Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 19, 2026

Who we are

ChessChat (chesschat.live) is a real-time chess platform where players meet over live video. For anything in this policy, contact [email protected].

Who can use ChessChat

ChessChat is intended for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18; if we learn we have, we delete the account.

What we collect

• Account data: your username, email address, your confirmation that you are 18 or older, your gender, and a securely hashed password. Your gender is never shown to other players. We do not collect your date of birth. If you sign in with Google, we store your Google account ID and profile picture instead of a password.
• Gameplay data: games, moves, results, ratings and who you were paired with. Finished games are kept so you (and your opponents) can review them.
• Safety data: reports you file or that are filed about you, players you block, and any account suspensions.
• Technical data: your IP address and basic browser information, used for abuse prevention (e.g. our human-verification check) and to run the service.

Video and audio

Video is what the service is: your camera is expected to be on while you play. You can switch it off for a brief private moment, and you are expected to switch it back on. Playing with the camera off is a conduct matter rather than a privacy setting, and is covered by the Terms.

Your camera and microphone streams are transmitted live to your opponent and are not recorded or stored. There are exceptions, all of them about moderation, and they are set out below.

Your device checks your own camera

While you are on the Play page or in a game, your browser looks at a frame of video every few seconds and asks two questions: is a face visible, and is the camera showing sexual content. It asks the same two questions about the video you are receiving. Neither question is asked about the camera of a ChessChat Premium member, on their device or their opponent's.

This happens on your device. The models are downloaded to your browser and the frames are examined there. In the ordinary case nothing about those frames leaves your computer, nothing is stored, and no result is sent anywhere.

If the check decides a camera is showing sexual content, three things happen. The camera is blurred immediately, before anything is sent. A single still frame is captured and stored privately as moderation evidence, and so is a recording of the previous fifteen seconds of the video and audio it came from. Both are sent to us for a person to review.

A fifteen-second recording is also captured and sent if you file a report, because what happened usually needs more than a photograph to show.

Evidence frames and clips are never public, there is no address for them that can be shared, they are accessible only to our moderation process, and they are deleted when the report or the flag is resolved or after 30 days at the latest. We also keep the score the check produced and whether a face was visible, with a reviewer's note on whether the check was right. That record has no pictures in it, and it is how we find out whether the check is any good.

There is one exception, and it only ever covers a false alarm. When a reviewer looks at a flagged frame and decides the check was wrong, because nothing inappropriate was on camera, we may keep a copy of that one frame for up to 12 months to improve the check. Those are the pictures it gets wrong, and they are how it learns not to. The copy is stored privately in the same way, is never public, is used for nothing else, and is deleted if you delete your account. A frame a reviewer decides really was inappropriate is never kept, and neither is any frame no reviewer has looked at.

When one of these checks has looked at a camera, it may be put to a classifier run by a service provider on our behalf, so that a machine other than the one making the claim has also seen it. The audio of a flagged clip may be transcribed in the same way. Where that happens the provider processes it for us and for nothing else.

The record of your game

When a game ends, the record of it is public. The moves, the opening and final positions, the result and the reason it ended, the clock and think time at every move, the date, and both players' usernames and ratings can be opened by anyone holding the link. That record is listed on your public profile, it is served without requiring anyone to sign in, and search engines are permitted to index it. It is the ordinary record a chess game leaves, and we would rather you knew before your first game than after it.

Your video and audio are not part of that record and do not become part of it. No call is recorded, so there is nothing of your camera or microphone to publish, replay, or hand to anyone later. What outlives a game is the moves.

A game record names you, so it is personal data and your rights apply to it. If you want yours removed or your username detached from it, ask us and we will do it. How to ask, and what we keep afterwards, is set out under Retention and deletion below.

Who can watch you play

Watching a game while it is being played is a separate question, and the answer is much narrower than the one above. A game in progress is visible to the two players and to nobody else, unless one of the following applies. The first two are consequences of a choice you make and cannot be turned on by a stranger. The third is open to any signed-in player and never carries your camera or your microphone.

• Events you join: when you play inside a lobby or a tournament, the person hosting it can watch any game in it while it is being played, including your live video and audio. They cannot speak, appear, or send anything back, and the players are not shown when a host is watching. Hosts are a small approved group rather than any player who asks. This access exists only inside their event: leave it, and nobody has it.
• People you invite: when you set up a casual game you can invite up to eight people to watch. An invited viewer is visible to both players and can turn their own camera on, so everyone at the table knows they are there. Only the person who set up the game can invite them, and blocking someone keeps them out.
• Signed-in players who look you up: the game you are playing right now can be watched from your profile by anybody with a ChessChat account, and whoever is watching keeps seeing your games as you start new ones. There is no switch for this and we do not offer one: it is the board and the moves and nothing else. No camera, no microphone, no way for a watcher to speak to you, and no sign to them of who else is watching. A finished game has always been public, and this is the same information while it is still being played. Signing in is required, which is what makes blocking work: we have to know who is asking before we can keep anyone out. Signed out, a visitor sees your profile and your finished games and not the game in progress. Blocking someone keeps them out of your live games, in both directions, and that is the control that means it.

Watching is live only. Nothing is recorded or stored in any of these cases. The only exceptions anywhere in the service are the moderation ones described above: the still frame and the fifteen seconds kept when a camera is flagged or a report is filed.

Cookies and local storage

Essential — we use your browser's local storage for sign-in sessions and preferences (theme, camera and sound settings). These are required for the site to work, so they are always on.

Analytics — with your consent, we use Google Analytics to understand which parts of ChessChat get used, so we know what to fix and what to build. Nothing is set until you agree: analytics storage starts denied and is only enabled if you accept. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time — change your cookie settings, or the cookie button in the corner of the page. We never sell your data.

Services we rely on

• Google: optional “Sign in with Google”.
• Google Analytics: usage analytics — only with your consent.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: human verification on sign-in and registration.
• LiveKit: real-time video and audio transport.
• Render: application and database hosting.

Each processes only what it needs to provide its function.

Why we're allowed to hold this (legal bases)

• Contract — account, gameplay and video transport: without them there is no game to play.
• Legitimate interests — safety data and abuse prevention: keeping players safe from harassment and cheating.
• Legitimate interests (the public game record): publishing a finished game with both players named is what makes a rating mean anything and lets any result be checked by the people it affects. You can object to this at any time and we will detach your name, as set out under Retention and deletion.
• Consent — analytics, and nothing else. You can withdraw it at any time, as easily as you gave it.

Retention and deletion

Account and gameplay data are kept while your account exists. Report evidence is deleted within 30 days. A frame kept because it was a false alarm is deleted within 12 months. To delete your account and associated personal data, email [email protected] from your account email address. We action deletion requests by hand, and we will confirm to you what was removed.

Public game records are the one thing that needs saying separately, because they name two people rather than one. If you ask us to delete your account we will detach your username from your games, so the record stops identifying you. We may keep the game itself, without your name on it, for two reasons: it is also the other player's record of a game they played, and their rating was calculated from it. If you would rather the whole record went, tell us and we will consider it against those interests and give you a reasoned answer.

Your rights

You can request a copy of your data, correction of inaccurate data, or deletion of your account at any time via [email protected]. You also have the right to object to processing, to ask us to restrict it, and to complain to your local data protection authority.

Changes

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date above. Significant changes will be announced in the app.