Privacy Policy

What we collect

• Your name. The name you type is printed on your certificate — that's the whole point. If you pass, your first name may also appear on the public Hall of Fame and analytics boards, as the intro screen warns before you start.
• Your email address. Used only to send the one-time code that verifies you're a real person with a real inbox, and to link your attempts and certificates across devices. It is never displayed publicly, shown on certificates, listed on the verification page, or shared.
• Your test activity. Your answers, score and finish time are stored to build your report card, the verification page, and the aggregate (anonymous) fun statistics boards.
• Contact messages. If you use the Contact Us form, your name, email and message go to the site administrators by email so we can reply.

Cookies & analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand site traffic — which pages folks visit, roughly where they come from, and how the test is doing. GA4 sets cookies in your browser for this. We also keep a small cookie remembering the name and email you entered, so a retake doesn't make you type it all again. No advertising networks, no data brokers, no selling of anything to anyone.

Third parties

The site runs on Base44's hosting platform, which processes the data described above on our behalf. Google Analytics handles the traffic measurements. If you choose to Tip Your Hat via PayPal, your payment is handled entirely by PayPal — we never see or store your card or payment details. We do not use AI to make any decisions about you; the test is graded server-side, mechanically, the same for everybody.

Retention & removal

Records (attempts, certificates, verification codes) are kept for as long as the site operates — a certificate you can verify next year is the point. Verification codes themselves expire within minutes. Want something removed? Email howdy@texascertified.me from the address you verified and we'll strike your attempt, certificate or name from the public boards.

Kids & common sense

This is entertainment for grown folks — it's not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. And remember: a Certified Texan certificate is a gag, not a credential. Any resemblance to actual certification is purely Texas-sized optimism.