Privacy Policy

Effective 2026-10-03

This policy explains what personal information Paddler ("Paddler", "we") collects when you use paddler.gg, how we use and share it, and the choices you have. It is part of our Terms of Service.

1. What we collect

  • Account and profile: your name, username, email, phone, birthday and age, gender, relationship status (optional), address, city, state and country, photo and cover image, bio, account type, time zone, and your privacy settings.
  • Activity: clubs you join, sessions you register for or check in to, games, scores, ratings, rankings, achievements, commendations, reports, tournament entries, forum posts, profile posts, comments, reactions and direct messages.
  • Device and sign-in information: a device identifier and a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address, with when we first and last saw them, and when you were last active. We use these to keep accounts secure and games fair.
  • From sign-in providers: if you sign in with Google or Facebook, we receive your name, email and profile photo from them.
  • Survey answers, if you choose to take part.
  • Cookies and local storage: cookies keep you signed in and remember preferences such as the theme. Your browser also keeps small settings on your device, such as sidebar and alert preferences. If you tick "Remember me" when logging in, your sign-in details are saved in that browser, so only use it on a device you trust. Our visit counting (Cloudflare Web Analytics) sets no cookies.

2. How we use it

  • to run the Service: accounts, clubs, sessions, live queues, matchmaking, ratings, tournaments, messages and the forum;
  • to keep Paddler safe and fair: detecting abuse, duplicate accounts and manipulated results, and enforcing our Terms;
  • to contact you: service emails and notifications;
  • to show what is near you: we turn your city into approximate map coordinates;
  • to run surveys and improve Paddler: we may use your account and profile details (such as your level, rating, city, clubs and play history) to choose who to invite to optional surveys and to analyse the answers. Results leave the Paddler team only as anonymous totals;
  • to comply with the law and protect the rights and safety of users and Paddler.

We rely on your agreement to our Terms, our legitimate interest in running a safe service that keeps improving, your consent where it is required, and our legal obligations.

3. Who can see or receive it

  • Other users: your name, photo, ratings and activity are shown to others according to your privacy settings. Organizers of the clubs and sessions you join see what they need to run them, including contact details depending on your settings.
  • Service providers that help us run Paddler, such as hosting, email delivery, map and location lookup (Google or OpenStreetMap), bot protection on sign-up, cookie-free visit counting (Cloudflare Web Analytics), and Google or Facebook sign-in. They may use your information only to provide their service to us.
  • Authorities or others where the law requires it, or to protect the safety and rights of users, the public or Paddler.
  • A buyer or successor if Paddler is reorganised, merged or sold.

We do not sell your personal information.

4. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is open and for as long as we need it to run the Service, then delete or anonymise it, unless we must keep it for legal, security or fraud-prevention reasons. Content and data may also be removed sooner, without notice (see section 6 of the Terms), so keep your own copies of anything important. Scores and results that other players rely on may be kept in anonymised form.

5. Your choices and rights

  • Change your profile, privacy and notification settings in Account settings.
  • Download a copy of your data from Account settings.
  • Delete your account from Account settings.
  • Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access, correct or delete your information, to object to or limit how we use it, to withdraw your consent, and to complain to your local data-protection authority. Contact us to use these rights.

6. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information, but no service is completely secure. Keep your password private and tell us if you think your account has been used by someone else.

7. Children

Paddler is not for children under 13. Users under 18 need the permission of a parent or guardian. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it.

We use your birthday to decide which safety rules apply to you, so every account must give one before it can message or send friend requests. For players under 18: an adult must share a club or a session with them before sending a friend request, and must be their friend before sending typed messages; photos are turned off in their chats; and people who are not their friends can't see their age, birthday, gender, relationship status, city, clubs, the courts they play at, or their friends list. If you think a player under 18 is being harmed on Paddler, use Report on the message or contact us. We report suspected sexual abuse or exploitation of a child to the authorities, as the law requires.

8. Where your information is processed

Our service providers may process information in countries other than yours, which may have different data-protection laws. We take reasonable steps to protect it wherever it is processed.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. When a change is material, we will ask you to accept the new version before you continue.

10. Contact

Paddler · hello@paddler.gg