Privacy policy

The personal coach imports completed games from the public chess profile you choose. Signed-in coaching workspaces save that profile, imported games, your rating goal, selected training duration, weekly reports, and coach conversation to your account. Guest workspaces stay in browser storage until you choose to continue them in an account.

When you ask Nova a question, the Busted Minds AI service receives a compact summary of your completed-game statistics, your goal, and recent conversation to generate an answer. Full engine review lines remain in your browser cache. You can start a new conversation to clear saved chat, replace your coaching profile, or delete your account to remove its saved workspace.

This policy explains how Busted Minds Chess (“we”, “us”, or “the service”) handles personal information when you use the website, installed web app, games, learning tools, community features, or support channels. It does not govern third-party sites you choose to visit.

The service is in public beta. Features and data flows may change; we will update this notice when a material change affects how information is handled.

• Account data: email address, display name, avatar, authentication provider identifiers, account status, and server-controlled roles.
• Chess data: moves, positions, clocks, results, ratings, pairings, tournament entries, saved analysis summaries, achievements, and fair-play or integrity metadata.
• Social content: profiles, club membership, friend and block relationships, messages, reactions, reports, and moderation history.
• Technical data: IP address, timestamps, browser and device characteristics, request identifiers, security events, error details, and limited usage metrics.
• What you send us: feedback, support messages, and any contact details or links you choose to include.

Google sign-in requests only OpenID, email, and basic profile information. We do not request access to contacts, Drive, Calendar, or other unrelated Google data.

Cloud archiving for Local Hotseat and direct Nova League play depends on your account state and the game result. When you are signed in, games completed by checkmate or an automatic rule-based draw are added to that archive. Resignations, timeouts, abandoned games, and agreed draws are not archived.

If you are signed out or offline, an eligible completed game may remain temporarily available and sync after you sign in and open the archive. Clearing site data before that sync can remove it.

Large Stockfish engine lines and search output are not persisted by default. If you save an analysis, the service may keep a compact summary and your annotations rather than the full engine computation.

If you choose “Ask Nova” in a completed review, we send your question and a bounded copy of the selected position, move grade, evaluation, and verified engine line to Busted Minds AI so it can explain that review. These contextual follow-ups are not added to your Busted Minds AI conversation history.

• Provide authentication, games, clocks, matchmaking, ratings, tournaments, learning, social features, and account recovery.
• Validate legal moves, prevent duplicate mutations, enforce permissions, investigate abuse, and protect competitive integrity.
• Operate, debug, measure, and improve the service, including free-tier capacity planning.
• Respond to support, feedback, privacy, and safety requests.
• Meet legal obligations and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims where necessary.

Depending on where you live, we rely on performance of our agreement to provide requested features, legitimate interests in security and service improvement, consent where the interface asks for it, and compliance with legal obligations. You may withdraw consent for future processing where consent is the basis; this does not undo lawful earlier processing.

We use carefully scoped providers to operate the service: Vercel for application hosting and functions; Supabase for database, authentication, Realtime, and storage; Resend through configured Supabase SMTP for authentication email delivery; Google when you choose Google sign-in; and Busted Minds AI for contextual review explanations you explicitly request. Busted Minds AI routes those questions through configured inference providers that may include Google, Mistral, Groq, Cerebras, NVIDIA, and OpenRouter. These providers process information under their own terms and data-protection commitments.

We may disclose information when required by law, to protect users or the service, in a business reorganization with appropriate safeguards, or with your direction. We do not sell personal information or use game data for third-party behavioral advertising.

Your display name, avatar, ratings, public games, achievements, and profile details may be visible to others. Tournament standings, club activity, and shared annotations may also be public according to their settings. Direct messages, blocks, reports, email addresses, and moderation notes are not public. Review visibility controls before posting or sharing a game link.

We keep account and persistent game data while your account is active and as needed to provide features you requested. Account deletion removes profile data, linked chess accounts, preferences, rewards, progress, private saved work, social relationships, authored messages, and avatar files. Multiplayer games needed by another player may remain with the deleted player’s identifiers, name, and avatar removed.

A minimal deletion receipt containing no account identifier is kept for 24 months. Security audit events may remain for up to 180 days after identifiers and metadata are removed. An unresolved safety report may remain until resolution and is deleted 90 days afterward. Temporary, abandoned, anonymous, and other expired records are removed through scheduled cleanup.

Deletion from live systems does not always remove data immediately from encrypted backups; backup copies age out on provider schedules and are not used to recreate a deleted account.

We use encrypted transport, restrictive database access policies, server-side authorization, protected secrets, rate limits, audit-oriented identifiers, and authoritative move validation. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Use a unique password, protect your sign-in method, and report suspected account compromise promptly.

You can edit eligible profile fields, change display preferences, avoid cloud saving for local modes, block or mute users, and disconnect by signing out. Depending on local law, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, or objection, and may complain to your data-protection authority.

You can permanently erase your account through Account Settings or the public account deletion page. If you cannot sign in, send a request through the contact form. We may need to verify identity without asking for your password.

Essential cookies keep authentication sessions secure. Site storage supports preferences, PWA operation, offline games, and analysis state. We do not require third-party advertising cookies. If optional analytics are introduced, consent choices will be presented where required.

The service is not directed to children under 13, or a higher minimum age required by local law without appropriate guardian authorization. If you believe a child provided personal information contrary to this rule, contact us so we can investigate and delete it where required.

Our providers may process information in countries other than your own. Where required, we use provider commitments and legally recognized transfer safeguards. Provider locations and subprocessors can change; their current documentation contains the most precise infrastructure information.

Busted Minds Chess is operated by Busted Minds. Questions may be sent to support@bustedminds.org.

Questions or privacy requests can also be submitted through the Contact page. Choose “Privacy request” so it can be routed correctly.

Material changes will be reflected by a new effective date and, when appropriate, an in-product notice. Continuing to use the service after an effective update means the new policy applies to future use, subject to rights provided by law.