Privacy Policy

Who we are

PLAYERIN is a sports organisation and booking platform operated by PLAYERIN Ltd, registered in England and Wales. We provide software that helps organisers manage games and players book spots.

Website: playerin.games · Contact: info@playerin.games

What data we collect

When you book a game or create an account, we collect:

• Your name
• Email address
• Mobile number
• Booking history (which games you attended)

We do not collect payment card details — payments are processed directly by Stripe. When a club admin connects a Stripe account (as an individual, sole trader, registered business, or registered charity / non-profit), identity verification data (name, date of birth, address, photo ID) is collected by Stripe directly as part of their KYC process. PLAYERIN does not store this data — we receive only confirmation of the account's verification status.

Where a game involves children, we also collect the first name of each child participant, along with a timestamp recording that the parent or guardian gave explicit consent before booking. No other information is collected about children — no email address, mobile number, or additional personal details.

We do not knowingly collect personal data directly from children.

Why we collect it

We use your data solely to:

• Confirm your booking and send you relevant information (kick-off times, cancellations, team sheets)
• Allow you to manage your account and view your booking history
• Provide your game organiser with the information they need to run the session
• Operate, maintain, and improve the PLAYERIN platform

We do not sell your data. We do not use it for advertising.

Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal data under the following lawful bases:

• Contract — to provide the PLAYERIN service, including bookings, account management, and communications related to your use of the platform.
• Legitimate interests — to operate, improve, and secure the platform, including preventing fraud and misuse.
• Consent — where required, including for marketing communications and for processing children's data.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we ensure that this does not override your rights and freedoms.

Children's data

PLAYERIN allows adults to book games on behalf of children in their care. We take the privacy of children seriously and apply the following principles:

• Minimum data: we collect only the child's first name. No contact details, date of birth, or other personal information is required or stored.
• Explicit consent: a parent or guardian must actively confirm parental responsibility and consent before a child booking is completed. The time of that consent is recorded.
• Account holder responsibility: children cannot create their own accounts. Only a verified adult account holder can add child profiles and make bookings on their behalf.
• Purpose limitation: a child's name is shared with the game organiser solely to manage their participation in that session. It is not used for any other purpose.
• Deletion: removing a child profile from your account removes it from all future use. Historical booking records are retained in anonymised form for the organiser's records only.

If you have questions about how your child's data is handled, contact us at info@playerin.games.

Who can see your data

Your name, mobile number, and booking status are visible to the organiser of any game you book into. This is necessary for them to run the session. Your email address is used for communications but is not displayed to other players. For child bookings, only the child's name is shared with the organiser — all communications go to the parent or guardian's account.

Squad Fill, ratings and the Event Directory

Teams and clubs may choose to open specific events to players outside their team via our "Squad Fill" feature. When an event is opened, it appears in the public Event Directory at playerin.games/my/find. The following data is processed as part of this feature:

• Event directory: event name, venue, postcode area, kick-off time, date, spots-left count, the event's age range + open levels, and the team's aggregate trust rating are visible to authenticated PLAYERIN users. Individual players' names and contact details are never exposed in the directory.
• Age match: to use Find An Event we need a date of birth on your profile. We match your age against each event's age range strictly — you won't see an event you're outside the band for, and nobody outside the band will see events tagged to your age. Your date of birth is never surfaced to other users.
• Self-rating + reliability: you may self-declare an ability level per sport on your profile. Team managers you play for can verify it. When you request a Squad Fill spot on a team you're not yet a member of, that team's manager can see: your first/last name, the email on your profile, your current self-rated level, the number of other managers who have verified it, and your rolling 90-day reliability score (events attended, drop-outs after confirming, no-shows). This is necessary so the manager can make an informed accept/reject decision. You can clear your self-rating at any time on /my/profile.
• Approval decisions: when you send a Squad Fill request, we store the decision record (pending, approved, rejected, withdrawn, or expired), the manager who decided, and the timestamps. Rejected and withdrawn request records are deleted after 6 months. Approved requests become normal bookings and follow the standard booking retention in the "Data retention" section below.
• Payment hold: when a Squad Fill event is in "review" mode, we authorise your card for the booking amount but do not capture (charge) it until the manager approves. If they reject, or you withdraw, or nobody decides within 7 days, the hold is released automatically and no charge is made. Stripe processes the hold under its own terms.
• Guest status on a team: if a manager approves your Squad Fill request, you join that team as a guest — we create a players row for you on that team. Guests don't receive automatic game invites, don't appear in the team roster, and can be prompted after an event to "join the team properly". You can ask to be removed from any team's records at any time via the team manager or by emailing info@playerin.games.
• Team Trust Rating: after a confirmed event, you may anonymously rate the team 1-5 stars. Individual ratings are never identified to the team or other players — only the aggregate average and count are surfaced. Ratings may be changed by you at any time.
• Children are excluded: the Squad Fill directory and the self-rating system are not available for users under 16 or for child profiles. Events hosted by teams running children's sessions may still appear in the directory, but no child personally identifiable information is ever exposed through this feature. Parents booking on behalf of a child on a youth Squad Fill event share only the child's first name with the manager, as covered in the "Children's data" section above.
• League registration: joining an event through Squad Fill does not register you with any external league or governing body. Where a team is part of an organised league, they are responsible for satisfying that league's registration requirements.

