1. Who we are
ChessTrainer.ai ("we", "us"), a company registered in the State of Wyoming, United States, runs the website and training app at chesstrainer.ai and is responsible for the personal data described here. Questions go to hello@chesstrainer.ai.
2. What we collect
When you have an account
- Account details: your email address and display name. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email address and first name, which we use as the display name until you change it.
- Training data: your progress, scores, streaks, XP, the sessions you complete (drill, level, answers, times) and review dates for openings.
- Settings: board theme, sound, voice, reminder preferences and similar choices.
- Push subscriptions: if you turn on push reminders, the push address and keys your browser issues for this site, and your browser name, so we can send to that device and drop it when it stops working.
- Payment status: if you buy Pro, Stripe tells us your plan, its status and renewal date, and a Stripe customer ID. Stripe handles your card. We never see or store card numbers.
- Checkout consent: when you tick the box agreeing to the terms and refund policy before buying Pro, we record the time and the version of the terms you agreed to.
- Leaderboards: your display name and scores appear on leaderboards that other signed-in users can see.
- Feedback: if you send feedback in the app, we keep the message, the page you sent it from, your plan and your browser and screen size, so we can reply and fix things.
- Linked game accounts (Pro): if you link a Lichess or Chess.com username, we store that username and the puzzles built from your games: a position, the best moves, the move you played, two engine scores and a link to the public game. Your browser downloads the games from Lichess or Chess.com directly and analyses them on your device. We never receive or store the games themselves, and nothing about your opponents.
- Opening repertoires: if you import a repertoire, we store its name, the side you play, its moves and comments, and the study link if it came from Lichess. Your browser downloads a study straight from Lichess, and we keep only the moves you save. Review dates stay on your device. Delete a repertoire in the app at any time.
When you answer by voice
- Voice clips: about two seconds of audio for answers the recogniser got wrong, plus a small sample of answers it got right. Each clip is stored with the answer the drill expected, the answer the recogniser heard and a rough device class, such as phone or laptop. A clip carries no name, email address or account ID, and it is used only to improve voice recognition. See Voice clips.
From everyone who uses the site
- Anonymous performance and error telemetry: page load times, errors, the route you were on (never the full URL), your device type, screen width, browser family and whether you are on Free or Pro. It is tied to a random ID that lasts for one browser tab and is never linked to your account.
- Masked session replays: for each visit, a recording of how the page changed (clicks, scrolls, layout) for up to five minutes, used to find and fix bugs. Text you type, email addresses and your name are masked before anything leaves your browser, and replays are not linked to your account.
- Product counts: daily totals such as "drills completed" or "demo finished", with no user IDs attached. Visits, sign-ups and payments are also counted per country, at country level only: the country comes from your network address, which we do not keep (for payments, from your billing country).
- Server request logs: our API runs on AWS API Gateway and Lambda, which write short technical logs to Amazon CloudWatch: the API route called, the result, how long it took and any error. We do not put your IP address, password or what you send into these logs.
Telemetry and replays exist to find and fix bugs. They are never used for advertising or profiling, and we do not read the browser's Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signals for them: they run for every visitor, with the masking described above.
3. What we do not collect
- No ad tracking: no advertising trackers, no ad networks, no tracking pixels.
- No third-party analytics. Our telemetry is our own and stays on our servers.
- No continuous recording of your microphone. The only audio we keep is the short answer clips described under Voice clips, and they are not linked to you.
- No card numbers.
- We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for advertising.
4. How voice works
When you turn on the microphone, the app turns what you say into text, such as "e four", checks it against the answer and moves on. Where your browser supports it, recognition runs on your device, inside the browser, and the audio does not leave your device to be recognised. Otherwise your browser's built-in speech service (the Web Speech API) does the recognition.
- In Chrome and Edge, the built-in service sends the audio to Google's speech service to be transcribed. That processing is covered by Google's privacy policy, not ours. Safari uses Apple's speech service.
- Separately from recognition, we keep short clips of some voice answers to improve the recogniser. The next section says what they contain and how long we keep them.
- Voice is optional. Every drill also works by tapping, and you can block the microphone in your browser at any time.
5. Voice clips
To make recognition better, we keep short clips of voice answers: about two seconds of audio for answers the recogniser got wrong, plus a small sample of answers it got right.
- What a clip contains: the audio of that one answer, the answer the drill expected, the answer the recogniser heard, and a rough device class such as phone or laptop.
- What it does not contain: your name, email address or account ID. Clips are stored apart from your account. Your account keeps only a random key that lets us find and delete your clips, and the session record of a drill lists the IDs of its clips. We do not use either to identify who spoke.
- What we use them for: training and testing the voice recogniser, and nothing else. Never for identifying you, advertising or profiling.
- How long we keep them: 90 days, then they are deleted automatically. Deleting your account also deletes its clips.
- Your choice: on the Free plan, contributing these clips is part of the service and cannot be turned off; if you would rather not, answer by tapping instead. On Pro, the "Help improve voice recognition" switch in Profile turns it off. It is on by default.
6. Cookies and local storage
We do not use cookies for tracking or advertising. The app uses your browser's local storage and session storage to keep you signed in, remember your settings and some drill progress on this device, and count demo plays. That data stays on your device until you sign out or clear it.
