The short version. There is no account, no analytics, no advertising, no third-party SDK and no server of ours. Nothing you do in the app is transmitted to us, because there is nowhere for it to go. Your ratings and history live on your device and are deleted with the app.
Two things are handled by Apple rather than by us: purchases, through the App Store, and online play, through Game Center. We receive no payment details and no personal information from either.
1. Who this policy is from
Chess Trainer is published by Mincho Milev (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the Chess Trainer app for iPhone and iPad, bundle identifier com.arte-soft.chesstrainer, and this website.
You can reach a human at mincho.milev@gmail.com, or open an issue at https://github.com/minchopm/chess-trainer/issues. We answer both.
2. What we collect
Nothing. The app makes no analytics calls, carries no advertising, contains no third-party tracking or attribution SDK of any kind, and has no account system. It does not read your contacts, photos, location, calendar, microphone, camera, health data, clipboard or advertising identifier, and it does not ask for permission to do so, because it has no code that would use them.
We do not build a profile of you, we do not sell or share data — we have none to sell — and we do not use anything for advertising or for training any model.
| Data | Where it lives | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings, solved puzzles, review schedule, streaks, statistics | The app’s container on your device | You |
| Game history and coaching feedback | The app’s container on your device | You |
| Purchase state (whether Pro is active) | Queried from the App Store, cached on device | You and Apple |
| Game Center nickname and your in-app online rating | Exchanged with your opponent during a match | You, your opponent, and Apple |
| Moves, clocks and results in an online game | Sent device to device through Game Center | You and your opponent |
3. What stays on your device
Your ratings, solved puzzles, review schedule, streaks, game history and purchase state are stored in the app’s own container on your device. Deleting the app deletes them. They are included in an encrypted device backup if you have one turned on — that backup is between you and Apple, and we have no access to it.
There is no “export my data” button and no “delete my account” button, because there is no account and nothing of yours has left the device. Deleting the app is the deletion mechanism.
4. When the app uses the network
Training is entirely offline: the engine, the puzzles, the games and your progress are all in the app. The app makes network connections in exactly three situations, and in all three the connection is to Apple, not to us:
- Online play. Game Center finds you an opponent and carries the moves between the two devices.
- Purchases and restores. StoreKit asks the App Store what you own.
- Links you tap. The About screen links to the source repository, this site and the licence text. Nothing opens on its own.
5. Game Center
Online play uses Apple’s Game Center to find an opponent and to carry the moves between the two devices. In a match your Game Center nickname and your in-app online rating are visible to your opponent, because that is what a game between two people needs.
There is no server of ours in the middle. The two devices talk to each other and both run the rules, so a move is played only if it is legal in the position the receiving device already holds. Moves, clocks and results are not recorded by us anywhere.
Apple’s handling of Game Center data is governed by Apple’s privacy policy; we receive none of it.
6. Purchases
The subscription and the one-off unlock are handled entirely by the App Store. We never see your name, your payment details or your Apple Account. The app only asks StoreKit whether a purchase is currently active and stores that answer locally so it can stop showing you a paywall.
Apple provides us with aggregate, anonymised sales reports — units sold per territory, and nothing that identifies a purchaser.
7. Crash reports and App Store analytics
We include no crash-reporting or analytics library. However, iOS itself has a setting — Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements → Share with App Developers — and if you have turned it on, Apple may share aggregated crash logs and usage statistics for this app with us through App Store Connect.
That data comes from Apple, is aggregated by Apple, and does not identify you. You control it entirely from that setting, and turning it off changes nothing about how the app works. We mention it because a policy that says “we collect nothing” while Apple hands us a crash dashboard would be, at best, incomplete.
8. The chess content
The bundled puzzles and games come from the Lichess database, released into the public domain under CC0, and from positions generated on our own machines. They contain no personal information: the imported games keep the two players’ ratings and moves, and not their usernames.
9. Children
The app collects no personal data from anyone, so there is nothing to collect from a child either. It shows no advertising, contains no third-party content, has no chat, no user-generated content and no external links other than to the source repository, this website and the licence text.
Online play through Game Center is subject to Apple’s own parental controls, which a parent can use to restrict multiplayer entirely (Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → Game Center).
10. International transfers and retention
We hold no personal data, so there is none to transfer and none to retain. Data on your device stays on your device for as long as you keep the app.
11. Your rights
If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, California, or anywhere else with a data protection or privacy law, those laws give you rights of access, correction, deletion, portability and objection over personal data a company holds about you.
We hold none, so there is nothing for us to disclose, correct, delete, port or stop processing. You may still write to us to ask, and we will confirm this in writing. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act we specifically confirm that we do not sell or share personal information, and have never done so.
For data Apple holds — your Apple Account, Game Center profile and purchase history — the controller is Apple, and Apple’s privacy portal is where those requests go.
12. This website
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and embeds no trackers. It loads its two typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com; Google receives the IP address that request comes from, as it does for any request to any server. Nothing else on the page is fetched from a third party.
The site is a set of static files. It has no login, no forms and no database.
13. Changes to this policy
If the app ever starts doing something this page does not describe, this page changes first and the effective date at the top changes with it. Because the app’s complete source is published, you do not have to take our word for any of it — the code is the primary document, and this page is a description of it.
14. Contact
Questions about this policy, or about anything the app does: mincho.milev@gmail.com. If you would rather it were public, open an issue at the project’s issue tracker.
See also: Terms of Service · Licences & attribution