Game Grove is a free, non-commercial hobby project for planning game nights with friends. There is no company behind it and it makes no money. This page explains what personal data we store and why. Questions? Email dries@gamegrove.app.

What we store

• Account: email address (stored encrypted), password (as a hash only), display name, handle, avatar initials and colour, language, timezone and presence preference.
• Guest accounts (via a share link): a display name only.
• Content you create: groups, game nights, RSVPs, votes, chat messages and activity history.
• Technical: sign-in timestamps and short-lived server logs (including IP addresses) kept for security and troubleshooting.

How we use it

Only to run the service: signing you in, showing you and your group members to each other, and sending transactional emails (verification, password reset, game-night updates). Legal basis: performing the service you signed up for, and our legitimate interest in keeping it secure. No advertising, no profiling, no selling of data.

Share links

A game night's invite link shows a preview to anyone who has the link, before they join: the game night's name and description, the organizer's display name and handle, participants' display names, and vote tallies. Showing the real organizer is deliberate — it lets you check who is inviting you before you join. Only share the link with people you want to invite; the organizer can disable it at any time, which immediately invalidates every copy. Guest joins via a link are capped at 20 per game night.

Cookies and local storage

We only use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in (session cookies). Preferences such as theme and language live in your browser's local storage. There are no analytics or tracking cookies — which is why there is no cookie banner.

Who processes the data

Servers are hosted with Hetzner Online GmbH (data centres in the EU). Transactional email is sent via Scaleway SAS (France). Your data does not leave the EU and is not shared with anyone else.

How long we keep it

For as long as your account exists. When your account is deleted your data is erased; chat messages may remain visible in anonymised form so group history stays intact. Server logs are rotated away automatically after a short period.

On top of that, old content is cleaned up automatically:

• Chat history in friend and group chats is deleted after 6 months.
• One month after a game night took place, its chat history and votes are deleted. The outcome — who attended and the chosen date, game and location — is kept.
• Cancelled game nights are removed entirely one month after cancellation.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to access, rectify, erase, port and object. You can delete your account and its data yourself at any time from your profile page; for everything else, email dries@gamegrove.app. If you're unhappy with how we handle your data, contact us first and we'll try to make it right — you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update this page. Last updated: 2026-07-12.