FAQ
Questions people ask.
- Is this a real person?
- No. Every life is assembled from public statistics for a country and year. The name is drawn from common names there, and the portrait is generated. Nobody on this site can be found, contacted, or identified.
- Where does the data come from?
- From public datasets, seventeen of them, each named with its licence on the Data sources page. Which country you are drawn into comes from real birth numbers.
- Why do some lives end in childhood?
- Because some do. Leaving that out would make the picture kinder than the world is. It is shown plainly, without images of harm, and never as a twist.
- Can I get the same life twice?
- Practically never. Country, sex, family, city and dozens of other figures are drawn each time, weighted by real births, so the odds of a repeat are tiny.
- Do I need an account?
- No. Draw as many lives as you like without one, and each stays reachable by its link. Signing in gathers them into an account, including the ones you drew before, so they are in one list you can come back to.
- Do you sell any of this?
- No. No ads, no trackers, no data sold. The only figures we count are anonymous totals of how many lives have been drawn.
- Can I remove a life I drew?
- Not directly. A life stays for as long as somebody is interested in it: keep it, or open it again, and it stays where it is with its link working. A life nobody keeps and nobody opens again is deleted four weeks after it was drawn. If you need one taken down sooner, write to us.
- Can I use this with a class?
- Yes. One link gives every student a different life, and you can switch off the harder categories before you share it. Students never need an account, and nothing is stored about who drew what.
Still here
Something we missed?
Write to us and we will get back to you, usually within a few days.
“Nobody is asked before they arrive.”
Be born again