Privacy

Last updated 5 October 2026

BillyChess helps a chess club run its ladder and its teams. This page explains what it stores about you, why, and how to ask to see, correct or delete it.

Who runs BillyChess, and who is responsible for your data

BillyChess is run by Martin Lambert in the UK — “we”, “us” and “our” below mean him. You can reach him at martin@billychess.com.

Responsibility is shared with your club, and the line between them is worth knowing.

Your club is responsible for what happens inside it — who is a member, your place on the ladder, your games, your check-ins, your availability, and the teams you are picked for. Your club decides all of that, and BillyChess handles it on the club’s instructions. In law your club is the data controller for it and we are its data processor, acting on the club’s instructions.

We are the data controller for your account — your sign-in, your name and email address, your nickname, and your ECF code and ratings if one is linked. Your account is yours rather than any club’s: it is the same account in every club you join, and it is not deleted when a club closes.

Club administrators can see and manage their members’ club data.

How you sign in

Sign-in is through your Google account. There is no BillyChess password, and we never see one.

When you sign in, Google tells us three things: your name, your email address, and a permanent identifier for your account. We ask Google for nothing else — no access to your Gmail, Drive, contacts or calendar. Google also sends the web address of your profile picture; we discard it, because nothing in BillyChess displays it.

We keep a session cookie in your browser so you stay signed in. It cannot be read by scripts, it carries no advertising or tracking information, and it exists only to recognise you on your next page.

We do not email you

BillyChess sends no email at all — no notifications, no reminders, no newsletters. Your address is stored so a club admin can tell two members with similar names apart, and for nothing else.

What we store, and why

Your account: your name, email address, the Google identifier above, and when you last signed in. Your email address is how a club admin tells two members with similar names apart. You can set a nickname, which is what other members see.

Your club membership: which club or clubs you belong to, your role in each, and whether your membership is active.

Your club chess activity: your position on a ladder, your wins, losses and draws, the challenges you have issued or received, and the results of games you have played. If you are on a team: whether you are eligible for it, whether you are a captain, your availability answers for each match, and the boards you have been picked for.

Your rating, if you link one: your English Chess Federation (ECF) membership code, and the ratings we fetch using it.

A record of significant actions — who changed a result, who removed a member, who granted a captaincy — so that a club can see what happened and when.

Who else sees it

Your club. Other members can see your name (or nickname), your ladder position and record, your availability answers, and the teams you play for. Your club’s administrators can additionally see your email address and your ECF code.

Google, because you sign in with it.

The English Chess Federation, if an ECF code is linked: we ask their public rating service for that code’s ratings. We send the code, nothing else.

Cloudflare, who host BillyChess and store its database and backups, in the EU.

Backblaze, who keep a resilience copy of our nightly backups, in the EU. Each backup is encrypted before it leaves Cloudflare, with a key Backblaze does not have.

That is the complete list. We do not sell your data, share it for advertising, or use analytics or tracking services of any kind. There are no third-party scripts on the site.

How long it is kept

Your account and club data are kept while you are a member of a club using BillyChess.

If a club admin removes you, your membership is marked as removed rather than erased, and games you have already played stay in the club’s records. This is deliberate: deleting a past result would change other members’ positions and make the club’s history wrong.

If you ask for your account to be deleted, we anonymise it: your name becomes “Deleted member”, your email address and Google identifier are erased, your nickname is removed, and you are signed out everywhere. Games you played remain in the club’s records, attached to that anonymous entry. If you never played a game, your account is deleted outright instead.

Either way the record that a deletion happened is kept — the date, and who performed it — but not your name or email address.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask your club, or us, to:

• show you what is held about you
• correct anything wrong — you can change your display name yourself
• delete your account and personal details
• give you a copy of your data in a portable form
• object to or restrict how it is used

Your club is the data controller for most of what is held about you, so ask your club administrator first. If that does not resolve it, contact us at martin@billychess.com. We will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

Chess clubs have junior members, and BillyChess does not ask anyone’s age. You join only by invitation from your club, so it is the club’s administrator who decides whether a young member should have an account — and for anyone under 13, who should ask a parent or guardian first.

We hold the same small amount of information about a junior member as about anyone else: their name, their club, and their games.

Security

Sign-in is handled by Google; we never hold a password.

Your connection to BillyChess is encrypted: every request uses TLS, the same protection as online banking. The database is encrypted with AES-256 — it runs on Cloudflare, one of the largest internet infrastructure and security companies. Nightly backups are encrypted before they are stored, and the key that can read them never touches Cloudflare or Backblaze.

Seeing a club’s data requires being a member of that club. Administrative actions — changing a result, removing a member, granting a captaincy — are restricted to that club’s administrators and are recorded.

BillyChess is a focused application: the data it holds is a chess club’s membership list and its games, and nothing else. We protect it accordingly, and we would rather tell you that plainly than imply defences we do not have.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we will say so on the site rather than quietly editing it. The date above always reflects the current version.