Our lawful basis for processing self-rating, verification and reliability data across teams is legitimate interest: it enables managers and players to make informed Squad Fill decisions and keeps the directory safe. You can object at any time by clearing your rating, withdrawing from requests, and emailing info@playerin.games to request removal from the directory entirely.

Third-party services

We use trusted third-party providers to operate the Service, including:

• Supabase — database hosting and authentication
• Stripe — payment processing and identity verification (KYC) for club payment account holders. Stripe acts as both a data processor (for payment transactions) and a data controller (for identity verification under UK AML regulations).
• Resend — email delivery
• Twilio — SMS notifications
• Anthropic PBC — provides the Claude large language model that powers the AI features described below (USA-based)
• Netlify, Inc. — website hosting and serverless functions (USA-based)

These providers act as data processors on our behalf and only process data as necessary to deliver the Service.

Some of these providers may process data outside the UK. Where this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place in line with UK GDPR, such as standard contractual clauses.

AI features and automated processing

PLAYERIN includes several AI assistants that help with everyday organising tasks — drafting messages, suggesting event setups, looking up your bookings, helping a club admin manage members, answering quick questions on the booking page, and so on. These assistants are all powered by Anthropic Claude, a large language model built by Anthropic PBC (USA).

How conversations are handled. When you send a message to one of our AI assistants, that message is sent to Anthropic to generate a reply. The conversation lives only in your browser session — when you close the chat panel or sign out, the messages are gone. PLAYERIN does not store the contents of your AI conversations. There is no admin dashboard that holds your messages and no permanent record on our servers.

Conversations are not used to train AI models. This is contractually guaranteed under Anthropic's commercial terms of service. You can read Anthropic's privacy policy at anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

Actions taken via the AI. Where you ask an AI assistant to take an action — for example, “create a game for Friday 8pm”, “send a payment reminder to everyone who hasn't paid”, or “approve this Squad Fill request” — the action creates the same database records as if you had clicked through the user interface yourself. A new game row, a sent message, an approved request. Those records are operational data and are governed by the retention rules in the rest of this notice. The chat that triggered them is not retained.

International transfers. Anthropic processes messages on servers in the USA. We have appropriate safeguards in place under the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with technical measures including encryption in transit. Anthropic acts as a data processor on our behalf and is bound by a data processing agreement.

No automated decisions about you. The AI assistants do not make any decision that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you. Any meaningful action (sending a message, charging a card, removing a player) requires a human in the loop — either the action is proposed to you for confirmation, or it's carried out by you giving the instruction. We do not use AI to profile players, score teams, or auto-decline anyone.

Please don't share sensitive personal data with the AI. Don't paste in card numbers, passwords, medical information, or personal details about other people. The AI assistants are scoped to PLAYERIN tasks and there's no need to share that kind of information with them.

For technical visibility, we keep aggregated, anonymous counters of how often AI tools are used (for example, total “create-game” calls per user per hour) so we can rate-limit fairly. These counters contain no message content.

Communications

We may contact you via email, SMS, or in-app notifications to provide:

• Booking confirmations and updates
• Game-related communications
• Account and service notifications

Non-essential communications (such as game invites and voting emails) include an unsubscribe link. You can also manage your notification preferences at playerin.games/my/settings.

Marketing communications are only sent where you have provided explicit consent, and you may opt out at any time.

Data retention

We retain personal data for as long as necessary to provide the Service. Specific retention periods:

• Active account data (name, email, mobile) — retained while your account is active.
• Completed game data (bookings, payment records) — retained for up to 2 years after the game date for accounting and tax purposes, then deleted.
• Anonymised booking history — retained indefinitely for organiser operational records. Contains no personally identifiable information.
• Deleted accounts — personal data is anonymised immediately on deletion. Anonymised records are retained per the above periods.
• Child profiles — deleted when removed by the parent or guardian. Associated booking records are anonymised.
• Cancelled bookings — retained for up to 6 months after cancellation, then deleted.

Your rights (and your child's)

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Erasure — request that we delete your personal data
• Correction — update inaccurate information via your account page
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests

To exercise these rights — including on behalf of a child in your care — sign in at playerin.games/my or email info@playerin.games.

Your right to complain

If you have concerns about how we handle your data, please contact us first at info@playerin.games.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): ico.org.uk

Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse.

While no system is completely secure, we work with trusted infrastructure providers and follow industry best practices to safeguard your information.

Cookies

We use the following cookies:

• Session cookie (essential) — keeps you signed in and ensures the platform functions correctly. This cookie is strictly necessary and does not require consent.
• Google Analytics (optional) — if you consent via our cookie banner, we use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how people use PLAYERIN. This sets cookies including _ga (expires after 2 years) and _ga_* (expires after 1 year). GA4 collects anonymised usage data such as pages visited, session duration, and device type. IP addresses are not stored by Google Analytics 4.

Analytics cookies are only loaded after you accept them via the cookie banner. You can change your cookie preferences at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in the site footer.

We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

Contact

For any privacy questions or data requests, contact us at info@playerin.games.