Privacy Policy

Effective: August 26, 2026

1. Who we are

Wickmate (“we”, “us”, “our”) is an educational chess game published by StarChart, based in Florida, USA. StarChart is the data controller responsible for the personal data described in this policy. This policy applies to two things: this website, and the Wickmate iOS application. You may contact us at any time using the details in section 15.

2. This website

This site is a static page. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads no third-party trackers, fonts, or scripts. All content is served from the site itself. We collect no personal data from your visit to it. Our hosting provider may retain standard, short-lived server logs (such as IP address and page requested) for the purpose of operating and securing the service, as every host does.

3. The waitlist

The “Join the waitlist” buttons direct you to our newsletter operated by beehiiv (wickmate.beehiiv.com), a third-party newsletter service governed by its own privacy policy. If you subscribe there, beehiiv collects your email address, together with standard signup metadata such as the time of signup and a tag in the link indicating which button on our site you selected, and stores it on our behalf so that we may email you about Wickmate's launch. Your browser is instructed not to send the usual referrer header, so beehiiv learns only what that tag conveys. We use this information for no other purpose, we never sell or share the list, and every email contains an unsubscribe link that takes effect immediately. You may also contact us (section 15) to be removed from the list and have your address deleted.

4. Who can use Wickmate

Wickmate is a general-audience educational chess game intended for players aged 13 and over. It is not a children's application and is not directed to children under 13.

When you first open the App, we request your birth year before anything else: a neutral question, asked once, before any other data is collected. If you are under 13, the process stops there; you cannot create an account, and we collect nothing further. We retain only the fact that the device was found ineligible, so that we do not ask again. If we discover that we hold personal data from a child under 13, we delete it.

5. What the app collects

• Birth year, from the age screen. We store the year only, never a full date of birth.
• Account details: your email address and the name your provider returns, together with the identifier issued by Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google. Sign in with Apple's private relay is fully supported, so you may withhold your real address from us, and Apple lets you edit or withhold the name before it reaches us.
• Your progress: puzzle rating, streaks, campaign and keeper results, the moves of games you play in the App, Pawns balance, energy balance, and which cosmetics you own.
• Membership status: whether your trial or subscription is active, and when it renews. We receive this from Apple through RevenueCat.
• Active time in the App, used for the Reclaimed Time feature. This measures only the time you spend inside Wickmate. It does not, and cannot, observe your use of any other application.
• A push notification token, if you permit notifications.
• How you use the App: which screens you open, which features you use, and events such as starting a lesson or opening the membership screen. We use this to understand, in aggregate, which parts of the App work. It is never used for advertising.
• Basic technical data: device type, operating system version, app version, and crash and error reports.

6. What we do not collect

We do not collect your location, your contacts, your photos, your microphone or camera input, your health data, or any advertising identifier (IDFA). We do not track you across other applications or websites, and we do not build advertising profiles.

Because we do not use the IDFA and do not track you across other companies' applications and websites, Wickmate does not request App Tracking Transparency permission. If that ever becomes necessary, iOS will ask you first and the decision is yours. The App stores certain data on your own device so that it can function offline and remember your place, such as your settings and your progress since the last synchronisation. That data remains on your device, is not an advertising identifier, and is removed when you delete the App.

The App contains no third-party ad networks and displays no advertising, in every version and at every tier. There is no rewarded video and no ad-supported path of any kind: when the free energy meter is exhausted, the options are to wait for it to replenish, to purchase Pawns, or to subscribe. If this ever changes, we will update this policy first, and it will describe exactly what any advertising provider receives before a single advertisement is shown.

7. How we use what we collect, and on what basis

• To operate the App: to save your progress, rank your puzzles, maintain your streak, and meter energy. (Legal basis: performance of our contract with you.)
• To confirm your membership status, so that the App reflects what you have paid for. (Contract.)
• To generate your game commentary and weekly recap. (Contract; see section 8.)
• To send the notifications you have agreed to receive. (Consent, which is off until you allow them and may be withdrawn at any time.)
• To fix crashes and understand, in aggregate, which parts of the App function. (Our legitimate interest in a working product.)
• To detect abuse of the currency, trials, energy, or leaderboards. (Our legitimate interest in a fair game.)

We do not use your data to make decisions about you that produce legal or similarly significant effects, and we carry out no automated profiling beyond ranking your puzzles by skill.

8. Game commentary and AI

When you request a written review of a game, we transmit the moves of that chess game to Anthropic, an AI provider, whose API produces the commentary you read. We transmit the moves and nothing else: no name, no email address, and no account identifier. Anthropic processes this material under its commercial API terms and does not use it to train its models. The App discloses how the feature works before you first use it, and the feature operates only when you request a review.

