Privacy Policy

Our Commitment To You

At BoardGameHive.ro, your privacy is a top priority. Your privacy is at the core of the way we design and build the services and products you know and love, so that you can focus on enjoying playing board games.

Our commitment to privacy. We design all of our products and services with your privacy in mind. We focus in various fields, including legal, security, engineering, product design and others to make sure that our decisions are taken with the utmost respect for your privacy.

Our commitment to transparency. Because we use many of the same online services you do, we know that insufficient information and overly complicated language are common issues in privacy policies. We take the exact opposite approach: we’re doing our best to write our Privacy Policy and related documents in plain language. We actually want you to read our policies and understand our privacy practices!

Our commitment to security. Each new feature that we build, we keep in mind to keep your data safe and secure. We constantly update our security practices and invest in our security efforts to enhance the safety of your information.

Welcome to our Privacy Policy. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

We appreciate that you trust us with your information and we intend to always keep that trust. This starts with making sure you understand the information we collect, why we collect it, how it is used and your choices regarding your information. This Policy describes our privacy practices in plain language, keeping legal and technical jargon to a minimum.

This Privacy Policy applies from March 11, 2024.

  1. Who We Are
  2. Where This Privacy Policy Applies
  3. Information We Collect
  4. How We Use Information
  5. How We Share Information
  6. Your Rights
  7. How Long We Retain Your Information
  8. Children's Privacy
  9. Privacy Policy Changes
  10. How To Contact Us

1. Who We Are

BoardGameHive.ro has started from the pure passion for board games, and from the need to play some of the games with more people than what it was available at that time.

2. Where This Privacy Policy Applies

This Privacy Policy applies to the BoardGameHive.ro website. For simplicity, we refer to this as our “services” in this Privacy Policy. To make it extra clear, we’ve added links to this Privacy Policy on all applicable services.

We describe as “services” any feature from our BoardGameHive.ro website, such as creating a list of board games, such as the board games you own, want to play, want to buy or sell. Among any other services we can mention adding or removing people from the friends list, creating and displaying invites so that other people can join, and many more.

Some services may require their own unique privacy policy. If a service has its own privacy policy, then that policy -- not this Privacy Policy -- applies.

3. Information We Collect

It goes without saying, we can’t help you develop meaningful connections without some information about you, such as basic profile details and the types of board games you are interested in. We also might collect information about your use of our services such as access logs, as well as information from third parties, like when you access the links from which might redirect you to somewhere else inside the BoardGameHive.ro website or to a an external platform, app, or website. If you want additional info, we go into more detail below.

Information you give us

You choose to give us certain information when using our services. This includes:

• When you create an account, you provide us with at least your phone number and email address, as well as some basic details necessary for the service to work, date of birth, profile image, and your name.

• When you complete your profile, you have the option to create few personalized lists of board games, such as the board games you either own, want to play, want to buy or want to sell. Where you provide such elements to us, you consent to us using it for the purposes identified and as laid out in this Privacy Policy.

• When you participate in surveys, focus groups or market studies, you give us your insights into our products and services, responses to our questions and testimonials.

• When you decide to share your thoughts with us through FeedbackUs, you should keep in mind that you should only do this of your own free will and if you are willing to not own any legal rights, because it’s not an exchange, transaction, or rent of the intellectual rights, but only a free advice to give us a suggestion of what you think it might improve the users experience and yours.

• When you choose to participate in our promotions, events or contests, we collect the information that you use to register or enter.

• If you contact us, we collect the information you give us during the interaction.

• If you share with us information about other people (for example, if you use contact details of a friend for a given feature), we process this information on your behalf in order to complete your request.

• Of course, we also process your chats with other members as well as the content you publish to operate and secure the services, and to keep our community safe.

Information we receive from others

• Members: Members may provide information about you as they use our services, for instance as they interact with you or if they submit a report involving you.

• Social Media: You may decide to share information with us through or from your social media account, for instance if you decide to create and log into your account via your social media or other account (e.g., Facebook, Google or Apple) or to upload onto our services information such as photos from one of your social media accounts (e.g., Instagram or Spotify).

• Other Partners: We may receive information about you from our partners where our ads are published on a partner’s service (in which case they may pass along details on a campaign’s success). Where legally allowed, we can also receive information about suspected or convicted bad actors from third parties as part of our efforts to ensure our members’ safety and security.

Information generated or automatically collected when you use our services

When you use our services, this generates technical data about which features you’ve used, how you’ve used them and the devices you use to access our services. See below for more details.

• Usage Information: Using the services generates data about your activity on our services, for instance how you use them (e.g., when you logged in, features you’ve been using, actions taken, information shown to you, referring webpages address and ads that you interacted with) and your interactions with other members (e.g., members you connect and interact with, and when you matched and exchanged messages with them).

• Information collected by cookies: We use and may allow others to use cookies to recognize you. You may read our Cookie Policy for more information on why we use them and how you can better control their use.

