Privacy Policy

Last updated: 17 October 2026

This policy explains what the Chess Meet app (also shown as “Let’s Chess”) collects, why, who can see it, how long it is kept, and how to delete it. It covers the Android app and this website.

1. What we collect

Your account

• You sign in with your Google account (Google Sign-In, through Firebase Authentication). We receive your Google account’s email address and name, and never see your password. A few accounts created before October 2026 with an email and a password still have that password stored by Firebase Authentication; we never see it either. Your email is stored privately: only you and our moderators can read it.
• Your username, profile picture (if you add one), status message, and the country or region you choose for the leaderboards.
• If you subscribe to Gold or Premium: Google Play takes the payment, and we never see your card. We receive what Google Play tells us about the purchase — the plan, its dates and status, and a purchase token — to turn your plan on and keep it up to date.

Playing

• Your games: moves, results, time controls and opponents (their username, picture and country, as shown during the game). Your ratings and rating history, puzzle and opening-training progress.
• Online games pass through our servers while they are played, and our servers calculate the new ratings.
• When you ask for a game review — of a game you played or one you paste — the chess positions are sent first to Lichess (lichess.org), which sees your IP address but never your name or account, then to our own analysis server for any position Lichess does not know. Our server also checks a move in tactics training that differs from the puzzle’s solution, and makes the coach’s spoken lines from the coach’s sentence and your app language. Each request to our server carries your sign-in token and an integrity check, so that only players of the app can use it, and the server counts the positions each account asks for in an hour, to limit everyone to about 60 reviews an hour. It keeps no positions, but they appear in its technical logs for 30 days, and a refused request may be logged with your account ID.
• The review of a game against another player is saved once on our servers, so that both of you see the same review. It holds only the grade of each move, under a code made from hashes — no name, no account ID, no list of moves — and it is deleted automatically after 180 days.
• Tournament registrations, the tournaments you mark “I’m interested”, and results.
• Rated board sessions: the result of each game, the two players and their board ratings. A Bluetooth game played inside a session also saves its moves there, so that both players’ records agree.

Friends and messages

• Friend requests, your friends list, game invitations and chat messages with friends.
• Chat messages with your opponent during an online game. They are kept with the game room and deleted with it, about 7 days after the game.
• Whether you are online or in a game, shown to other players.
• Players you block, and reports you send, with what each report is about — for example the text of a message you report, or the board session whose result you report.

Meet & Play — only if you use it (18+)

• Date of birth, asked once to keep Meet & Play adults-only. Nobody else can see it and it cannot be changed.
• Precise location, only while you use Meet & Play screens, never in the background. Our server compares it with other players and returns only distance bands (1–2, 2–5, 5–10, 10–20 or 20–50 km). It is also used to tell you about in-person tournaments within 50 km, to check the 50 km rule when you join one, and to check that both phones are within 2 km of each other when a rated board session starts.
• Tournaments near me: if you have already allowed location, the app sends your position rounded to about 1 km when you open it — about once a day, or when you have moved — and our server keeps only the area around it, about 5 km across, to tell you about new in-person tournaments within 50 km. The app never asks for location for this, and the area is kept only for adults who use Meet & Play. Turning it off in Settings → Tournaments near me deletes the area at once.
• Your “Available to play” status (while it is on, your position is also kept for at most 15 minutes in a search list that no phone can read), meet requests and meetups: the place and time you choose — a listed place, or a public spot you pin on the map, which only the two of you see — the meetup chat, the confirmation code and the results you both report. When a meetup is cancelled, we remember it for 3 days to hide you from each other. If you remove a meetup from your list, we note on it that you did and when; nothing is cancelled or deleted, and the other player is not told.
• “I’m here now” check-ins at a place and “I’m coming tonight” — other players see only how many, never who. Places you suggest, with their 2 to 5 photos, and in-person tournaments you organise, with their 3 photos and the point you choose on the map, are public and show your username and picture. You can delete a place you added, with its photos, at any time; tournaments booked there that have not started are cancelled and their players are told.
• Location checks: the app tells our server whether Android reports the location as coming from a fake-location app, and such locations are refused. We keep your last accepted position and its time for 30 days, only to refuse impossible jumps; no player and no moderator can read it.

Device and app

• A notification token for each device you sign in on, with the app’s language and your time-zone offset, so that notifications arrive in your language and at your local time. Notifications are delivered by Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) and can contain the text of a chat message. Notices we send are held on our server until your app receives them, then deleted.
• If you play the daily puzzle, the time your next one unlocks, so that a notification can tell you it is ready.
• A random install ID kept on your phone, used only to stop two accounts on one phone from entering the same online tournament room, and to check that a rated board session is opened on two different phones.
• An integrity check (Firebase App Check with Google Play Integrity) confirming that requests come from the genuine app on a real device. It uses signals about the device and the app install, not your messages or games.
• Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for two-phone local play. The moves go directly between the two phones, and each phone tells the other which account is playing, so that it can show that player’s username, picture and flag. Games inside a rated board session are also saved on our servers (see “Playing”).
• Map images are kept in a cache on your phone, up to 100 MB, so that the map opens faster; a stored image is used for at most 6 hours before the map provider is asked again. They hold no personal data.
• Technical logs kept by Google Cloud for 30 days (errors, request times, IP addresses). We use no analytics and no crash-reporting tools.

Ads

Google AdMob shows ads in the app and uses your device’s advertising ID. Ads are limited to content suitable for teenagers. If we know you are under 16, your ad requests are marked as under the age of consent. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland you choose through Google’s consent message and can change it any time in Settings → Privacy settings. Some features, such as a game review or a hint, are unlocked by watching a short rewarded ad, unless you have Gold or Premium.

2. Why we use it

3. Who can see what

• Other players see your public profile: username, picture, country, ratings and rating history, board ratings and games, the starting level you chose, game counts, trophies, trust level, your first-player number and frame if you have one, a “Warned” badge while a moderator’s warning lasts, and whether you are online. Nearby adults in Meet & Play see a distance band — never your position, never your email.
• Moderators can read reports, look up any account for safety, support and plans (including its email), review places and tournaments, see fair-play records, cancel results that two players arranged, and grant plans.
• Service providers process data for us: Google (Firebase, Cloud Run, Cloud Messaging, AdMob, Google Sign-In, Play Integrity, Cloud Text-to-Speech); Lichess (lichess.org), which receives chess positions and your IP address when you ask for a review; and Stadia Maps, which draws the map from OpenStreetMap data and receives your IP address and the map area you view.
• Place owners see the tournament requests for their place: the organiser’s username and the tournament’s details. Players in the same online tournament can watch its games live.
• Authorities, when the law requires it or to protect someone’s safety.

4. How long we keep it

• Account, games and friends: until you delete your account.
• Meet & Play position, and the last accepted position used for location checks: 30 days after its last use, or until you delete your account. The “Available” search list: 15 minutes. The “Tournaments near me” area: 30 days after its last update, until you turn it off, or until you delete your account.
• Live game rooms and their in-game chat: about 7 days after the game; your game history stays in your account.
• Reports and moderation records: kept after account deletion, for safety and legal reasons.
• Meetups and their chats: deleted 90 days after they were created, unless an open report concerns them. Tournament results and board games: kept, because they are also other players’ history.
• Shared game reviews: 180 days. The review counter: only the latest hour you asked in, deleted with your account.
• Technical logs: 30 days.

5. Deleting your data

In the app: Settings → Delete account. This deletes your sign-in, profile, email, ratings, progress, friends and friend chats, your messages in meetup chats, game history, date of birth, location, block list, username and picture. Results that are also other players’ history stay, shown as “Deleted player”. Details and the way to ask without the app: Delete your account.

6. Your rights

You can ask to access, correct, export or delete your data, to object to or limit its use, and withdraw your consent at any time (turn off location or “Available”, or change the ad choice in Settings). Write to chessmeet.contact@gmail.com; we answer within 30 days. In the EEA or UK you can also complain to your data-protection authority.

7. Children

8. Security and transfers

Data is sent encrypted (HTTPS/TLS) and stored with Google Cloud, which may process it outside your country, including in the United States and the European Union, under Google’s standard contractual clauses. Our database rules stop players from reading each other’s private data: your exact location is readable only by our servers, and your date of birth and email only by you, our servers and our moderators.

9. Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change applies. The date at the top always shows the current version. This policy is translated from English; if a translation differs, the English version applies.