Privacy Policy — Shogi Chess AI
Effective date: 9 October 2026 Controller: Manoj Kumar, Beside Varthaksangam, Kodad, Telangana 508206 (“we”, “us”) Contact: ravi.sleepnow@gmail.com or utthamchess@gmail.com · Grievance officer: Manoj Kumar, utthamchess@gmail.com
1. What this covers
This policy explains what personal data our chess training app collects (account, gameplay, uploads, voice features) and how we handle it.
2. Data we collect
Account data. Email address, display name/username, and login identifiers. If you sign in with Google or Lichess, we receive the basic profile identifiers those providers share (e.g. username, account ID). Passwords for email sign-in are stored only as salted one-way hashes (scrypt) on our own servers; nobody, including us, can read them back.
Chess accounts you link. The Chess.com and Lichess usernames you add, and the public profile details we look up to confirm them (ratings, title, country flag).
Your training data. When you are signed in, the work you do here is saved to your account so it is there on any device: your game reviews (the moves, the engine's evaluation and, if you asked for one, the coach's story of the game), study plans, ticked study tasks, opponent reports you asked for, classroom points, your drill schedule, and a count of what you did each day (reviews, drills, games) for your streak and weekly report. When you are not signed in, this stays only in your browser. Signing out removes the copy from that browser; it stays on your account until you delete it (Review → Saved → Clear all) or delete the account.
Reviews you share. If you create a link to a review, anyone with the link can see that game's moves, grades and accuracies (and the coach's story if you included it). Where you played as "You", the link shows your chess username instead; it never shows your email. Shared pages are marked so search engines don't list them. Stopping sharing (Review → Share → Stop sharing) or deleting your account deletes the link.
Content you provide. PGN text or files, board photos, classroom and support messages, and the questions you ask the coach. To answer, we send our AI providers what the answer needs: the position or game, your question and the conversation so far, your rating and, for the classroom, the study plan and the Learn coach, your username. We do not send your email address or account ID.
Technical data. Device and browser type, approximate location derived from IP, error logs, and preferences stored on your device (language, board theme, sound). See the Cookie Policy for details.
Usage counts. To keep free features fair and our costs predictable, we count how many AI replies, AI reports, photo readings, voice characters and full-game reviews are used — per account, or for guests per device (a random identifier in a cookie) and per IP address. Only the counts are kept, for 3 days.
Academies. If you join an academy with an invite link, that academy's coaches can see your linked Chess.com and Lichess names, the games you have reviewed here (with their grades and stories), your drill results, your answers to homework they set, and which days you trained. They cannot see your password or email. You can leave the academy at any time, which stops this immediately. If you run an academy, its name and city are shown to people you invite.
Parents. A player (or one of their coaches) can make a one-time link for a parent. A parent who accepts it sees the player's training days, homework, academies and coaches, and reviewed games. They never see the player's password, email or messages. The player can see who is linked and remove them in Settings, and the parent can stop following at any time.
Error reports. When something breaks, on our server or in your browser, we keep a technical report (the error message, the page and the code location) so we can fix it. Emails, keys and account ids are removed before it is saved, and reports are deleted after 30 days.
Payments (Pro). If you buy Pro, you pay in Razorpay's window; your card, UPI and bank details go to Razorpay, not to us. We keep the Razorpay subscription and payment ids, amounts, dates and status, so we know you have Pro and can handle renewals, receipts and refunds.
Voice features. Explanations can be read aloud (server text-to-speech or your browser's built-in speech). We do not store voice recordings; generated audio is produced on demand to play the explanation back.
3. How we use it
- Operate the service: accounts, gameplay, analysis, coaching, events.
- Personalise training: ratings, recommendations, progress tracking.
- Safety and fair play: prevent abuse, cheating, harassment, fraud.
- Support and troubleshooting when you contact us.
- Legal compliance and enforcing our Terms.
We do not sell your personal data.
