Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 3, 2026

This Policy explains what personal information BetterChess collects, how we use and share it, and the choices and rights you have. It is a notice, not a contract.

1. Information we collect & its sources

We collect information from you (when you sign up, onboard, subscribe, or contact us), automatically from your use of the Service, and from chess platforms when you choose to import a rating:

• Account & sign-in: email address and one-time verification codes.
• Onboarding profile: your chess.com or Lichess username (if provided), years playing, and play frequency.
• Gameplay data: games, moves, puzzle attempts and results, estimated ratings, XP, streaks, and weakness signals.
• Imported rating: if you provide a username, we fetch your public rating from chess.com or Lichess via their public APIs.
• Coaching interactions: board positions/moves and any questions you type to the coach are sent to our AI/voice providers to generate responses (see §4). We do not store the coach conversation text in our own database.
• Payment: handled by Lemon Squeezy; we receive your subscription status and basic contact/billing metadata, not your full card details.
• Technical: a session cookie to keep you signed in, plus standard server logs.

2. How we use it

To provide and personalize the Service (coaching, puzzle selection, rating estimates), operate billing, authenticate you, maintain security and prevent abuse, respond to you, and comply with law.

3. Legal bases (EEA/UK)

We process data to perform our contract with you (providing the Service), for our legitimate interests (improving and securing the Service, preventing abuse), to meet legal obligations, and with your consent where required.

4. Who receives your data, and how they handle it

We do not sell your personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral or targeted advertising. We use the following processors/recipients:

• Anthropic (AI coaching) — receives board positions, moves, and your typed questions to generate coaching text. Per Anthropic's API policies, API inputs are not used to train its models and are retained only for a limited period for trust-and-safety purposes. See Anthropic's privacy/retention policies.
• ElevenLabs (voice) — receives the coaching text to synthesize speech. See ElevenLabs' privacy policy.
• Lemon Squeezy (payments / merchant of record) — collects and processes your payment and billing information. See Lemon Squeezy's privacy policy.
• Supabase — hosts our database where your account and gameplay data are stored.
• Vercel — application hosting/CDN; processes requests and basic logs.
• Resend — receives your email address and the one-time code to deliver sign-in emails.
• chess.com / Lichess — when you import a rating, we query their public API with the username you provide.

We may also disclose information to comply with law, enforce our Terms, or protect rights and safety. We do not control, and are not responsible for, how these third parties independently process data under their own policies; we encourage you to review them.

5. Retention

We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes above:

• Account & profile: until you delete your account.
• Gameplay & puzzle history, ratings: for the life of your account.
• Coach conversation text: processed in real time and not stored in our database.
• Sign-in verification codes: ~10 minutes; deleted on use or expiry.
• Server logs: typically up to 30 days.
• Billing records: subscription status retained as needed for our records and tax/accounting; transaction records are also held by Lemon Squeezy per its policies.
• Deleted accounts: removed from active systems within 30 days, except where retention is legally required.
• Backups: rolling backups overwritten within ~30 days.

6. Cookies

We use a strictly necessary session cookie to keep you signed in. We do not use it for advertising.

7. International transfers

Your information may be processed in countries other than your own, including by the providers above (some in the United States and elsewhere). Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards for such transfers, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent mechanisms.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, export, restrict, or object to processing of your personal data, and to withdraw consent. To exercise any of these, email info@betterchess.co; we will respond within the timeframe required by applicable law. You may also request deletion of your account and associated data. If you are in the EEA/UK, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority; in Israel, with the Privacy Protection Authority (PPA).

9. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. Users aged 13–17 may use it only with a parent or guardian's involvement (see the Terms). If you believe a child under 13 has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes

We may update this Policy. We will update the "Last updated" date and, where appropriate, provide notice.

12. Contact

Questions about your privacy? Contact us at info@betterchess.co.

See also our Terms of Service.