Privacy Policy
How we collect, use, and protect your data — written in plain English.
1. Data we collect
When you create an account, we collect your email address and a username (via Authentik, our identity provider). If you sign in with a third-party service (Google, Discord, Steam, or Twitch), we receive the email and public profile from that provider.
As you use the platform, we store:
- Game preferences — boardgames you rate, add to your collection, or mark as loved.
- Platform connections — if you link a third-party platform (Board Game Arena, Yucata, Tabletopia…), we store your username on that platform to fetch your game history.
- Profile info — optional fields like city and timezone that you fill in yourself.
We do not collect payment information — BoardGameMatcher is free.
2. How we use your data
- Power the matching and recommendation features.
- Display your public profile and game collection to other users (if you choose to make it public).
- Send transactional emails — password reset, account verification. No marketing emails.
- Generate anonymous, aggregated usage statistics to improve the platform.
We do not sell your data or use it for advertising.
3. Third-party services
- Authentik — identity and authentication provider. Handles login, password storage, and sessions.
- Hetzner Object Storage — stores game cover images. No personal data is stored.
- BoardGameGeek — game data (titles, mechanics, ratings) is sourced from BGG's public dataset. No personal data is shared.
- Hetzner — our hosting provider. Servers are located in Europe (Germany).
- Brevo — transactional email delivery. Only your email address is shared, solely to deliver emails you request.
5. Data retention and deletion
Your data is kept for as long as your account is active. You can request deletion at any time — we will delete your account and all associated personal data within 30 days.
Anonymised aggregate statistics (e.g., total number of ratings) may be retained after deletion.
6. Your rights (GDPR)
- Right to access — request a copy of your personal data at any time.
- Right to rectification — update your data in your profile settings.
- Right to erasure — delete your account permanently from your profile settings.
- Right to portability — export your collection and ratings.
To exercise any of these rights, .
7. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy occasionally. Significant changes will be announced via the news section. The date at the top of this page always reflects the latest revision.
Last updated: March 2026