Last Updated: October 1, 2026
This policy covers one app: Chess Clock & Scorepad, the two-player chess clock that can also record the game, on Android, iPhone and iPad. Our other apps are covered by the general Illumination Development privacy policy, which does not apply here. That policy describes accounts, reward balances and redemption records that this app does not have.
The short version
Your games stay on your phone. There is no account and no sign-in of any kind. The players' names, the moves, the times and the results of every game you play or import are written to storage on your device and stay there. There is no sync, no cloud backup of ours and no server holding a copy. A game leaves the device only as a PGN you share or copy yourself.
What does leave the device is advertising, anonymous usage analytics and crash reports, plus a support message if you choose to send one. Each is described in full below, along with how to limit it.
What stays on the device
- Your games — for each game: the names you gave the two players, the time control, the moves if you recorded them, each player's clock times, any notes you added in review, and how the game ended.
- Your time controls — custom time controls you saved.
- Your settings — sound and vibration, the clock's look and behavior, the player names last used, and whether the app has already asked for a rating.
None of it is transmitted anywhere by the app. If the device backs itself up to iCloud or to Google, that copy is governed by Apple's or Google's terms and your own backup settings, and we have no access to it.
Sharing and importing games
You can share a game as PGN through your device's share sheet, or copy it to the clipboard. It goes only where you send it. You can also import a PGN file you choose with the system file picker; the app reads that one file and adds its games to your history. We never receive a shared or imported game.
Opening names are looked up from a list bundled inside the app (the lichess chess-openings data, released into the public domain). Looking an opening up does not contact anyone. The clock sounds are generated by the app itself.
You can delete a single game from your history, or erase everything at once with Delete my data, described below. Because the copy on your device is the only copy there is, deleting the app removes it too.
What the app sends
None of what follows includes a player's name, a move, a note, or anything else you typed. None of it includes your name or email address either, unless you type them into Contact support yourself. There is no sign-in of any kind, anonymous or otherwise, and no user identifier is attached to anything the app sends.
Usage analytics
The app reports a small set of events to Google Analytics: which screen is open; how long the app took to start; that a game started, with its pace (bullet, blitz, rapid or classical), which time control (a fixed preset name, or just “custom”), whether moves were being recorded and whether the clocks were handicapped; that a game ended, with how it ended and how many moves were recorded; that a move was taken back; that a game was shared or copied as PGN; that a custom time control was saved, with how many stages it has; and that the privacy policy was opened. The only label attached to the installation is which kind of build it is running. It never reports a player's name or a move.
Alongside those, Google Analytics collects its own app-instance identifier, coarse device information such as the model, the operating system version and the app version, an approximate location that Google derives from the IP address, and the advertising identifier described under Advertising below (on iPhone and iPad, only if you allow tracking). The app itself never asks for location permission. We use analytics to see which features are used, and for nothing else.
Crash and diagnostic reports
If the app crashes or hits a handled error, Google Crashlytics sends a report: the stack trace, the app version, the device model and operating system, which kind of build it is, and a short trail of the app's own log lines leading up to it (screen and event names, never anything you typed). No user identifier is attached. Analytics and crash reporting are both switched off entirely in development builds.
Advertising
The app is free and carries advertising from Google AdMob and no one else. All of it is banners, shown on the home screen, in your game history, in a game's review and in Settings. There is never an advertisement on the running clock or the scorepad, and there are no full-screen or rewarded advertisements. There is nothing to buy.
To serve advertisements, the Google Mobile Ads SDK contacts Google and may collect device and advertising information: an advertising identifier (Google's advertising ID on Android, and Apple's Identifier for Advertisers on iPhone and iPad if you allow it), device signals, an approximate location derived from the IP address, and the request, impression and click themselves. We never see this identifier, and it is not connected to your games.
Advertisements in this app can be personalized, where the law and your choices allow it. The app is not child-directed and does not ask Google to switch personalization off; the choices below are how you limit it. Google's use of the information it collects is governed by Google's own privacy policy.
On iPhone and iPad: the tracking prompt
The app shows Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt before any advertisement is requested. If you choose Ask App Not to Track, the app never receives Apple's Identifier for Advertisers and advertising continues without it. You can change your answer at any time under iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking.
On Android: the advertising ID
The app does not ask for any runtime permission. The advertising-ID permission is present, because the Google Mobile Ads SDK declares it, and it is used for advertising. You can reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalized ads, in your device's settings — on most phones, Settings → Privacy → Ads, or Settings → Google → Ads.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
Where a consent regime applies, Google's consent message is shown before any advertisement is requested, and it asks for your choices about personalized advertising and the storing of and access to information on the device.
You can change your answer at any time — Settings → Ad privacy options reopens the same choices. That entry appears only where Google reports that a consent regime applies. Your consent decision is stored on your device by Google's consent SDK.
Contacting support
Settings → Contact support is the one place the app asks for anything about you. To send a message it needs your name, your email address, a topic and the message itself. Before you send, the form shows you exactly what else is attached: the app's version and build number, and your device's platform and operating system version. Because there is no sign-in, no user identifier is attached.
All of that is delivered as an email to our support inbox, through a small Google Apps Script service that exists only to forward it, with your address set as the reply-to so that we can answer you. Your email address is used to reply to you and for nothing else. The form is entirely optional.
Delete my data
Settings → Delete my data does these things, immediately and without asking us:
- It permanently erases every game in your history, every saved time control and your settings.
- It resets the Google Analytics identifiers held on the device, so later analytics start from a new app-instance identifier.
There is no account to delete, because the app never had one. Analytics events and crash reports already sent to Google stay with Google until they expire under its own retention periods; they carry no name, email address or account. If you want those looked at as well, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com. Support messages you have already sent are kept in our inbox; you can ask us to delete them at the same address.
What the app does not do
- No account, sign-in, username or profile, and no user identifier on its analytics or crash reports.
- No upload or sync. Your games leave the device only as a PGN you share or copy yourself.
- No rewards, no coins, no in-app purchases and nothing for sale.
- No online play, no chat, and no way to reach another person through the app.
- A rating prompt at most once. After you have finished a few games, and only when you come back to the home screen, the app may ask Google Play or the App Store to show its rating prompt. The store decides whether it appears; the app never learns your rating.
- No location permission. The only location involved is the approximate one Google derives from the IP address, described above.
- No camera, photos, microphone, contacts, calendar or health data.
- No advertising network other than Google AdMob.
- We do not sell personal information. The advertising described above may count as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising in the sense the CCPA and CPRA give that term; declining the tracking prompt, resetting or deleting your advertising ID, and opting out of personalized ads are how you limit it.
Children
Chess Clock & Scorepad is not directed at children. It is intended for an audience of 13 and over, its advertising requests are not flagged as child-directed, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. A parent may of course run the clock for a child's game. If you believe a child has sent us personal information through Contact support, write to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com and we will delete it.
Your rights
Under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA and CPRA, and comparable laws elsewhere, you have rights to access, correct, port and delete the personal information a company holds about you. The only things this app gives us that name you are the name and email address in a support message you chose to send. You can erase what is on the device yourself with Delete my data, and ask us about anything else by writing to privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.
Information held by Google from serving advertisements, running analytics and receiving crash reports is subject to Google's privacy policy and the controls described above.
A note about this web page
The app does not display this page — tapping Privacy Policy in Settings opens it in the device's browser, and this website uses Google Analytics to see which pages people find useful. That is described in the general privacy policy.
Changes and contact
If the app starts handling information differently, this page changes first and the date at the top moves. Questions: privacy@illuminationdevelopment.com.