Your games stay yours.
Chess Pangolin is local-first. You can use the free app without an account. If you choose account sync, we store only the minimum derived learning information needed to carry progress between your devices.
Last updated: 27 September 2026
Who is responsible
CHESS STALLION LTD (company number SC898354) is the data controller for the app and account service. Correspondence address: Chess Stallion Limited, 5 South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4AN, United Kingdom. Privacy enquiries and rights requests: privacy@chessstallion.com. Product and account support: privacy@chessstallion.com.
Information, purpose and retention
| Information | Why and lawful basis | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Email address, account identifier and authentication records. | To create and secure the account and send requested sign-in codes. Necessary to provide the account service you request (contract). | While the account exists. Active account data is deleted when you use “Delete cloud account”; provider security logs and backups are overwritten under the supplier’s documented retention cycle. |
| Plan, founder-seat number, grant source and access dates. | To provide paid or founder features and prevent a browser from granting itself access. Necessary to provide the plan or beta access you request (contract). | While the grant or account exists; deleted with the account, subject to Paddle’s separate financial and tax-record duties. |
| Paddle customer, transaction and subscription identifiers; pending-checkout reference and chosen plan; subscription, renewal, cancellation and refund status; payment and adjustment amounts and currency; original billing date and billing-period dates when supplied. | To open checkout, provide and administer the subscription, prevent duplicate charges and grants, answer billing questions and keep access aligned with payment status (contract and legitimate interests in preventing billing fraud and access errors). Paddle separately processes checkout, tax and payment information as merchant of record. | Our minimal billing records exist while the account exists and are removed with the account after the subscription has ended. Paddle retains invoices, payment and tax records under its own notice and legal obligations. |
| A random 256-bit account seed and opaque HMAC record tokens. | To recognise the same learning record on two devices without uploading its original external identifier. Necessary to provide sync (contract) and to reduce privacy risk (legitimate interests). | While the account exists; deleted with the account. |
| Pseudonymous training positions and moves; Mistakes Bin schedules; thinking-evidence events; course, Canon, Trap Atlas and structure progress; coached-game observations; free-feature usage events. | To merge the progress you ask us to sync, prevent duplicates and restore it on another signed-in device. Necessary to provide sync (contract). | Until you delete the record through the product where available, clear progress, or delete the cloud account. Explicit deletion markers remain with the account so an old device cannot restore deleted work. |
| Website, account and security metadata that hosting providers necessarily process, such as request time, IP address and device/browser information. | To deliver, protect and diagnose the service (legitimate interests in security, abuse prevention and reliability). | Only for the suppliers’ documented operational log, security and backup periods, after which it is deleted or overwritten. We do not build advertising profiles from it. |
| Aggregate page views, visits, referring site, page path, country, device, browser, operating system, navigation type and page-performance measurements. | To understand how the public site is found and performs. Your consent, requested through Privacy choices before the browser analytics script loads. Cloudflare Web Analytics does not use cookies or local storage and, according to Cloudflare, does not collect or use visitors’ personal data. | Cloudflare makes the analytics available for the previous six months. Beacon data is unsampled for seven days and then aggregated for longer-term reporting. |
| Support, feedback, complaint or privacy correspondence you choose to send. | To answer the message, correct access or billing problems, improve or protect the service (legitimate interests), or handle a rights request (legal obligation). | Normally no more than 24 months after the matter closes. We retain it longer only where reasonably needed for a legal claim, chargeback, fraud investigation or legal obligation. |
Cookies, device storage and your choices
Without account sync, training state is stored only in your browser. Complete reviewed games, imported usernames, game URLs, preferences, active Pit games and engine caches remain device-only even when sync is on. You control this copy through your browser’s site-data controls. “Download my data” exports the classified local copy and, when signed in, the current cloud bundle.
Chess Pangolin does not use advertising cookies. It uses browser local storage and session storage where necessary to remember app preferences, learning work, sign-in state and security information. Supabase authentication may keep a session token on the device so you remain signed in. Paddle’s hosted checkout and billing portal use their own necessary technologies under Paddle’s privacy notice.
Optional analytics is off until you choose “Accept analytics”. “Reject optional” leaves it off and does not restrict free features, paid access, saved games or sign-in. Use “Privacy choices” at the bottom of any page to change your choice. Rejecting after accepting reloads that page to stop its active analytics script; other open tabs reload when they receive the changed preference. This stops future collection, but does not erase earlier aggregate reports.
We store only your analytics choice and its expiry in pangolin-privacy-choice-v1 in local storage for up to 180 days. This is a preference record, not a visitor identifier, and is not synced to your account. Clearing site data removes the choice and we ask again. If storage is blocked, the choice applies only to the current page. We honour Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track by keeping optional browser analytics off.
