Privacy Policy
What Bridge Club, at bridgeclub.com, knows about you, where it is kept and who else receives any of it.
Last updated:
Bridge Club is a site for playing, learning and analysing contract bridge. This page describes what the site collects when you use it. If anything here is unclear, write to .
What we collect when you create an account
- Your email address, which is how your account is identified.
- Your password, if you sign up with one. It is stored only as a salted hash (scrypt), never as the password itself, and nobody at Bridge Club can read it.
When you complete your profile we also store what you enter there: a username (which other players see and which cannot be changed later), your first and last name, your country, time zone and preferred language, your bridge level, your preferred bidding system, the kinds of game you like, and a profile picture if you upload one or choose one of ours. You can add a short "about me" later.
Signing in with Google, Facebook or Apple
If you use one of these, that company tells us its own identifier for you, your email address and your name, and nothing else.
| Company | What we ask for and receive |
|---|---|
| Your basic profile and email: Google's identifier for you, your email address, and your first and last name. | |
| Your public profile and email: Facebook's identifier for you, your email address, and your first and last name. | |
| Apple | Apple's identifier for you, and your email address. If you choose "Hide My Email", Apple gives us a private relay address in place of your own, and that is the address we store. Apple gives us your name only the first time you approve. |
- We use the email address to find your account, or to create one if you are new. If the email matches an account that already exists here, you are signed in to that account.
- If the company gives us no email address and we have not seen you before, no account is made.
- We store the identifier so that you are recognised next time.
- We do not take or store your picture from any of them.
- We do not keep the access token the company gives us; it is used once to read what is listed above.
- We never see your password at any of them, and we do not post anything or read your contacts.
What is stored as you use the site
| Activity | What is kept |
|---|---|
| Playing | The boards you play: the cards, the bidding, the play, the result and the score, with the names of the four players. This is your History, and the other players at the table have the same boards in theirs. Tournament and team-match results are kept in the same way. |
| Tables | The tables you create and their settings, and seats reserved for you. |
| Chat at a table | Held with the table while it is running (the most recent 100 lines), and seen by the people at that table. |
| The Bidding Room | Your practice sessions, the boards bid in them, and the notes partners write to each other about a board. |
| Messages | Direct messages you send and receive are stored so that both of you can read the conversation later. |
| Friends | Who you follow, who you have blocked, and any private note you write about another player. A note is shown only to you. |
| Reports | If you report a player, the report, your reason and who it was about. |
| Hand Editor and lessons | The analyses, lessons and folders you save, your progress through lessons, and anything you share with another player. |
| Uploads | Your profile picture, and any picture, sound or video you add to a lesson or an analysis, including a voice comment you record on the site. |
| Settings | The choices you make in Settings. |
If you use the Hand Editor's "import from a picture", the picture you choose is sent to an outside service to be read (see below).
Camera and microphone
At a table and in Connect you can turn on your camera and microphone. They are off until you turn them on and your browser asks your permission first.
- Sound and picture go directly from your browser to the browsers of the other people in that table or connection. They do not pass through our server.
- Nothing is recorded or stored by Bridge Club.
- Our server passes only the short technical notes two browsers need to find each other, and remembers whether your camera and microphone are on, while the connection lasts.
- To make a direct link, your browser contacts a public address-discovery (STUN) server run by Google, and the other people's browsers learn your internet address. This is how direct calls work on the web.
- Chat inside a connection is held only while it lasts (the most recent 200 lines) and is gone when it ends.
Recording a voice comment for a lesson or an analysis is different: that is something you choose to save, and it is stored as an upload.
Cookies and storage in your browser
- One sign-in cookie,
gsb_session. It keeps you signed in: for 30 days if you ticked "Remember me" or signed in with Google, Facebook or Apple, otherwise until you close your browser, and the sign-in itself ends after one day. Signing out removes it. - Short-lived cookies while you are signing in with Google, Facebook or Apple, which last ten minutes and exist to make sure the answer comes back to the browser that asked.
- Browser storage for your preferences on that device: the theme, card style and colours, text size, sounds, which view or tab you last used, and similar.
There are no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics or tracking scripts on the site.
Your internet address is used briefly, in the server's memory, to limit repeated sign-in attempts. It is not saved to your account.
Who else receives data
| Service | What it receives |
|---|---|
| Render (hosting) | The site runs on Render's servers, so everything you send to the site passes through them. |
| Our database (PostgreSQL) | Everything listed above except uploaded files. |
| Cloudflare R2 (file storage) | Uploaded files: profile pictures, and pictures, sound and video in lessons and analyses. |
| Google, Facebook, Apple | Only if you choose to sign in with one of them. That company learns that you signed in to Bridge Club. |
| Google (STUN) | Your internet address, when you use the camera or microphone. |
| The robot service | A separate bridge-playing program that bids and plays for robot seats and explains bids. It is sent the cards and the bidding of the board in question. |
| Double-dummy analysis | Runs on our own server. Nothing is sent elsewhere for it. |
| Anthropic | Only when you import a hand from a picture: the picture is sent to be read. |
We do not sell your data, and we do not give it to advertisers.
What other players can see
Other players see your username and your profile picture, and the details on your profile card. They see the boards you played with them, what you write in chat at their table, and the messages you send them. Your email address and your password are not shown to other players.
The people who run the site (its developers, and a tournament's director during that tournament) can see what is needed to run it.
How long things are kept
- Your account, profile, history, messages, saved work and uploads are kept until you ask for them to be removed. Nothing is deleted automatically because of age.
- A sign-in ends after one day, or after 30 days if it is remembered.
- Chat at a table, and everything in a connection, is held only while that table or connection is running.
- When you replace your profile picture, the old one is removed.
Your choices
- You can change your profile at any time from Profile, except your username.
- You can block a player, which stops their messages reaching you.
- You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, for a correction, or for your account and data to be removed. See Deleting your data.
Children
Bridge Club is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has made an account, write to us and we will remove it.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version will be on this page with a new date at the top.
Contact
Questions and requests about your data: .