How SpikeLedger Protects Young Athletes' Privacy

SpikeLedger holds information about young athletes: names, jersey numbers, positions and how they played. Most of those athletes are children. This post says plainly who can see that information and who cannot.

A team belongs to its coach

A team's data is visible to the coach who created it. Nobody else can open a team's pages by default. A coach's account is protected by a password that is stored only as a one-way hash, so nobody, including us, can read it.

Parents see their own child, and only their own child

A parent gets access when the coach gives them a code for one player. With it, a parent sees that player's numbers and team averages for context.

A parent never sees another player's name or numbers, the roster, the lineup, a ranking, or playing time totals. This is not a matter of hidden buttons. The server only ever sends a parent the data for the child they are linked to.

Codes cannot be guessed their way through: wrong codes are counted and the account is locked out for a while after too many. The coach can see every linked parent and can remove any of them.

A stat keeper can score, and nothing more

A volunteer who helps with scoring joins with a code that lasts one day and types only a first name. They get the scoring screen. They cannot open the roster page, reports, parents or settings, and the coach can end their access with one tap.

Live updates carry one child's data to one family

When a match is being scored, each family's live page listens on its own private channel for its own child. Nobody can listen in on another child, another family or another team.

Report links are limited on purpose

Where report card links are used, each one:

• shows a first name and a jersey number, never a full name
• stops working after 30 days
• can be switched off by the coach at any time
• is marked so search engines do not list it

Search engines see the marketing pages and nothing else

The pages about SpikeLedger are public. Team pages, match pages, reports, parent pages and report links are not offered to search engines.

Words chosen for a child who will read them

A twelve year old reads their own report card eventually. Ratings use the words Strong contribution, Solid, Building and Focus area. A report card never leads with a large negative number.

No advertising, no selling data

SpikeLedger does not sell player or team data and does not show advertising. Player statistics are not used for anything except the features a coach uses.

Deleting

A coach can delete a match, a tournament or a whole team. It disappears from every page at once and is removed for good after 30 days. While a team is deleted, its parents lose access and its codes and report links stop working. A coach can also remove one parent's access at any time.

What a coach is responsible for

The coach decides who is on the roster and who gets a code. A coach should have permission from a parent or guardian before entering a young athlete's information, and should give each code to the right family.

Questions

The full detail is in the privacy policy. If something here is unclear, write to support@spikeledger.com.