Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 July 2026

1. Who we are

My Daily Dad Joke (“we”, “our”, “us”) is operated by Jonathan Kenton. This policy covers the website at mydailyjoke.dad and the My Daily Dad Joke WhatsApp service. You can reach us at dad@mydailyjoke.dad.

2. What data we collect

When you sign up or use the service we collect:

• WhatsApp phone number - used to send you jokes and receive your replies. Throughout the system your number is represented by a keyed, one-way cryptographic hash. The only exception is a delivery field that stores your E.164 phone number so the WhatsApp API can physically send messages. Our production database is encrypted at rest, and this delivery field is deleted when you close your account.
• Joke reactions and message activity - likes, dislikes, referral interactions, inbound free-text messages you send us, WhatsApp message IDs, timestamps, and delivery/read/failure status events. We use these to operate the service, prevent duplicate processing, respond to you, and improve reliability.
• Preference data - counts, delivery history, and a personal taste profile derived from your reactions so we can choose better jokes.
• Referral tokens - if you sign up via a friend's share link, we record the referral relationship to credit both parties.
• Support information - if you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you include in the message.
• Landing page trial - the “Try it now” joke widget on our homepage lets you react to one joke without creating an account. Your browser generates a random anonymous identifier (a timestamp plus a random value) and stores it, along with whether you've already used your free reaction, in your browser's local storage - never in a cookie. When you react, we receive that anonymous identifier together with the joke ID and your reaction, which we use to enforce the one-reaction limit and assess the landing-page trial. These trial reactions do not change WhatsApp joke rankings or create an account, and we do not collect an email address, phone number, or any other directly identifying information through this trial. To prevent automated abuse of this public widget, our server also briefly records a keyed cryptographic hash of the IP address making the request (never the raw address) purely to enforce request-rate limits; these hashes are kept only for a couple of hours and are never linked to your reactions, an account, or any other data we hold.

We do not collect payment information, address book contacts, precise location, or profile data from your WhatsApp account. If you put personal or sensitive information into a WhatsApp message or support email, we will receive that message, so please do not send sensitive information unless it is necessary for support.

3. How we use your data

• Deliver one personalised joke to your WhatsApp each day.
• Build and update your personal taste model from reactions and delivery history.
• Pause, resume, close, and delete accounts when requested.
• Attribute referrals and prevent duplicate or abusive processing.
• Classify optional free-text feedback so we can find support issues.
• Comply with law and protect the service, users, and infrastructure.

Depending on where you live, our legal bases may include your consent, performance of the service you requested, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the service, and compliance with legal obligations. We never sell your personal data or share it with third parties for their own marketing.

4. Third-party services

• Meta / WhatsApp Business Cloud API - messages and delivery status events are routed through Meta's infrastructure. See WhatsApp's Privacy Policy.
• Amazon Web Services - our database, compute, storage, queues, and operational infrastructure run on AWS, mainly in the United States. See AWS's Privacy Notice.
• Amazon Bedrock / Anthropic Claude - joke text and optional free-text feedback may be processed by AI models for joke generation, classification, and quality review. We do not intentionally include phone numbers or direct identifiers in these prompts.
• OpenAI - used for internal quality review of generated joke variants. We do not intentionally send user phone numbers, identifiers, or account data to OpenAI.

5. International transfers

Our service providers may process data in countries other than where you live, including the United States. Where applicable, we rely on contractual, technical, and organizational safeguards provided by those service providers.

6. Data retention

We retain account data while your account is active or paused. You can permanently delete your account data at any time - see our Data Deletion Instructions for the exact steps. Active service records are deleted within 24 hours of a verified deletion request. Backups, security logs, provider logs, and support correspondence may remain for a limited period where deletion is technically delayed or legally/operationally required. Aggregated statistics that no longer identify you may be kept.

The landing page trial's anonymous identifier and free-reaction marker live only in your browser's local storage and persist until you clear your browser's site data for mydailyjoke.dad. The corresponding server-side record (anonymous identifier, joke ID, reaction, and timestamp) is retained the same way as other interaction data described above. The separate, short-lived IP-hash records used only for abuse-rate-limiting (see “Landing page trial” in Section 2) are deleted within a couple of hours and are never joined to this reaction data.

7. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or receive a copy of your personal data. You can exercise these rights by following the steps on our Data Deletion page or by emailing dad@mydailyjoke.dad. We may need to verify that you control the WhatsApp number or email address connected to the request.

8. Cookies

The website (mydailyjoke.dad) does not use cookies. The homepage's “Try it now” joke widget uses browser local storage (not a cookie) to remember an anonymous trial identifier - see “Landing page trial” in Section 2. We do not use cookies, this local storage value, or any other client-side data for advertising, cross-site tracking, or fingerprinting. Our infrastructure providers may process standard server logs needed to deliver and secure the site.

9. Children

The service is not intended for children under 13, or the minimum age required to use WhatsApp in your country. If you believe a child has provided personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Security

We use technical and organizational safeguards including HMAC-based phone hashing, encrypted production storage, limited direct identifiers, and verified WhatsApp webhook signatures. No system is perfectly secure, but we design the service to minimize personal data.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The “Last updated” date at the top will reflect any changes. Continued use of the service constitutes acceptance.

12. Contact

Questions? Email dad@mydailyjoke.dad.