The sign-in pages run by our login provider (Amazon Cognito) and by Google, if you use it, may set their own strictly necessary cookies to complete the sign-in.
7. Why we use it
We use your data only to:
- run the service you signed up for: your account, progress, plan and leaderboards (this is needed to perform our contract with you);
- keep the service fast, working and secure, using the anonymous telemetry, replays and logs (our legitimate interest in a working product);
- improve voice recognition, using the voice clips described above (our legitimate interest in a recogniser that understands every voice; Pro users can turn it off);
- send you account and billing emails, such as password resets and receipts (contract);
- send you a streak reminder by email, and by push notification if you turned that on: at most one a day, at the hour you chose, only on days you have a streak to keep and have not trained yet (our legitimate interest in a training habit that works, and your choice for push). Every reminder email has a one-click link that stops them, and both can be turned off any time in Profile, under Reminders;
- meet legal duties, such as keeping payment records (legal obligation).
We do not use your data for advertising or sell it, and we do not make automated decisions about you that have legal effects.
8. Where your data lives
Your account and training data are stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the United States (region us-east-1, North Virginia). If you live in the EU, the UK or elsewhere, this means your data is transferred to the United States. We rely on the data processing terms of AWS and Stripe, which include the standard contractual clauses approved for these transfers.
10. How long we keep it
- Account and training data: until you delete your account.
- Performance and error telemetry: 30 days, then deleted automatically.
- Session replays: 14 days, then deleted automatically.
- Voice clips: 90 days, then deleted automatically. Deleted sooner if you delete your account.
- Server request logs: 30 days in Amazon CloudWatch, then deleted automatically.
- Payment records: Stripe and we keep invoices and payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
- Feedback: until the issue is dealt with. If you delete your account, the feedback you sent is kept without your account ID or email address.
- Push subscriptions: until you turn push reminders off, the push service reports the device gone, or you delete your account.
- Linked accounts and puzzles from your games: until you remove the account in Profile, delete the puzzles, or delete your account. We keep at most 200 puzzles; older ones are removed as new ones arrive.
11. Deleting your account
You can delete your account yourself at any time: open Profile, choose Delete account at the bottom of the page and type DELETE to confirm. It happens straight away and cannot be undone. You can also email hello@chesstrainer.ai from your account address and we will do it for you within 30 days.
What is deleted
- your account details, settings, progress, streaks, XP, ratings, sessions and answers;
- your places on every leaderboard, all-time and weekly;
- your saved games, opening repertoires, linked Lichess and Chess.com usernames and the puzzles made from your games;
- your reminder settings, pending reminders, push subscriptions and any unused password reset code;
- your voice clips;
- your sign-in with Amazon Cognito, so no device stays signed in to the account;
- our link to your Stripe customer record. If you have a Pro subscription, we cancel it at once and you are not charged again. Cancelling does not refund the rest of the period by itself; the refund policy still applies. If Stripe cannot cancel the subscription, we delete nothing and ask you to cancel it under Manage subscription first.
What is kept
- Feedback you sent: the message stays, without your account ID or email address. Copies already forwarded to our team chat stay there.
- Anonymous counters: daily product counts that hold no ID or email. We count that an account was deleted, not whose.
- Performance telemetry and session replays: linked to an anonymous session ID, not to your account, and deleted after 30 and 14 days.
- Payment records at Stripe: Stripe keeps its customer, invoice and payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires. We delete our link to them.
- Server request logs: deleted after 30 days, as above.
- A deletion marker: your account ID, without your email address, and the time of deletion, kept for 30 days so a device that was still signed in cannot recreate the account. Then it is deleted automatically.
- Database backups: our database keeps a rolling 35-day recovery window, so a deleted account stays in those backups until they roll over. We restore from them only to recover from a failure, never to bring back a deleted account.
12. Your rights
Wherever you live, you can email hello@chesstrainer.ai from your account address and ask us to:
- export your data, as a file you can keep or move elsewhere;
- delete your account and data (you can also do this yourself in Profile, see Deleting your account);
- correct anything that is wrong;
- tell you what we hold about you and how we use it.
We fulfil deletion and export requests, and answer the others, within 30 days. We do not charge for it.
Voice clips
Voice clips carry no name, email address or account ID. A random key on your account lets us find them, so we can delete them with your account or on request, and send you a copy if you ask for one. On Pro, the "Help improve voice recognition" switch in Profile stops new clips being kept at any time.
EU and UK (GDPR)
You have the rights of access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to withdraw consent where we rely on it. You can also complain to your local data protection authority, though we would like the chance to fix things first.
California (CCPA)
You have the right to know what personal information we collect and why, to delete it, to correct it, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.
13. Security
Data travels over HTTPS and is encrypted at rest by AWS. Passwords are handled by Amazon Cognito, and we never see them. Access to production data is limited to the people who run the service. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
14. Children
ChessTrainer.ai is for people aged 13 and over. We do not offer accounts to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, email us and we will delete the account and its data within 30 days.
15. Changes to this policy
We will update this page when what we collect or how we use it changes. The date at the top shows the latest version. For a material change we email account holders at least 30 days before it applies.
16. Contact
ChessTrainer.ai, a company registered in the State of Wyoming, United States. hello@chesstrainer.ai. Privacy requests, questions and complaints all go to this address.