Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 4, 2026
Jigsaw Earth (“we”, “us”) is a free website with online jigsaw puzzles of places around the world. This page explains, in plain words, what information is involved when you use the site, why, and what choices you have. The short version: you don’t need an account, we don’t ask for your name or email to play, and most of what the site remembers stays in your own browser. If you choose to sign in to save your passport, we keep your email address, your game progress and your leaderboard scores, and nothing else.
1. What we don’t collect
You don’t need an account to use Jigsaw Earth. You can play every puzzle, save favourites, collect Globe Coins and play the quizzes without giving us your name, email address or any other personal details. Signing in is optional and only used to keep your progress (see section 4).
2. What your browser keeps for you
A few features work by storing small pieces of information in your own browser (“local storage”). This information stays on your device and is not sent to us:
- Saved puzzles – when you press the heart button, the puzzle’s number is added to a list in your browser so the Saved puzzles page can show it.
- Travel passport – when you finish a puzzle, its country, the date and your time are added to your passport in your browser, together with your daily streak, achievements and personal records. The Passport page reads them from there. Unless you sign in (section 4), they are never sent to us. You can download a copy of your passport or erase it on that page.
- Daily puzzle results – your score, distance and time for each Daily “Where on Earth?” puzzle, and your daily streak, so you can see your stats and share a result. They stay in your browser; sharing only happens if you press Share.
- Quiz scores – your best score and time in each geography quiz, so the quiz pages, your achievements and your records can show them. Unless you sign in (section 4), they are never sent to us.
- Journey progress – which stops of each puzzle journey you have finished, so the next stop can open.
- Puzzles in progress – the last few puzzles you started but haven’t finished, with where the pieces are and your time so far, so you can carry on later.
- Globe Coins – the coins you earn, what you buy and use in the Globe Coin shop (such as Travel Insurance or a table colour), the styles you pick for your passport and postcards, and how many coin videos you have watched today. Globe Coins are only part of the game: they can’t be bought with money or exchanged for anything outside the site.
- Your settings – small choices such as your table colour and whether you closed the “install the app” message, so the site remembers them next time.
- Offline copies – your browser keeps copies of pages and photos you have recently opened, so they load faster and puzzles you have already played work without internet. These are only Jigsaw Earth’s own pages and pictures.
- Play count check – a short-lived note that you’ve already opened a puzzle during this visit, so the same visit isn’t counted twice. It disappears when you close the tab.
You can remove all of this at any time by clearing your browser’s site data for Jigsaw Earth.
Jigsaw Earth itself does not set cookies, except a sign-in cookie if you choose to sign in (section 4). Advertising partners may set cookies – see section 5.
3. Information that reaches our server
- Anonymous play counts – when a puzzle is opened, the counter for that puzzle goes up by one. Only the number is stored; nothing about who played it.
- Searches – the words you type into the search box are used to find matching puzzles. We don’t keep a record of what people search for.
- Photo quiz – when you start a round of the “Where is this?” photo quiz, your browser asks our server for a set of random puzzle photos. Nothing about you is stored, and your answers stay in your browser.
- Server logs – like almost every website, our hosting provider automatically records basic technical details of each visit, such as your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time. These logs are used to keep the site running and secure, to fix problems and to block abuse, and are deleted after a limited period.
- Leaderboard results – only for signed-in players (section 4): when you finish a puzzle, the site sends us which puzzle it was, its size, how long you took and whether you used a hint, so the leaderboards can be updated. If you aren’t signed in, nothing is sent.
- Messages you send us – if you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you write, and use them only to answer you.
4. Optional sign-in to save your progress
You can sign in with your email address to keep your travel passport safe and use it on more than one device. There is no password: we email you a one-time code.
- What we store – your email address, and a copy of your game progress: your travel passport (stamps, achievements, streaks and best times), your quiz best scores, your Daily puzzle results, your journey progress, your puzzles in progress, your saved puzzles and your Globe Coins. We don’t ask for your name.
- Why – only to sign you in, to keep your progress in step across your devices and to show the leaderboards. We don’t send newsletters or marketing, and we don’t share your email with advertisers or anyone else.
- Leaderboards – signed-in players appear on the public leaderboards under a traveller name made from our own word list, such as “Swift Falcon 27”. Your email address is never shown. For the boards we keep the distance you have travelled, the countries you have visited and your Daily puzzle times. On the Your account page you can choose another name or keep yourself off the public leaderboards.
- Sign-in codes – each code is stored only in scrambled (hashed) form, works once and expires after 15 minutes. To stop abuse, we briefly keep a count of code requests per email address and internet address.
- Sign-in cookie – after you sign in, a cookie keeps you signed in on that browser for up to two weeks, or until you sign out.
- Deleting your account – on the Your account page you can download your data or delete your account at any time. Deleting it removes your email address, the stored copy of your progress and your leaderboard scores from our site.
5. Advertising
To keep Jigsaw Earth free, some pages show advertisements provided by Google AdSense. When ads are shown:
- Google and its partners, as third-party vendors, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this and other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies lets it and its partners show you ads based on your visits to Jigsaw Earth and other sites on the internet.
- You can turn off personalised advertising in Google’s My Ad Center. You can also opt out of some other companies’ use of cookies for personalised ads at aboutads.info or, in Europe, youronlinechoices.eu.
- Where the law requires it (for example in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland), you will be asked for your consent before cookies are used for advertising, and you can change your choice later.
Videos for coins. The Globe Coin shop may offer a short video advertisement that gives you Globe Coins once you have watched it. A video only plays when you press its button. These videos come from Google Ad Manager, and the same cookie and consent rules as above apply.
You can read how Google uses information from sites that show its ads on Google’s own page about it.
6. Other services the site relies on
- Web hosting – our hosting provider stores the website and handles the server logs described in section 3.
- Email delivery – sign-in codes are sent through our email provider, which handles your email address only to deliver the message.
- Fonts – the lettering on the site is served from our own server, so your browser doesn’t contact a font service when a page loads. The flag pictures and the world map in the quizzes come from our own server too.
- Share buttons – the WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Telegram buttons are ordinary links, and nothing is sent to those services unless you press one, after which their own privacy policies apply. On phones some buttons open your device’s own share menu instead. The Instagram and TikTok buttons make a picture of your quiz result or medal inside your browser and pass it to your device’s share menu, or save it on your device; it is never uploaded to us. Some buttons also copy your result and its link to your clipboard so you can paste them. A shared quiz link contains your score (for example ?score=9-10), and a shared medal link only which medal it is (for example ?ach=quiz-ace-3); neither contains anything else about you.
- Invite links – the links you share carry a short invite code (for example ?ref=3f9a0c12bd). It is made from a random key kept in your browser and says nothing about you. When a new player who came from your link finishes their first puzzle or quiz, or beats a quiz score you shared, our server notes the two invite codes and the day, so your browser can collect the Globe Coins. To stop abuse it also counts invites per connection for one day, without keeping your IP address. These notes are deleted after a year.
We don’t sell your personal information.
7. Children
Jigsaw Earth is a general-audience site and isn’t aimed at children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in Europe or state privacy laws in the United States), you may have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to how it is used. If you haven’t signed in, the only personal information we might hold is in server logs and in emails you send us. If you have signed in, you can download your data or delete your account yourself on the Your account page. For any other request, contact us using the details below. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
9. Keeping information safe
The site is served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and we keep the software behind it up to date. No website can promise perfect security, but we keep as little information as possible in the first place.
10. Changes to this policy
If the way the site handles information changes, we will update this page and the date at the top.
11. Contact
Questions about privacy? Email us at support@jigsawearth.com.