4. Who we share it with (sub-processors)
| Provider | Purpose | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Contabo | Server hosting (our database and app run on servers we rent from them) | Account, gameplay, content |
| Our email provider (when enabled) | Sending sign-up confirmation and password-reset emails | Email address |
| OAuth sign-in | OAuth identifiers | |
| Razorpay | Processing Pro payments and renewals | Name, email, payment details you enter in Razorpay's window (we receive only payment ids, amounts and status) |
| Lichess | Account linking, game import, free cloud evals | Username, games, positions |
| OpenRouter | Passes our AI requests to the model provider below and returns the answer, without keeping their content | Positions, games, photos, your questions to the coach |
| Anthropic (Claude), through OpenRouter | The AI coach, move explanations, game stories, study plans and opponent reports | Positions, games, your questions to the coach |
| An image-reading model (currently DeepSeek's), through OpenRouter | Reading board and scoresheet photos | Photos |
| Sarvam | Text-to-speech voice explanations | Explanation text |
| Chess.com | Looking up public profiles and games you ask for | Usernames |
| Sentry | Error reports, so we can fix crashes (when enabled) | Technical error details; no chat text or passwords |
| PostHog | Anonymous usage counts, only if you allow analytics (when enabled) | Pages opened and features used; no chat text or games |
Data is shared only as needed for the feature you use, and providers process it under their own terms and security measures.
AI providers do not train on your data. Every AI request we make tells OpenRouter to use only model providers that do not collect the data we send: they do not store it beyond answering the request, and they do not use it to train their models. If no such provider is available for a request, the request fails instead of going to one that does.
5. Cookies
We use strictly-necessary cookies and local storage for sign-in, OAuth flows, fair-use limits and preferences. Details: see the Cookie Policy. We do not use advertising trackers.
6. Retention
We keep account and gameplay data while your account is active. If you delete your account, we delete or anonymise it within 30 days, except data we must keep for legal, security, or accounting reasons (e.g. payment records, which tax law requires us to keep for several years; they are kept without the link to your deleted account), and backups which age out within 90 days.
7. Your rights
Depending on where you live (including India's DPDP Act and, for EEA users, the GDPR), you may request to access, correct, export, or delete your data, and to withdraw consent. You can delete your account yourself at any time (account menu → Delete account), or write to ravi.sleepnow@gmail.com or utthamchess@gmail.com; we respond within 30 days. You can also lodge a complaint with your data-protection authority.
8. Children
We ask every account how old its user is. For anyone under 18 we follow India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act:
- Nothing is saved to the account until a parent or guardian agrees. Until then the app works on the device only (like a guest): no games, progress, chess names or academy places are stored on our servers.
- Verifiable consent. The child sends their parent a one-time link (on WhatsApp or by email). The parent opens it, signs in with their own account, confirms they are the child's parent or legal guardian and 18 or older, and agrees or declines. We record which account agreed, when, and the version of these terms.
- What the parent agrees to: saving the child's reviewed games, drills, homework and training days; joining a chess academy whose coaches then see that training; saving linked Chess.com and Lichess names.
- Never for children: no analytics or tracking, no advertising, no selling or sharing of data, and Pro can only be bought by an adult.
- Withdrawing. The parent can withdraw consent at any time on the Family page. The child's saved games, progress, shares, academy places, homework answers and chess names are then erased, and nothing more is saved until a parent agrees again. A parent can also ask us to delete the account entirely via ravi.sleepnow@gmail.com or utthamchess@gmail.com.
9. Security and transfers
We use encrypted connections (HTTPS), provider-managed access controls, and least-privilege service keys. No system is perfectly secure. Our providers may process data in countries other than yours, with appropriate safeguards.
10. Changes
We will post updates here and change the effective date above; material changes will additionally be notified in the app or by email.
11. Contact
Questions or requests: ravi.sleepnow@gmail.com or utthamchess@gmail.com. Grievance officer (India): Manoj Kumar, utthamchess@gmail.com — we acknowledge grievances within 48 hours and resolve them within 30 days.