Reviews are generated automatically and are intended to assist you in learning chess. They are produced by software and may be inaccurate.

9. Who we share data with

We use a limited number of service providers, each of which processes data on our behalf and is not permitted to use it for its own purposes. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

• Supabase: hosts our database and handles sign-in. (privacy policy)
• RevenueCat: manages subscription status, purchase receipts, and app user identity for payments. (privacy policy)
• PostHog: product analytics, used to determine which screens function as intended. Events are tied to your account identifier, never to your name or email, and nothing is transmitted before the age screen. It also records anonymized session replays of how the app is used, to help us find where players get stuck. All text and images are masked on your device before any recording is sent, so replays show layout and navigation, never personal content or the moves of your games. (privacy policy)
• Sentry: crash and error reporting, used to diagnose and fix defects. It receives the error, the app and device version, and your account identifier. It is configured not to send personal information and not to capture screenshots. (privacy policy)
• Anthropic: generates the written game commentary. See section 8. (privacy policy)
• Apple: processes all payments and delivers push notifications. (privacy policy)
• beehiiv: operates the email waitlist and newsletter. See section 3. (privacy policy)

We may also disclose information where required by law, or where necessary to protect the rights and safety of our users or ourselves. If Wickmate is ever sold or transferred, your information may transfer with it, and we will state so in this policy first.

10. Payments

All purchases (the membership and any Pawn bundles) are processed by Apple through the App Store. Your card and billing details are entered on Apple's systems, never ours. We never see or store your payment information. We receive only a confirmation of what you purchased and whether it remains active.

11. How long we keep data

• Your account and progress: for as long as your account exists. If your membership lapses, we retain your progress, so that it remains available if you return.
• Game commentary: retained with the game it describes, and removed with your account.
• Analytics: retained in aggregate; individual event records are removed after 12 months.
• Crash reports: up to 90 days.
• Waitlist emails: until you unsubscribe or request deletion, or until we retire the list after launch.
• Records of an under-13 age check: only the minimum needed to avoid re-asking.
• Purchase records: for as long as tax and accounting law requires, typically seven years.

12. Your rights and choices

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to obtain a portable copy of it, to restrict or object to its processing, and, where processing is based on consent, to withdraw that consent at any time without affecting prior processing.

The most direct route to exercise the core of these rights is Settings → Delete account and data in the App, which permanently removes your account, progress, commentary, and analytics records: the entire account, not a deactivation. Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription; you must cancel that through your Apple subscription settings, or charges will continue.

We honour access, correction, deletion, and portability requests from residents of any U.S. state, whether or not a specific state law technically applies to a developer of our size. Email us and we will act on your request within 45 days. If we decline a request, we will explain why, and you may appeal by replying to our decision, whereupon a different person will review it. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising any right.

Some browsers can transmit a Global Privacy Control signal, and some devices carry a Do Not Track setting. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a valid opt-out of any sale or sharing of personal information, and we do not track you across other applications or websites in the first place, so there is nothing for either signal to disable. We state this so that you need not take our word for the sentence above.

If you are located in the EU, the UK, or a jurisdiction with comparable law, you additionally have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Our legal bases for processing are set out in section 7.

13. Players aged 13 to 17

We are aware that some of our players are minors, and we hold their data to a higher standard: we collect the minimum necessary to operate the App, we never sell it, and we never use it to target advertising. The App displays no third-party advertising at present; section 6 explains what would have to change first, and we would describe any such change in this policy before it reached anyone. Purchases are controlled by Apple's family features, including Ask to Buy. Where Apple provides age-range signals required by state law (such as in Texas), we use them only to meet those obligations. A parent or guardian who wishes to have a child's account removed may email us, and we will delete it.

14. Security and international transfers

Data is transmitted over HTTPS and stored with reputable providers under written data-processing agreements. No system is completely secure, and we therefore cannot guarantee absolute security. Our providers are based in the United States; where data is transferred from the EU or the UK, it is protected by each provider's certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or by Standard Contractual Clauses, whichever that provider offers.

If a breach affects your personal data, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours of becoming aware of it where the law requires, and we will notify you directly, without undue delay, wherever the breach is likely to place you at risk. We will state what happened, what data was involved, and what we are doing about it.

15. Contact us

• Email: wickmate@outlook.com
• Post: StarChart, 21218 St. Andrews Blvd #720, Boca Raton, FL 33433, USA

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product changes, and we will update it before a change in practice takes effect, not after. The date at the top of this document identifies the current version. If a change meaningfully affects how we use your data, we will notify you within the App or by email before it takes effect.