Some web browsers (including Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) have a “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) feature that tells a website that a user does not want to have his or her online activity tracked. If a website that responds to a DNT signal receives a DNT signal, the browser can block that website from collecting certain information about the browser’s user. Not all browsers offer a DNT option and DNT signals are not yet uniform. For this reason, many websites, including ours, do not currently respond to DNT signals.

4. How We Use Information

The main reason we use your information is to deliver and improve our services. Additionally, we use your info to help keep you and our community safe, and to provide you with advertising that may be of interest to you. Read on for a more detailed explanation of the various reasons for which we use your information, together with practical examples.

A. To administer your account and provide our services to you

• Create and manage your account

• Provide you with customer support and respond to your requests

• Communicate with you about our services

xB. To help you connect with other usersxx

• Recommend you to other members and recommend other members to you

• Recommend your invite to other members and recommend other invites to you

• Show members’ profiles to one another

• Enable members to search for and connect with members

C. To provide new BoardGameHive.ro services to you

• Register you and display your profile on new BoardGameHive.ro features

• Administer your account on these new features

D. To provide offers and operate advertising and marketing campaigns

• Perform and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns on our services and marketing our services off our platform

• Communicate with you about products or services that we believe may interest you

E. To improve our services and develop new ones

• Administer focus groups, market studies and surveys

• Review interactions with customer care teams to improve our quality of service

• Understand how members typically use the services to improve them (for instance, we may decide to change the look and feel or even substantially modify a given feature based on how members react to it)

• Develop new features and services (for example, we may decide to build a new interests-based feature further to requests received from members)

F. To prevent, detect and fight fraud and other illegal or unauthorized activities

• Find and address ongoing, suspected or alleged violations of our Terms of Use, notably through the review of reports and interactions between members

• Better understand and design countermeasures against violations of our Terms of Use

• Retain data related to violations of our Terms of Use to address the violation and prevent against recurrences

• Enforce or exercise our rights, for example our rights set out in our Terms of Use

• Communicate to individuals who submit a report, including what we’ve done as a result of their submission

G. To ensure legal compliance

• Comply with legal requirements

• Assist law enforcement

To process your information as described in this Privacy Policy, we rely on the following legal bases:

• Provide our service to you: The reason we process your information for purposes A, B and C above is to perform the contract that you have with us. For instance, as you go about using our service to play board game with the other participants, we use your information to maintain your account and your profile, make it viewable to other members and recommend other members to you and to otherwise provide our free and paid features to you and other members.

• Legitimate interests: We process your information for purposes D, E and F above, based on our legitimate interest. For instance, we analyze users’ behavior on our services to continuously improve our offerings, we suggest offers we think might interest you and promote our own services, we process information to help keep our members safe and we process data where necessary to enforce our rights, assist law enforcement and enable us to defend ourselves in the event of a legal action.

• Comply with applicable laws and regulations: We process your information for purpose G above where it is necessary for us to comply with applicable laws and regulations and evidence our compliance with applicable laws and regulations. We also keep data evidencing consents members give us and decisions they may have taken to opt-out of a given feature or processing.

• Consent: If you choose to provide us with information that may be considered “special” or “sensitive” in certain jurisdictions, such as your sexual orientation, you’re consenting to our processing of that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. From time to time, we may ask for your consent to collect specific. In some cases, you may withdraw your consent by adapting your settings (for instance in relation to the collection of our precise geolocation) or by deleting your content (for instance where you entered information in your profile that may be considered “special” or “sensitive”). In any case, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the address provided at the end of this Privacy Policy.

5. How We Share Information

Since our goal is to help you to play board games with other members, the main sharing of members’ information is, of course, with other members. We also share some types of members’ information with service providers and partners who assist us in operating the services and, in some cases, legal authorities. Read on for more details about how your information is shared with others.

• With other members

You share information with other members when you voluntarily disclose information on the service (including your public profile). Please be careful with your information and make sure that the content you share is stuff that you’re comfortable being visible.

If you choose to limit the audience for all or part of your profile or for certain content or information about you, then it will be visible according to your settings.

If someone submits a report involving you (such as a claim you violated our Terms of Use), we may communicate to the reporter actions, if any, we took as a result of their report.

• With our service providers and partners

We use vendors to help us operate, distribute, market and improve our services, such as data hosting and maintenance, analytics, customer care, marketing, advertising, and security operations. We also share information with vendors who distribute and assist us in advertising our services. For instance, we may share limited information on you in hashed, non-human readable form to advertising vendors.

We follow a strict vetting process prior to engaging any vendor or working with any partner. Our vendors and partners must agree to strict confidentiality obligations.

• Sharing functionality

You may choose to share other members’ profiles and they may share yours with people outside of our services, using the sharing functionality.

• For corporate transactions

We may transfer your information if we are involved, whether in whole or in part, in a merger, sale, acquisition, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, bankruptcy or other change of ownership or control.

• With law enforcement / when required by law

We may disclose your information if reasonably necessary: (i) to comply with a legal process, such as a court order, subpoena or search warrant, government / law enforcement investigation or other legal requirements; (ii) to assist in the prevention or detection of crime (subject in each case to applicable law); or (iii) to protect the safety of any person.