Local games, learning progress and preferences remain until you reset them or clear site data; temporary session storage normally ends when its tab closes. Clearing site data can remove saved games and sign you out, so export anything you want to keep first. Rejecting analytics does not clear this data.
Traffic measurement
The app no longer runs its optional first-party usage collector or asks visitors to enable it. It does not create new identifiers or send events for visits, review outcomes or checkout opens through that collector. Loading the updated app or campaign page removes its old consent preference and tracking identifiers from this browser without clearing your games, learning progress or sign-in.
Earlier records collected with consent remain private in Supabase under the existing 90-day retention policy. They contain random identifiers and fixed event and arrival categories, not game content, names, email addresses or raw URLs. Scheduled cleanup, where configured, and cleanup when the private report is opened remove expired records. If scheduled cleanup is unavailable and the service is idle, deletion takes place on the next cleanup run.
With your permission, the public pages use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count aggregate visits and page views and measure page performance. Its browser beacon does not use cookies or local storage, does not fingerprint visitors, and does not receive game content, account details or payment information. Cloudflare states that Web Analytics does not collect or use visitors’ personal data and does not track individual users across its customers’ websites. The dashboard can exclude recognised bots, although a sophisticated automated browser may still look like a visit.
Account-confirmation and payment records remain necessary to operate the account and subscription services described above. These records are separate from both the retired usage sample and aggregate Cloudflare traffic measurement. Hosting and security metadata is described below.
Where the information comes from
Most information comes directly from you or from learning actions on your device. Paddle sends us the minimum transaction and subscription status needed to grant or remove access. Hosting and security metadata is generated when your browser communicates with Netlify or Supabase. Aggregate traffic and performance measurements come from the Cloudflare browser beacon. We do not buy personal data or obtain advertising profiles about you.
Suppliers, recipients and locations
Netlify also supplies server-side traffic reports from requests received by the host; these do not require an optional browser analytics script and are separate from the browser choice above. Request/security logging continues when browser analytics is rejected. The static website is delivered by Netlify, which necessarily processes request and security metadata. Aggregate browser traffic and page-performance measurement is provided by Cloudflare Web Analytics. Account authentication, the EU-region database, access-claim and deletion functions are provided by Supabase and its authorised subprocessors.
Paid checkout, subscription administration, tax calculation, receipts, refunds and the billing portal are provided by Paddle as authorised reseller and merchant of record. Paddle receives the contact, billing and payment information entered at checkout. Chess Pangolin receives subscription identifiers and status, but never your full card number or card security code.
These suppliers and their subprocessors may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where a restricted international transfer is involved, we rely on the applicable safeguards in the supplier arrangement, such as UK adequacy regulations or approved contractual safeguards. You can ask us for information about the safeguard relevant to your data.
If you request a Lichess or Chess.com import, the identifier you enter goes directly from your browser to that provider. Chess.com receives your username and selected month only when you choose Load recent games or open the manual PGN download link. Pangolin requests one monthly PGN file, then reads and assesses the finished games on your device. Typing a username or choosing a month does not make a request. The manual file option reads only a game file you explicitly choose, drop or paste here. Endgame checks send the position—not names or a complete game—to the Lichess tablebase. Those providers process the request under their own notices. Chess Pangolin is not affiliated with or endorsed by either provider.
Whether you must provide information
You do not need to provide an email address to use the anonymous free app. An email address is required for an account, optional sync and paid access; without it, those features cannot work. Paddle separately requires the checkout details shown in its form to complete a purchase. Turning on sync is optional even after signing in.
Children
If a learner is under 13, a parent or guardian must create and manage any account for them. Anyone under 18 should involve a parent or guardian before a paid subscription is created. A parent or guardian can contact us to exercise privacy rights for a child or to ask us to review and, where appropriate, remove an account.
Your choices and rights
- You can use the anonymous free app without creating an account.
- Signing in does not start sync. You must separately choose “Turn on sync”, and you can turn automatic sync off.
- You can download your data or delete your cloud account from Account & sync. If a Paddle subscription can still renew, cancel it in the billing portal first; account deletion becomes available after cancellation takes effect. Resolve any pending checkout with support first so deletion does not leave a payable transaction behind.
- Depending on the circumstances, UK data-protection law gives you rights of access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection and portability. Contact us to exercise them. We normally respond within one month.
- You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), although we would appreciate the chance to address the concern first.
Chess Pangolin does not sell account data, use it for advertising, or make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
Changes
We will update this notice before collecting a new category of account data or using existing information for a materially different purpose. The date at the top will change, and significant changes will be brought to account holders’ attention.