The short version
To use the course you give us an email address and pick a username. We store your progress so you can continue where you left off, in any browser.
If you allow it, we also record how the site is used — clicks, scrolling, a replay of the session — so we can find the places where people get stuck. You can refuse, and everything else keeps working.
We do not sell anything to anyone, we do not run advertising, and we do not build profiles for advertisers.
Who is responsible
Lingstone operates this site and decides what is collected here. For anything in this policy, write to privacy@lingstone.app.
What we collect
Account. Your email address, your chosen username, and whether the email has been verified. The password is handled by Google Firebase Authentication and we never see it.
Progress. Which lessons you completed, how many stars each earned, your experience points, coins, level, streak, which career cases you unlocked, and the date you were last active.
Preferences held in your browser. Interface language, your answer to the cookie question, and a local copy of your progress so the site works before you sign in. These stay on your device.
Behaviour, only if you allow it. Mouse movement, clicks, scrolling, screen size, approximate region, browser and operating system — and a replay of your visit. See the section on Clarity below.
Why we are allowed to hold it
To give you the thing you signed up for. Your account and progress exist because you asked for an account; without them the course cannot remember you. In GDPR terms this is performance of a contract.
Because you said yes. Behavioural analytics runs on consent and nothing else. No consent, no collection — and you can take it back at any time.
Analytics: Microsoft Clarity
If you allow it, we use Microsoft Clarity to see how the site is actually used: heatmaps of where people click and how far they scroll, and session replays that show the path through a case.
This is genuinely useful to us — a question that confuses people looks exactly like a question people get right, until you watch someone sit on it for forty seconds.
Clarity is provided by Microsoft, which acts as an independent controller of the data it collects and may process it outside the UK and the EEA. Microsoft masks text content by default, so what we see is shapes and movement rather than what you typed.
One thing worth stating plainly: when Clarity is active it also synchronises an identifier with Bing, Microsoft's advertising network. We get nothing from that and we run no advertising — but it is Microsoft's own processing, under its own terms, and you should know it happens before you agree.
The script is not loaded at all until you agree. If you refuse, no request is ever made to Microsoft from this site.
Cookies and local storage
Below is the full list, taken from the live site rather than copied from documentation: we loaded the page without consent, then with it, and recorded what the browser actually received.
Before you consent, the site sets no cookies at all — not one. What it does use is local storage, which stays on your device and is never sent anywhere.
Strictly necessary
| Name | Set by | What it does | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
lingstone.consentlocal storage | Lingstone | Remembers your answer to this very question, so you are not asked again. | Until you clear it |
lingstone.langlocal storage | Lingstone | Your interface language, English or Russian. | Until you clear it |
lingstone.progresslocal storage | Lingstone | Lessons completed and stars earned, so the course works before you sign in. | Until you clear it |
lingstone.career, lingstone.streak, lingstone.onboardinglocal storage | Lingstone | Career cases unlocked, your daily streak, and whether you have been through the intro. | Until you clear it |
Analytics
| Name | Set by | What it does | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
CLIDcookie | clarity.ms | Identifies the browser so one visit can be stitched into one session replay. | 1 year |
MUIDcookie | clarity.ms, bing.com | Microsoft's own visitor identifier, shared across Microsoft sites — including Bing advertising. | 13 months |
ANONCHKcookie | c.clarity.ms | Records whether that identifier may be used for advertising, and checks data quality. | 10 minutes |
MRcookie | c.clarity.ms, c.bing.com | Decides whether the identifier above should be refreshed. | 7 days |
SMcookie | c.clarity.ms | Synchronises that identifier across Microsoft domains. | Session |
SRM_Bcookie | c.bing.com | Microsoft's advertising-side client identifier. | 13 months |
Where your data lives
Accounts and progress are held in Google Firebase (Authentication and Cloud Firestore), in Google's European region. Google processes this data on our instructions.
The site itself is served from a server in Sweden. It stores no personal data — it only hands out files.
How long we keep it
Your account and progress stay until you delete the account. When you do, they are removed from our database — not flagged as hidden, actually removed.
Clarity keeps what it collects according to Microsoft's own retention schedule, which we do not control.
Your rights
Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we use it, and complain to a regulator — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.
Deleting your account does not require asking us. It is a button: Profile → Account → Delete account. It removes your profile and your progress.
For anything else, write to privacy@lingstone.app. We answer within one month, as the law requires.
Withdrawing consent to analytics
Open Profile and use the cookie settings there, or the link in the footer of any page. Turning it off stops collection immediately for every future visit.
Children
Lingstone is written for adults studying criminal law. It is not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters — new data, a new recipient, a new purpose — we will say so on the site rather than quietly editing the page.