School clubs at chessmail

A school club is a club at chessmail that is not public. A teacher sets it up for a chess group or a class, the pupils join via an invitation link and play chess with each other, in correspondence chess, in live chess, in club tournaments and in the club forum. To the outside the club is closed. Anyone who is not a member sees neither who belongs to it nor what is played and written in the club.

School clubs are meant for pupils who are minors. For this reason, stricter rules for the protection of their data apply than for the other clubs at chessmail.

Setting up a school club

The teacher needs a regular chessmail account and uses it to create a club, just like any other club. Afterwards the teacher sends us a short message to contact@chessmail.info with the name of the club and of the school. We then switch the club to non-public. The teacher is the club admin and manages the club.

Inviting pupils

In the club admin, school clubs have the entry Invitation links. There the teacher creates a link that is valid for a certain time, 14 days by default, and allows a certain number of sign-ups, 30 by default. In doing so the teacher confirms that the required consent exists for every pupil who receives the link, for pupils under 16 that of their parents, from 16 on their own. The teacher passes the link on to the pupils, for example via the school's learning platform or in class. Expired or used-up links can be deleted, new ones created at any time.

Whoever opens the link chooses only a username and a password and is a member of the club right away. No email address is asked for, and there is no confirmation email. Pupils should make up a fantasy name and use neither their real name nor any part of it, so neither first name nor last name.

Anyone who already has a chessmail account and is not in a club yet joins directly with that account via the link.

There is no other way into the club. On the club page outsiders only see the notice that membership in this club is by invitation only. So the teacher alone decides who belongs.

Forgotten password

Accounts without an email address cannot reset their password themselves. Instead the teacher sets a new password in the member list of the club admin. The field for this appears only for accounts without an email address.

What outsiders see

  • In the club list the club appears only for its members. Everyone else reaches it only via the link.
  • The club page shows outsiders only the badge and the name, plus the notice that the club is not public. Member list, forum, tournaments, rankings and club pages remain hidden.
  • The club forum cannot be read from outside, not even via the forum search or the feeds.
  • The members' profiles are not public. Outsiders see only the username and the notice that the profile is not public. Game lists and rating history remain hidden, search engines are excluded.
  • Membership in the school club is not shown anywhere to the outside.

What applies to the members

  • Messages, correspondence chess invitations and live challenges only go between members of the club. Outsiders cannot write to or challenge the pupils, and the pupils cannot write to or challenge outsiders. Pupils may create open invitations and open challenges, but these reach the members of the club only.
  • Pupils may write only in the club forum. In the general forums of chessmail they can read, but not create postings.
  • Members of a school club see no advertising, the teacher included.
  • New members start with a rating of 1000 instead of 1600, so that the rating matches the level of beginners.
  • In live chess the pupils see only the members of their club in the lobby, and the lobby chat is a separate channel for the club. Open challenges and open correspondence chess invitations by pupils are seen by club members only. Arenas are not open to pupils, because pairing there is with everyone.
  • Pupils take part in tournaments within the club only, public tournaments are blocked for them. Club tournaments in turn are open to them right away, rated as well, without the prior games or waiting time that otherwise apply to tournaments.
  • The home page is tidied up for pupils, without the counters of running games and tournaments, without social media and without arena and tournament teasers. They can still read the main forums and the rankings and watch the running games of other players.

The role of the teacher

The teacher is the club admin. The teacher creates the invitation links, manages the members, sets new passwords, moderates the club forum and sets up club tournaments. The teacher can make pupils moderators of the club, who may then move, close and delete postings in the club forum. Everything else stays the same for moderators as for the other pupils. A second teacher is made a club admin as well. Club admins keep the normal view of chessmail and may also write in the general forums. The contact restriction and the absence of advertising, however, apply to all members of the club, the teacher included.

The school obtains the consent of the parents. The join page points this out.

For parents

Your child plays chess in a school club under a made-up name. At chessmail there is no email address, no real name, no date of birth and no mention of the school. Outsiders see neither that your child is a member of the school club nor their profile, games or postings. Messages, invitations and challenges reach your child only from other members of the club, and your child can only write to club members. Your child sees no advertising. Your child plays chess with members of the club only, arenas and public tournaments are not open to them. Your child can read the forums and rankings of chessmail, but write only in the club forum. No contact from outside is possible.

The teacher manages the club. The teacher sees your child's username and what your child writes in the club forum, and can set a new password if it is forgotten. The school obtains your consent before your child joins. You can withdraw your consent at any time, via the teacher or directly with us at contact@chessmail.info. We then delete the account. Your child can also end the account on their own, in the settings under "End membership". For questions about the data stored about your child, use the same address.

School clubs are built so that as little data as possible is created and none of it reaches the outside. Which requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we meet with that, in detail:

  • Data minimisation (Art. 5(1)(c) GDPR). When signing up via the invitation link we store only the self-chosen username and the password, the latter only as a hash. No email address, no name, no date of birth, no school. Added to that is what the pupils do at chessmail, that is games, postings in the club forum and chat messages. Chat messages are deleted after 30 days.
  • Consent and parental consent (Art. 6(1)(a), Art. 8 GDPR). Use of the account is based on consent. For children under 16 it must be given by the parents, from 16 on the pupils consent themselves. The school obtains these consents before the child joins. The teacher confirms this when creating each invitation link, and the confirmation is stored with the link. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, the account is then deleted.
  • Purpose limitation (Art. 5(1)(b) GDPR). The data serves only playing chess in the club. We do not pass it on to third parties and do not use it for advertising.
  • Data protection by design and by default (Art. 25 GDPR). Everything described in the previous section applies from the start and without the pupils having to configure anything: hidden profiles, hidden club membership, contact restriction, writing only in the club forum, exclusion of search engines.
  • Specific protection of children (Recital 38 GDPR). Members of a school club see no advertising, there are no advertising IDs and no profiling. There are no tracking cookies and therefore no cookie banner.
  • Storage location and third-country transfers (Art. 44 ff. GDPR). chessmail runs on servers in the European Union. As pupil accounts have no email address, we send them no emails, so there is no transfer to our email service provider either. We compile visitor statistics ourselves with Matomo on our own server in the EU, without cookies and with a truncated IP address.
  • Security of processing (Art. 32 GDPR). The connection is encrypted, passwords are stored as hashes, and a new password can only be set by the teacher as club admin.
  • Protection against ban evasion (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). As with all accounts, we store the IP address and a random browser identifier with the account, to prevent blocked accounts from signing up again. Details are in the privacy policy.
  • Rights of the data subject (Art. 15 to 21 GDPR). Access, rectification and erasure are available to pupils and parents via the teacher or directly at contact@chessmail.info. Pupils can end their account themselves in the settings. The username then still remains on the games played, on request we delete the account completely.
  • Storage limitation (Art. 5(1)(e) GDPR). An account exists as long as the pupil plays in the club. When a pupil leaves the chess group, the teacher removes them from the club, or the account is deleted on request.

The school remains responsible for its own decision to use chessmail in class and for the consents it obtains. chessmail is responsible for the processing on the platform. Apart from that, our privacy policy and our terms of use apply to school clubs as well.