• To enforce legal rights

We may also share information: (i) if disclosure would mitigate our liability in an actual or threatened lawsuit; (ii) as necessary to protect our legal rights and legal rights of our members, business partners or other interested parties; (iii) to enforce our agreements with you; and (iv) to investigate, prevent, or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing.

• With your consent or at your request

We may ask for your consent to share your information with third parties. In any such case, we will make it clear why we want to share the information.

We may use and share non-personal information (meaning information that, by itself, does not identify who you are such as), as well as personal information in hashed, non-human readable form, under any of the above circumstances. We may combine this information with additional non-personal information or personal information in hashed, non-human readable form collected from other sources. More information on our use of cookies and similar technologies can be found in our Cookie Policy

7. Your Rights and Choices

We want you to be in control of your information, so we want to remind you of the following options and tools available to you:

• Access / Update tools in the service. Tools and account settings can help you access, rectify or remove information that you provided to us and that’s associated with your account directly within the service. If you have any questions on those tools and settings, please FeedbackUs for help.

• Account closure. You can close your account by using the corresponding functionality directly on the service.

We also want you to be aware of your privacy rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Access/know. You may have the right to request a copy of the information we keep about you, and in certain circumstances to receive this in a portable format. You can exercise your right to access directly within the service by putting in a request with FeedbackUs,

• Delete/erase. You may request that we delete the personal information we keep about you. You can exercise your right to delete by putting in a request with FeedbackUs,

• Correct/rectify/update. You can correct most information you provided to us by editing your profile directly in the service. If you believe the information we hold about you is inaccurate, you may request with FeedbackUs, to rectify it.

• Object/restrict. You may also have the right to object to or request that we restrict certain processing. To do so, please request with FeedbackUs,

For your protection and the protection of all of our members, we may ask you to provide proof of identity before we can answer the above requests. Keep in mind, we may reject requests, including if we are unable to authenticate you, if the request is unlawful or invalid, or if it may infringe on trade secrets or intellectual property or the privacy or other rights of someone else. If you wish to receive information relating to another member, such as a copy of any messages you received from them through our service, the other member will have to contact us to provide their written consent before the information is released. We may also ask them to provide proof of identity before we can answer the request. Also, we may not be able to accommodate certain requests to object to or restrict the processing of personal information, notably where such requests would not allow us to provide our service to you anymore. For instance, we cannot provide our service if we do not have your date of birth and thus cannot ensure that you are 18 years of age or older.

In certain countries, including in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the appropriate data protection authority if you have concerns about how we process your personal information. You can find information about your data protection regulator in the European Economic Area here, and in the United Kingdom here. The data protection authority you can lodge a complaint with may be that of your habitual residence, where you work or where an alleged infringement took place.

8. How Long We Retain Your Information

We keep your personal information only as long as we need it as laid out in Section 4 and as permitted by applicable law. If you decide to stop using our services, you can close your account and your profile will stop being visible to other members. Note that we will close your account automatically if you are inactive for a period of minimum 6 months and up to two years. After your account is closed, we will delete your personal information, as laid out below:

1. To protect the safety and security of our members, we implement a safety retention window of three months following account closure, or one year following an account ban. During this period, we may keep your information in the event that it might be necessary to investigate unlawful or harmful conducts. The retention of information during this safety retention window is based on our legitimate interest as well as that of potential third-party victims.

2. Once the safety retention window elapses, we delete your data and only keep limited information for specified purposes, as laid out below:

  • • We maintain limited data to comply with legal data retention obligations: in particular, we may keep records of consents members give us for five years to evidence our compliance with applicable law.
  • • We maintain limited information on the basis of our legitimate interest: we keep customer care records and supporting data as well, customer care decisions, to enforce our rights and enable us to defend ourselves in the event of a claim, information on the existence of past accounts and subscriptions, which we delete three years after the closure of your last account, profile data for one year in anticipation of potential litigation, for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, and data necessary to prevent members who were banned from opening a new account, for as long as necessary to ensure the safety and vital interests of our members.
  • • Finally, we maintain information on the basis of our legitimate interest where there is an outstanding or potential issue, claim or dispute requiring us to keep information (in particular if we receive a valid legal subpoena or request asking us to preserve data (in which case we would need to keep the data to comply with our legal obligations) or if data would otherwise be necessary as part of legal proceedings).

9. No Children Allowed

Our services are restricted to individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We do not permit individuals under the age of 18 on our platform. If you suspect that a member is under the age of 18, please let us know, to let us know to take actions.

11. Privacy Policy Changes

Because we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to help you to play board games with the other participants and BoardGameHive.ro reserves the rights to update the data practices to remain up-to-date, and so this policy may change over time. We will make the current version always available to the user to consult it, so that the user can decide if the current version matches with that they agree with to use the BoardGameHive.ro website. Continuing to use the BoardGameHive.ro website means that you agree with the updated version Privacy Policy.

12. How to Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, you have different options below: