Privacy Policy
Last updated 24 August 2026
Hypothesis is a polling app. You ask questions, other people answer them, and everyone sees the totals. This policy explains what we store, what we publish, and what we never show.
The short version
- Your individual answers are never shown to anyone. Not to the person who asked the question, not to other people answering it.
- Only grouped totals are published.
- A demographic group is only ever shown once at least 10 people are in it.
- Your profile is entirely optional. The app works with it blank.
- You can delete your account and your data from inside the app, at any time.
What we collect
| Data | Why | Required |
|---|---|---|
| An account identifier | To keep your answers attached to you, so you cannot answer the same question twice | Yes — created automatically, anonymously, when you first open the app |
| Email address | Only if you create an account to publish questions of your own | Only to publish |
| Display name | Shown on questions you publish | Optional |
| Year of birth, gender, country | To group answers into demographic breakdowns | Optional |
| Your answers | To show you your own history and to count toward totals | Yes, for questions you answer |
| Usage data | Which screens are used, so we know what to improve | Can be turned off in Account |
What we publish
Only aggregates. When you answer a question, your answer is added to a running total. The total is what other people see.
If you have filled in any part of your profile, your answer also counts toward a demographic breakdown — for example, the share of people aged 25 to 34 who answered yes. A breakdown group is withheld entirely until at least 10 people are in it, so that nobody can be identified from a small group. This is enforced on our servers, not in the app: a group below that threshold is never sent to any device.
Your name is shown on questions you publish. It is never shown on answers you give.
Who else is involved
The app runs on Google Firebase, which provides our database, sign-in, hosting and analytics. Google processes this data on our behalf. See Firebase's privacy documentation.
We do not sell your data, we do not share it with advertisers, and there is no advertising in the app.
Where your data is stored
Our database is hosted in the United States. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, your data is transferred there under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, to which Google is certified.
How long we keep it
Until you delete it. Deleting your account removes your profile, your answers and your blocked list.
Two things survive deletion, deliberately. Questions you published stay up, with your name removed, so that other people do not lose the answers they gave to them. And totals already counted stay as they are — they contain no identifying information and reducing them would change what other people had already read.
Your rights
You can see and change everything we hold about you in the app, under Account. You can delete all of it from the same screen.
If you are in the EEA or UK, you also have the right to access, correct, export, restrict or object to our use of your data, and to complain to your data protection authority. Write to us and we will help.
Children
Hypothesis is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has given us data, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes materially we will say so in the app before the change takes effect.