Privacy Policy

Name: Hello Board Games
Author: Gabriele Proietti Mattia

Last updated: 2026-10-10

This policy explains what the Hello Board Games Telegram bot (@hello_board_games_bot) and its Mini App and web app do with data.

The short version: there is no account and no password, because Telegram already knows who you are. What a game needs is stored on one server so that it can be shown to the people in the game, and it is used for nothing else. It is deleted on a schedule, stated below. There is no analytics, no advertising, no profiling and no third party with a copy.

Who is responsible

Gabriele Proietti Mattia (https://gpm.name), reachable at apps@gpm.name, is the data controller. The server is in Germany.

What is stored

Who you are on TelegramYour Telegram numeric id, first and last name, username and language code, as Telegram gives them. The id ties your games to you; the name is what the bot greets you by and what the other players see; the language sets which of the two translations you read.
The games you create or joinThe seats and their names, the balances, and every movement: from which account to which, how much, the reason if you gave one, when, and who pressed the button. Also the settings of the game, and the clock: when it started, every pause and when it ended.
Your notification settingsWhether money notices make a sound, and whether the table message stays pinned in your chat.
Where you are in the conversationThe screen you are on and the message the bot last sent you, so a button pressed tomorrow still knows what it refers to.
PurchasesWhether Pro is active and until when, whether it renews, and the payment identifier Telegram reports to the bot so that a refund is possible.
Your email, only if you link oneFor the web app sign in, and for licences and reports. See below.
Reports you sendThe text of a bug report or an idea, and a screenshot if you attach one. See below.

Who can see it

Everybody in a game sees its balances and its movements, including who pressed the button for each one. That is how the game works: paper money lies open on the table. A seat that is only a name is visible to the players in the same way.
The person who runs the service can read the database. That is one person, who administers the server, and can therefore read everything stored, games and balances included. It is not looked at except to keep the service working or to answer a report you sent.
Nobody else. Nothing is sold or shared, and no third party holds a copy.

What is never stored

No payment details. Pro is paid in Telegram Stars. Telegram tells the bot that a payment happened and gives it an identifier for it; a card number, a name on a card or a billing address never reach the bot, because Telegram never sends them.
No location, no contacts, no files.
No analytics and no advertising identifiers. There is no third-party SDK anywhere in this bot: nothing measures how you use it and nothing reports on it.
No message history. The bot reads a message to act on it and keeps what that message was about, such as an amount, not the message.
No real money. The units in a game are worth nothing, and the bot cannot move any.

Email, licences and reports: apps-management

An email address is optional. The bot works, and Pro can be bought, without one.

If you choose to link one (you confirm it with a code sent to it), it is used with apps-management, the service that handles licences and feedback for the apps in this family. It is used for three things only: your licence, so that Pro can follow you to a new Telegram account (it is valid for one Telegram account at a time); the replies to the reports you send; and the votes you cast on the features still to be built. apps-management knows people only by a verified email and does not receive your Telegram id.

Two other things are recorded there whether or not you link an email:

Pro purchases. A purchase made with Telegram Stars is recorded in apps-management under the Telegram payment identifier, which is how a licence is checked and a refund traced. No card or billing details are involved, because there are none.
Bug reports and ideas. What you send from the information section of the bot or of the app is forwarded to apps-management, together with the version you were using and the email, if you have linked one. A report without a linked email is anonymous.

Telegram’s part

You are talking to this bot through Telegram, and Telegram carries what you send. What Telegram does with that is covered by Telegram’s own privacy policy, not by this one.

Two consequences worth stating plainly:

Telegram knows you use this bot, and when.
A Telegram chat with a bot is not end-to-end encrypted. Telegram can read it, the same way it can read any cloud chat.

The Mini App and the web app

The Mini App is a page served from https://hello-board-games-tg.gpm.name. It stores one thing in your browser: a note that you have seen the welcome screen. That note never leaves the device and is not readable by anyone else.

Inside Telegram, every request the Mini App makes carries the session Telegram signs for it, which is what proves the request is yours.

The web app at https://hello-board-games-app.gpm.name is the same page, opened in a browser, with a sign in of its own: a link sent to your email, Google, or the Telegram login button. It keeps a session cookie in the browser so that you stay signed in until you sign out. Signing in with an email or with Google stores that address, or the Google account identifier, to recognise you the next time.

The page loads its fonts from Google Fonts, which means Google sees the request for those files. Nothing about you is sent with it beyond what any browser sends when it fetches a file.

When it is deleted

A game does not need to outlive the evening, so it does not.

A game is deleted 6 months after anybody in it last opened it, and in any case 12 months after it was created.
A person who has not opened the bot, the Mini App or the web app for 6 months is deleted, together with everything that is only theirs. A seat they held in a game that still exists stays as a plain name, with nothing that points at a Telegram account.
One message is sent 7 days before, to whoever would lose something: you, before your own data goes, and the admin, before a game goes.
Opening the bot or the game postpones the deletion for absence. Nothing postpones the 12 months.
The date a game will be deleted is shown on its own screen.
Delete all data is a button in the bot, for everybody. Everything that is only yours is gone when the confirmation comes back. In a game that other people are still playing, your seat stays as a plain name with nothing that points at your Telegram account, and a game you run passes to another player who has Telegram, or is deleted when there is none. An admin can also delete their game at any time.

Backups of the server exist for disaster recovery and are retained for a limited period. Data deleted from the live database is not restored from them.

Performance of a contract for everything a game needs: a scorekeeper that does not keep the score is not the thing you asked for.
Legitimate interest for the operational logs the server keeps to stay working and to investigate abuse.
Legal obligation for the records a payment leaves behind.

Your rights

You may ask for a copy of your data, its correction, or its deletion, and you may object to its processing. Deletion needs nobody’s help: Delete all data does it. For anything else, write to apps@gpm.name.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority.

Children

Hello Board Games is not directed at children and asks for nothing that would identify one. A seat that is only a name needs nothing but the name.

Changes

This page carries the date it was last substantively changed. A change that affects what is collected will be said in the changelog as well, rather than only here.