Privacy Policy

• Account: your phone number (players) and your email address. Players confirm their email through a link we send; scouts and agents sign in with a code we email. When you sign up (as a player, scout or agent) you tick a box to confirm you are 18 or over and accept our Terms and this policy; we keep the date and time you ticked it.
• Scouts and agents: your name, organisation, country and experience, and the documents we use to verify you: an ID document; for agents, a football agent licence; for scouts, a work email address that you confirm by link, or a letter from your organisation. Only our team sees these documents, through short-lived links, and they are deleted when you delete your account.
• Player profile: name, date of birth, nationality, city, positions, preferred foot, and — only if you add them — height, weight, bio and contract status.
• Videos: the clips you upload, their title and type.
• Photo: if you add one, your profile photo. Your browser shrinks it before upload, which also removes hidden details such as the location it was taken.
• Activity: votes, views, follows, and messages exchanged through PitchVault.
• How you found us: if you arrived through an ad, a post or someone's shared Vault Card link, we record which one (for example, “Instagram ad, South Africa”) with your profile.
• Search engines: an adult player's public Vault Card page (name, position, nationality, city, age, bio, clips and stats) can be listed by search engines such as Google, so a scout who searches your name can find it. Under-18s' pages are never listed. You can switch this off any time in Edit profile (“Show my card in search engines”).
• Reports: if you report a clip, the reason and any note you add, stored with a scrambled code made from your IP address, so each connection can report a clip only once. It is hard to turn back into your IP address, but we cannot promise it is impossible. If you're signed in when you report that a player may be under 18, the clip is hidden straight away and your account is recorded with the report, so misuse can be traced.
• Payments: your subscription status. Card details are handled by Stripe, not by us. If you save a card, we keep only its brand and last 4 digits (for example, “Visa 4242”) so you can see which card is saved.
• Technical data: sign-in tokens stored in your browser, a random anonymous ID stored in your browser so a clip play is only counted once per viewer, the push address of each device where you turned on notifications (you can turn them off any time), and basic server logs (such as IP address and time of request).

• To create your account and let you sign in.
• To tell you about things that matter to your account — in the app, and by email if you added and confirmed an address (for example scout messages and replies, payments, clip removals and updates about your verification or founding offer; every email has an unsubscribe link).
• To show your profile, clips and Vault Card, and to count votes and views.
• To check clips and photos for inappropriate content before they go live, and that clips show football. Clips are checked automatically using still images taken from the video.
• Once scout access opens, to let verified scouts find your profile and contact you.
• To process payments and manage subscriptions.
• To see which of our ads and posts bring players to PitchVault, so we spend our budget well.
• To review clips that viewers report, and hide or remove clips that break our rules.
• To protect players from scams: the first message a scout or agent sends is scanned automatically for phone numbers, links and payment requests. A message that matches is held, and our team reads it before deciding whether to deliver it. Our team can also read a message that someone reports.
• To stop people we have banned from signing up again, we keep a scrambled code (a hash) of their email address and phone number. It is hard to turn back into the address or number, but we cannot promise it is impossible.
• To keep PitchVault secure and prevent misuse.

We don't sell your personal information, and we don't show ads.

• Your Vault Card (name, position, city, your photo if you added one, votes and views) is designed to be shared, and anyone you share it with can see it.
• Your public card page (pitchvault.org/p/…) can be opened by anyone with the link, without an account. It shows your clips, photo, name, position, age, nationality, city, bio, votes and views.
• Explore: once you have a live clip, your clips and public card details (name, position, city, nationality code, photo, likes and views) appear on the Explore page to signed-in users, and your newest clips can appear in a short preview for visitors. Players under 18 never appear there. Other players can see how many likes a clip has, but not who liked it.
• Your full profile will be visible to verified scouts once scout access opens.
• Your phone number and date of birth are never shown to other users.

PitchVault is currently open only to players aged 18 and over. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we will delete it. A parent or guardian who believes their child has an account can ask us to delete it by emailing info@pitchvault.org. At sign-up we ask for your date of birth and for you to tick a box confirming you are 18 or over. We do not check this against an ID document.

When we open PitchVault to players under 18, it works like this:

• The player gives their parent or guardian's phone number. The guardian proves it's them by signing in with that number, and gives consent on PitchVault.
• Until then the player's profile is hidden from everyone. Without consent within 14 days, the account and everything in it (clips, photo, profile) is deleted.
• We keep a record of the consent: when it was given, which version of these terms, and a scrambled code made from the guardian's IP address.
• Players under 18 never appear on Explore. Verified scouts see them by first name and last initial, with age, nationality, position and clips — never their city, bio or photo. Their public card page stays off unless the guardian turns it on, and then shows only first name and last initial, position, clips and stats.
• The guardian can withdraw consent at any time from their PitchVault page; the account is then hidden at once and deleted.
• At 18 the player takes over their account and the guardian's access ends.

These services only use your data to provide their service to us. You can ask us at info@pitchvault.org which company provides each one.

We keep your data while your account is open. If you delete a clip, it is removed from PitchVault. You can delete your account yourself in Settings (or ask us by email): your profile, clips, photo, messages, saved card and any verification documents are then deleted straight away. We keep encrypted backups of our database for 30 days, so copies disappear from those within 30 days. Payment providers may keep their own records of payments as the law requires.

You can ask us to access, correct or delete your data, or to stop using it for a particular purpose. Email info@pitchvault.org and include the phone number on your account so we can find it, or have your parent or guardian contact us. We'll respond within 30 days.

Data is sent over encrypted connections, access to our systems is restricted, and verification documents are stored privately and only viewable through short-lived links. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we'll tell you.

If we change this policy in a meaningful way, we'll let you know in the app. The date at the top shows the latest version.