your purchase and meet applicable accounting and legal obligations. Payment records may be retained where necessary for those obligations or payment disputes even after account deletion. Stripe may process information internationally and use its own cookies and browser storage during checkout. See Stripe’s Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

6. Analytics

For basic website measurement we use a SantaSecret-hosted instance of Umami Analytics at analytics.santa-secret.com. That subdomain is operated by us on our own infrastructure — analytics data does not leave SantaSecret and is not shared with the Umami project or any third-party analytics vendor. Umami processes:

• the pages you visit and page titles;
• the referring website or page, if any;
• your browser language and screen dimensions;
• your browser, operating system, and device type;
• approximate country or region;
• timestamps and interactions with website functionality.

Umami derives a pseudonymous, day-scoped session identifier on our server from your IP address, user-agent, and the requested website. Your IP address is not stored as a separate identifier by Umami and is not shared with any third party.

Umami does not use cookies or other browser storage, and is not used by SantaSecret to track visitors across other websites. We configure Umami so that sensitive URL parameters (such as access tokens and email addresses) are redacted before analytics data is sent, and we do not intentionally send participant names, email addresses, mailing addresses, gift information, or messages to Umami.

Umami is loaded on all SantaSecret pages without prior consent. Where the GDPR applies, this limited processing is based on our legitimate interest in measuring, maintaining, and improving the service, subject to your right to object at any time using the contact details in section 16.

7. Cookies and Browser Storage

SantaSecret uses cookies, localStorage, and sessionStorage. We use browser storage for authentication, preferences, game drafts, checkout continuity, Premium reminders and first-party Premium attribution, as described below. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Premium interaction events include the feature and button selected, page category, theme, quoted price and currency, device category, purchase outcome, and whether the visitor is using a guest profile, a permanent account, or is not signed in. The attribution entries above contain categories and timestamps, not email addresses, card details or recovery codes. This first-party attribution storage is separate from Umami itself; it does not track you across other websites.

localStorage can survive closing the browser; sessionStorage belongs to a tab and may be copied into a new checkout tab. Time limits above describe when the application accepts an entry: expired data may remain until accessed, overwritten or cleared. You can remove cookies and browser storage in your browser settings. Doing so can erase drafts and guest-profile access. Before clearing data, save your recovery codes or link and verify your email. We store the time you confirm saving recovery codes only after you submit that confirmation.

Blocking this storage may prevent authentication or other parts of SantaSecret from working correctly. You can delete cookies and site storage at any time using your browser settings; clearing strictly necessary storage may sign you out or reset functional preferences.

8. External Authentication

You may choose to sign in to SantaSecret using an external authentication provider — currently Google or Telegram. If you do, that provider processes information and may use its own cookies and browser storage as part of the authentication flow. Those technologies are controlled by the relevant provider and are subject to that provider's privacy practices.

When you use external authentication, we receive only the information necessary to complete the authentication process and provide your SantaSecret account (typically an email address and a display name).

9. International Processing and Transfers

SantaSecret's application servers are located in the Netherlands (European Union). Some of the service providers listed in section 5 process personal information in other countries, including the United States.

Where applicable law (for example the GDPR) requires safeguards for international transfers of personal information, we and our service providers rely on appropriate legal transfer mechanisms — such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified under it, or Standard Contractual Clauses.

10. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy.

• Account information is retained until you delete your account.
• Secret Santa games and their participant cards are retained until the organizer deletes the game. Archiving a game does not delete its data.
• In-game chat messages are retained while the game exists. Resetting the draw hides earlier chat messages inside the app.
• Technical and security information may be retained for a limited period where necessary for security, troubleshooting, and abuse prevention.
• Support correspondence is retained where necessary to resolve requests.
• Analytics information collected through our SantaSecret-hosted Umami instance is retained as long as reasonably necessary to measure service usage and operational trends.
• Aggregated reports may remain available for longer periods where they no longer identify an individual user.

When you delete your account, we replace your identifiers with a masked placeholder (email is set to a non-routable user_deleted_<id>@deleted.com value and your name is set to "Deleted User"), we overwrite your card's gift wish, phone number, and postal address with asterisks, and we update notification records referencing your email address so that your email is removed.

Database backups are rotated on a rolling window of approximately 3 days. Earlier information may remain in the most recent backups until they are overwritten within that window.

We may retain certain information for longer where required by law or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

11. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live and the law that applies to you, you may have rights regarding your personal information, including the right to:

• request access to personal information we hold about you;
• receive a copy of certain personal information;
• request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information;
• request deletion of your personal information;
• request restriction of certain processing;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests;
• receive certain information in a portable format;
• withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
• lodge a complaint with an appropriate data-protection authority.

To exercise a privacy right, contact us at postman@santa-secret.com. We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. Where the GDPR applies, we will respond without undue delay and generally within one month; that period may be extended for particularly complex or numerous requests where permitted by law.

Residents of the European Economic Area may lodge a complaint with the data-protection authority in their country of residence. A list of authorities is maintained by the European Data Protection Board at edpb.europa.eu. Residents of the United Kingdom may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

12. Children Under 13

SantaSecret is a general-audience service intended only for people who are at least 13 years old. If you are under 13, do not use SantaSecret, create an account, participate in a game through the service, or submit any personal information to us. In parts of the European Economic Area where the age of digital consent is higher than 13, you must be at least that age to use SantaSecret.

An adult teacher, parent, legal guardian, or organizer may use SantaSecret to manage a game involving children under 13 only if all of the following apply:

• the adult controls all accounts and contact information used for the game;
• the children are not given direct access to SantaSecret;
• the adult uses non-identifying names or aliases for the children where practical;
• the adult does not submit email addresses, phone numbers, or postal addresses relating to the children;
• the adult has permission or another lawful authority to provide any limited participant information used;
• the adult shares the draw results with the children outside SantaSecret.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If we learn that a child under 13 has accessed or used SantaSecret directly, or that a child's personal information has been submitted in circumstances where it should not have been collected, we will take reasonable steps to delete that information and disable the associated account or access.

If you believe that a child's personal information has been provided to us in these circumstances, contact us at postman@santa-secret.com so that we can review and, where appropriate, delete it.

13. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect personal information, including:

• HTTPS for all connections to SantaSecret;
• Argon2id hashing for user passwords;
• signed session tokens (JSON Web Tokens) for authentication;
• restricted access to production systems and personal information.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

14. Automated Decision-Making

SantaSecret does not make decisions about you using solely automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects. Secret Santa drawings assign each participant a giftee at random within the rules configured by the game organizer; the drawing is a matching procedure and is not an automated decision within the meaning of Article 22 of the GDPR.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy when our service, service providers, technologies, or legal obligations change. The current version will be available through the Privacy Policy link on santa-secret.com. If a change materially affects how we process personal information, we will provide additional notice where required by applicable law.

16. Contact Us

For questions about this Policy, privacy requests, or concerns about how your personal information is processed, contact:

Santa Secret LLC
2108 N ST STE N
Sacramento, CA 95816
United States
Email: postman@santa-secret.com