Privacy policy
We collect nothing.
Your games stay on your phones.
CheckMates™ (on the App Store as “CheckMates Duo”). Last updated: 13 November 2026.
In short: no account, no sign-up, no name or email asked for, no analytics, no tracking, no ads. The app does not send us your games or anything about you. There is nothing for us to sell, share or lose.
What the app does with your phone
- Bluetooth is used only to find the other phone at your table and talk to it. iPhone asks your permission the first time (“CheckMates finds the other phone nearby.”). We don't use it to locate you or to find anything else.
- Local network (Wi-Fi) is used only to connect to the other phone when the two phones are on the same Wi-Fi.
- Camera is used only if you choose to pair by scanning the other phone's code. The picture is read on your phone and never saved or sent.
- Settings and the game in progress (board theme, sound on or off, the moves so far so a game can resume) are stored on your phone only. Delete the app and they are gone.
- The app does not use your location, contacts, photos or microphone.
Where your games go
Moves travel directly between the two phones, encrypted. Nobody else, including us, can read them.
If you pair with a code or QR instead of Bluetooth, a small connection service helps the two phones find each other over the internet, and if the phones can't reach each other directly it passes along their encrypted messages, which it cannot read. It keeps no games, no names and no history. Like any internet service it sees your phone's internet (IP) address while it connects the two phones; we don't store it or use it for anything else.
Crash reports
If you have agreed in your iPhone's settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports and usage counts. That is Apple's system, it is off unless you turned it on, and it doesn't tell us who you are. TestFlight testers can also choose to send us a screenshot and a comment; we only see what you choose to send.
Children
CheckMates is for everyone, families included. Because the app collects no personal information from anyone, it collects none from children. There is no chat and no way to contact strangers: you only ever play the phone next to you.
Ads
CheckMates has no ads and contains no advertising software, so nothing about you or your phone goes to an ad company. We don't use your phone's advertising identifier and we never ask to track you. We have no plans to add ads; if that ever changed, this page would say so before the version that did it.
Purchases
The beta is free, with nothing to buy. From version 1.0 the app is free for three games a day, and a one-time purchase, the full version, removes that limit.
The purchase is made through the App Store or Google Play. They take the payment; we never see your name, card or address. The app only asks the store whether this phone has the full version.
When you play, your phone tells the phone next to it whether it has the full version, so that one purchase can cover the game. To count the day's free games the app keeps a small tally on your phone. Neither is sent to us.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top before the app version that needs it is released. Questions: hello@letitsid.com.
Developer: Siddharth Prasad, Japan.